danpascooch said:
I think it is completely justified that she has the right to control aspects of her curriculum like this. After all, parents are the ones that fund the public school system, they should without a doubt be able to exercise some control over the institution that they fund. I do not agree with the mother's decision in this situation, but I do agree with the principle of parents being allowed to influence the public school system. If they do not put checks on the schools, who will?
This.
Let me set aside the instance for a second, and respond to the question at hand: I am not a fan of censorship (most of the time), but I am a fan of parents being active in their kids' lives and deciding what they should learn. If that is parental censorship, then yes, I am in favor.
The parents should have every right to have their kids learn what they want them to learn, for good or ill. While I despise parents that would have their kids learn wrong things for wrong reasons, it's their kids, it's their choice. I know if and when I have kids, I'll want to raise them my way. However, it isn't right, nor is it fair of me to expect to be able to if I can't do the same.
Getting back on the this particular instance, I do believe that the mother in this case is going a little overboard. While it may be a novel about a touchy subject matter, the girl is fifteen. At that age, she is able to make a few more decisions, and ought to be more trusted to not go out and dance horizontally with someone 3 times her age.
If I couldn't trust my 15 year old son/daughter with that, then I would feel like a failure as a parent, that someone I raised isn't mature enough to handle a simple book.
That being said, again, as the parent, I would look into the book, read it myself, find out about it as much as possible, and try to discuss the goings on of the book with my child. It's lazy and irresponsible to just assume that the school knows what it's doing and can raise my kids for me. However, just because a book is a little racy doesn't mean I'd personally censor it...
Rensenhito said:
The Bible deals with rape, incest, incestuous rape, murder, lust, greed, and greedy, lusty, incestuous murderer-rapists...
...because of this.
Bible fun fact: King David sent a man to the front lines in a war to kill him off, leaving the widow for himself AFTER he had impregnated said widow. He was still called a "man after God's own heart."
Which is kinda the point. That we all make mistakes, and we better ourselves from them. But barring ourselves from the outside world isn't healthy.
Medical fun fact: Vaccines are essentially a "dead" virus. As in, you are putting the disease into your body, while it's in a form that can't harm you, so that your body can know what it's supposed to fight off. Don't take the dead virus? A live one, which can harm or kill you, will enter your body, and your immune system won't know what to do.
It's the same thing. Let the kid read about it, so that she knows that it exists, then let her know, while reading, that it's wrong, and why. This would be so much more healthy than simply saying "don't read it."
However, as I said before, it is the parents' responsibility to raise their kids, not mine, not the schools, not the government. If the mother wants to homeschool her daughter instead of having her read it, it's her decision, however unhealthy and counterintuitive it is. It's not my child, it's not my choice.
Jerks.
