When the educational establishment undermines the rights of parents by providing resources and giving assignments that involve age-inappropriate topics, in addition to indoctrinating children to accept a critical social justice mindset, friction is created inside households of parents who challenge these assignments.
As modern education has shifted away from individual academic achievement to Social and Emotional Learning’s core competencies, there has been a greater emphasis on group work. A common assignment in English classes of all grade levels across the country is the book club assignment. Teachers form small groups of students and then have the groups select a book to read amongst themselves and discuss. The books are chosen from a pre-selected list. For teachers eager to promote critical social justice causes over academics, it is easy to put together a pre-selected list that will help to shape a student’s worldview.
When parents complain about assigned reading books given to their children, teachers typically offer alternative assignments. Unfortunately, the way the process is handled can create friction within families. When a parent questions an assignment given by the school, the child can be put in the middle. Some teachers have been known to discuss parents who object to their assignments with students during class time. If the teacher is able to persuade the child that the assignment is appropriate, and the child’s parent disagrees, it creates friction between parent and child. Even if the child agrees with his or her parent, some teachers single out the students whose parents request alternative assignments, creating a tremendous amount of embarrassment and peer pressure on the student.
In Grand Haven, parents of sixth grade students at White Pines were asked to sign this permission slip to notify them of a social themed reading assignment.
In the note, the teacher states, “all the book options are appropriate for middle grade students.” One question a parent may ask is who or what organization is ensuring the books are age-appropriate? Administration at Grand Haven Area Public Schools (GHAPS) have determined The Infinite Moment of Us, The Detour Book, and Call Me Max were appropriate. The American Library Association has given awards and honors to Gender Queer, the Nickel Boys, and Beyond Magenta. RatedBooks provides reviews with quotes from books to help parents determine appropriateness.
The teacher goes on to list “the themes that will be explored in these books.”
Domestic violence
Serious illness
Divorce
Bullying
Sexual identity
Depression
Poverty
Forced labor
Homelessness
Discrimination
Sexual harassment
Body image
Neglect
Immigration
Community violence
These are pretty heavy themes for 12-year-olds. Finally, the teacher says these themes, “will support their thinking.” One parent whose child was given a similar permission slip stated she “had a horrible and inaccurate summary of the book chosen.” Talking about the reason the permission slip was required, her daughter stated the teacher had said, “that it was because of all the drama around books that they needed it signed.”
Parents of high school students in GHAPS film analysis class were asked to sign this permission slip.
A couple of phrases from this permission slip jump out. 'Gender and culture responsiveness will be emphasized' (second paragraph) and 'students will be thinking deeply... and what they were meant to take away from each film'. Does that mean what the teacher says should be taken away from the film or what the film’s director is trying to convey? The teacher also says, “throughout the course of the semester, students will be viewing “R” rated movies.” As a parent, I wonder why movies ratings are being ignored by school districts. R-ratings are for age 18 and older, yet only some high school seniors are 18 and older, and this class is for 10-12 grades.
Here is a sample page of the list of approximately 100 movies.
Some of the movies on the list are considered classics today. They were trendsetters, but like with the book club, many of the movies incorporate difficult adult-themed topics, and few on the list are particularly uplifting. In fact, I like many of the R-rated movies on the list myself, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to show them to my 10th grader.
The teacher asks parents to discuss the movies with their student, “view these movies yourself, and become familiar with each one.” This is a common expectation for parents concerned with controversial topics. Rather than the school identifying controversial topics, they are providing lists of all library books, or potential movies, and expecting parents to complete a form for each one they do not want their child to view.
With thousands of books and movies available, why do public schools insist on traumatic and adult themes in the materials students use? From above, let’s repeat the list of traumatic topics the sixth grade ‘social issue themes’ will consider: domestic violence, serious illness, divorce, bullying, sexual identity, depression, poverty, forced labor, homelessness, discrimination, sexual harassment, body image, neglect, immigration and community violence. Although students in sixth grade reading and writing are still learning about punctuation, subjects, objects, proper spelling, etc., and the many irregular nuances of the English language, some teachers are adding domestic violence, bullying, and community violence to really spice up the learning plan. Is that a healthy thing to do? In the case of the high school film study course, why do schools even broach the idea of showing R-rated movies to underage students? There are plenty of good PG and PG-13 movies to choose from for film review, but insisting on R-rated movies is sure to cause push back from some parents, and rightly so. Are they intentionally trying to cause family conflict with this policy?