Pop Quiz: Do You Know What Your Kids Are Reading?
We invite you to take our test, and learn what three families discovered when they examined the books their high-achieving teens were assigned to read in honors classes.
Question 1 The scene takes place on page 97: a bedroom, an unmarried man, a married woman. The pair's intimate encounter is depicted in explicit detail--nothing is left to the imagination.
The reader is:
A) A customer in an adult bookstore.
B) A supermarket shopper sneaking a peek at trashy romance novels.
C) An honors high school student reading an assignment from her advanced-placement English course.
Most parents with academically gifted teen-agers wouldn't think of taking a closer look at the reading assignments their children bring home from school.
The book titles certainly sound innocent enough: Snow Falling on Cedars, Native Son, Beloved. The movie versions weren't so bad: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, The Color Purple, The Horse Whisperer.
Since the literature selections are geared for the school's best and brightest students, no doubt they're being assigned literary classics--tales of honor and valor . . . right?
That's what Jeff and Libby Smelser of Bristow, Va., expected of Stonewall Jackson High School, where their daughter Amy attends. The school is one of a mere 750 worldwide that offer the International Baccalaureate (IB) program--a rigorous, two-year curriculum that immerses participants in literature from other cultures. Completion of the program can translate into college credit.
As a rising junior, Amy's top grades qualified her for IB participation at Stonewall Jackson. One IB reading assignment--The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende--contained passages so explicit that Amy called them to her mother's attention. Other novels on the reading list contained graphic depictions of extramarital sex, bestiality, incest, necrophilia and child molestation.
Eric Peschell, the middle son of Richard and Kathy Peschell and a promising student at Northwest High School in Greensboro, N.C., had similar qualms when he began reading the second of three books he was assigned for the summer in preparation for a junior-year advanced placement English course.
Recalled Kathy: "Eric was reading The Color Purple [by Alice Walker] when he came to me and said, 'Mom, they've got the "F" word in here. There's a rape scene in here.' "
Eric also complained that the previous book he read, Native Son by Richard Wright, included its own rape scene, along with masturbation and a decapitation.
And then there's Monte Myers, a hard-working academic and son of Glenn and Susan Myers of Bakersfield, Calif. Susan's suspicions were raised when she noticed the Stephen King novel Desperation on the summer reading list for the school's Honors English program.
"I told Monte, 'Well you're not going to read that,' " Susan said.
Instead, Susan and Monte chose The Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans.
"I was talking with friends who said there was nothing wrong with the movie," Susan said. "I started reading the book and found a lot of pages in it that are sexually explicit."
Should I bring up my concerns with the school? Susan wondered. Might Monte's grades suffer if I complain?--a devastating blow to a high-achieving student like her son. After all, today's high schoolers are exposed to graphic language used by classmates all the time; but to have authority figures assign it as homework was just too much.
Susan talked the matter through with her husband, who wasn't entirely convinced they should speak out.
"He said that Monte is going to have this kind of reading [in college], so maybe he should get used to it," Susan said.
So she read her husband a passage from the book. He quickly changed his mind.
Question 2 When parents seek to discuss their concerns about inappropriate reading assignments with school officials, a common experience is:
A) They are thanked by school boards for getting involved in the education process.
B) They are invited to participate in future reading selections.
C) They are ridiculed as "censors."
When Kathy Peschell decided to express her unease with her son's summer reading assignment to Eric's teacher, Kathy anticipated a warm reception.
"I got the opposite," Kathy said. "[The teacher] was very defensive. Right away I was made to feel like an oddball for complaining."
The teacher addressed Kathy's concerns about the sexual content of the books by insisting that it was appropriate within the context of the stories' plot lines.
"She said, 'Don't worry. They won't remember any of that stuff once the whole storyline is developed.' I said, 'How naive. That's the only thing they'll remember.' "
Kathy went on to explain that sexual purity is a priority in her home--all three of her sons have made commitments to remain abstinent until marriage--and the type of material assigned to Eric was entirely inappropriate.
When the teacher refused to grant a substitute reading assignment, Eric joined his parents in taking the matter to the school board.
"He got a lot of flak from other kids at school," Kathy said.
"He got more than flak," added Richard. "He had girls come up to him and say the 'F' word over and over to his face."
The school-board proceedings proved intimidating. The Peschells were accused of censoring books, of stifling intellectual thought, of being racist.
"Many questions were fired at us as to why we were picking on African-American authors," Kathy said. "Our point was that the material was offensive and a terrible picture to paint [of blacks]. This is a predominantly white school, and we're giving these kids pornography to relate with black people."
The Smelsers of Virginia were accused of xenophobia for their opposition to The House of the Spirits, a novel set in Chile that prominently features sex and prostitution.
"We were told that this is what Latin America is," said Jeff Smelser, who complained that his daughter was being asked to read "smut" under the guise of multiculturalism.
"I have to believe there are better people than this in Latin America. But if this is what Latin America is, maybe it's not worth studying."
When Jeff insisted that Amy be given an alternative reading assignment, little did he know that his family would soon be caught up in a firestorm.
Amy's teacher gave the Smelsers two options: Either have Amy read the book or pull her out of the course. Amy dropped the course, but the Smelsers refused to withdraw their complaint.
The following months consisted of meetings with teachers and school officials, board hearings, special committee sessions and intense media coverage. In that time, the Smelsers would be publicly accused of taking sex-saturated passages from The House of the Spirits out of context, of imposing their values on the community and of stifling the intellectual development of their daughter.
For the record, the Myers family didn't face such harsh treatment from their local school system.
Susan Myers' first step was to photocopy portions of The Horse Whisperer she found objectionable and take them to the principal. That's all it took.The principal called up the teacher who assigned the book. Susan was within earshot when the principal began reading some of the explicit passages to the teacher over the phone.
"I thought, 'Oh man--I don't want to hear this stuff again,' " Susan said. "When it was over the principal said, 'Your son doesn't have to do the assignment.' "
In the end, the entire summer reading program was canceled.
Question 3 When schools shut the doors on parental involvement, families should:
A) Engage in a shouting match with teachers.
B) Resign themselves to never speak out again.
C) Realize that a worldly loss can very well be a success in God's eyes.
Susan Myers was treated hospitably and is pleased that Shafter High School is being more selective in its reading assignments. But Susan didn't get everything she asked for.
"I didn't want summer reading canceled; I wanted something more appropriate assigned," she said. For a parent like Susan who routinely previews her children's literature assignments, a letter mailed to parents informing them of reading selections would have sufficed.
As for the Smelsers, the eventual concession by Stonewall Jackson High School was too little, too late for their daughter Amy. A full three months into the school year, the superintendent finally ruled that an alternative assignment would be made for any student whose parents objected to The House of the Spirits. By then, too much time had passed for Amy to enroll in the IB English course.
Amy's father, Jeff, said the entire experience has, unfortunately, made him a bit more cynical. Nonetheless, he can point to a bright side of the ordeal: The admiration Jeff has for his daughter has blossomed.
"Amy has been a trooper through all of this," he said. "Amy has maintained the respect of her teachers and . . . in some cases emboldened some of her classmates to stand with her. She's confident that she need not yield her morality to the public school system."
Kathy and Richard Peschell are also pleased with their son Eric's commitment to take a stand for virtue at Northwest High School, particularly in the midst of intense peer pressure.
"We were so proud of Eric," Kathy said. "He spoke at hearings and stood firm. Afterward we told him that he is our hero."
The Peschells did persuade school officials to budge slightly on their literature-assignment policy: Reading lists now include a footnote indicating a date by which parents must respond with objections.
That overture wasn't nearly enough for Kathy and Richard, who decided it was time to pull their children from public school. Though vilified as troublemakers, the couple said they merely wanted to play a role in their children's education. (For years Kathy hosted a Moms in Touch group that prayed regularly for the school.) Instead, they felt shut out of the process.
"We tried to work within the [public-school] system. We tried to be light in the darkness," she said. "When we couldn't get any concessions, I didn't see what the alternatives were. My kids are not experiments."
Kathy and Richard are disappointed with how they were treated by the system, but they have a sense of accomplishment: They stood firm for what they feel God called them to do. The family prayed before speaking at board meetings and left the outcome in God's hands. As for a silver lining, Kathy is pleased by the fact that the school's literature selections are now on the community's radar screen.
"In that regard it was a tremendous success," Kathy said. By taking a stand, "a lot of people know what's going on. A lot more people are suspicious."
All three families agree that parental involvement must not cease at the school door.
"Don't assume that the educational establishment knows what is best for a gifted student--or any student," said Jeff Smelser.
"Educators have our children for only a brief amount of time," said Kathy Peschell. "We've had them for a lifetime. We know what's best for them."
This article appeared in Citizen magazine.
Copyright © 2001, All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Focus on the Family - Educational Resources
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