Illinois School Pushes Smut on Children as Young as 12 with Porn-Laden Book

LifeSiteNews ^ | 8/28/07 | J. Matt Barber

[wagglebee]

ASLIP, IL, August 28, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Illinois School District 126, covering Alsip, Hazelgreen and Oak Lawn, has defended its choice to assign summer reading to 12- and 13-year-olds that is replete with harsh profanity and references to teen sex (even teen sex with adults). 

Prairie Junior High School's required reading list for rising 8th graders gave children six books to choose from over the summer.  Parents have complained that three of the six books contain adult content which is highly age-inappropriate.  Those complaints, however, have fallen on deaf ears.  At a recent school board meeting, school board members said they intend to continue assigning the books. 

To add insult to injury, the school didn't even have the courtesy to warn these kids - or their parents - about the adult content within the assigned reading.  And parents are understandably furious.  If one of my daughters came to me at twelve having been assigned this smut, I'd be ticked-off too.  

Whatever happened to classics like Ivanhoe or Up From Slavery?  Sure, some of them may even contain limited profanity and adult content, but there's a big difference.  The profane content in Fat Kid isn't sporadic.  It's pervasive and gratuitous.  The book has 110 pages containing the F-word and other profanities, and there are multiple crude sexual references.   

With all the objectionable material children are subjected to on the internet, on television and in theatres, it's outrageous that educators, who are charged with helping to mold the minds of these 12- and 13-year-olds, would willingly - if not eagerly - contribute to their moral degradation by pushing this kind of vulgarity on them.  It amounts to educational malpractice, and School District 126 should have its mouth washed out with soap. 

I telephoned Robert Berger, superintendent of schools for District 126, fully expecting him to assure me that this foolishness would be remedied.  But instead, his response was defiant, defensive and arrogant. 

Berger refused to answer me when I asked him several times if District 126 believed that such mature content was appropriate for children.  (I wonder; if it's so appropriate, then why wouldn't he defend it?) 

I asked Berger if one could infer that the district found the material appropriate since it was assigned to children.  He quipped, "Infer whatever you want to."

No one's calling for a book burning here, but c'mon, these are just kids.  Does District 126 have any standards of decency at all?

Unfortunately the actions of District 126 are symptomatic of a metastasizing moral malady within our larger system of public education.  Kids in public schools across the country are constantly inundated with material which promotes profanity, homosexuality, promiscuity and abortion. 

The Agenda is pushed and the curriculum set by leftist groups like the National Education Association (NEA), the ACLU and the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN).  Even the American Library Association (ALA) gave Fat Kids its "Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature."  The book also received a rave review from America's largest homosexual activist literary organization, Lambda Literary Foundation.        

By constantly lowering the bar on decency, educators are intentionally playing a game of ideological limbo with our children's moral well-being as they seek to create little moral relativists in their own iconoclastic self-image.  And they're robbing kids of great reading like Oliver Twist, Treasure Island and many others in the process.  

How low will they go? 

By the looks of things in Alsip, Illinois, they're not going to bottom out anytime soon.    
______________

Matt Barber is one of the "like-minded men" with Concerned Women for America. He is an attorney concentrating in constitutional law and serves as CWA's policy director for cultural issues.

To politely express concerns to the principal:

Principal Craig Gwaltney
cgwaltney@dist126.org 

To contact members of State Board of Education see
http://www.isbe.state.il.us/board/Default.htm
(addresses are at bottom of page)

See contact form
http://webprod1.isbe.net/contactisbe/

[wagglebee]

Parents have complained that three of the six books contain adult content which is highly age-inappropriate.

And the left not only thinks it is appropriate, they recommend it.

[wagglebee]

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[goldstategop]

Home school your kids to protect them from this kind of smut.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[wagglebee]

Education/Homeschool Ping

[ConservativeMind]

I’m not sure I caught what were the offending book(s).

Does anyone know?

[durasell]

Can you list the books, please?

[PAR35]

I would recommend reading aloud passages from the books during the public comment time of the school board meetings.

[wagglebee]

Here’s some more info:

http://www.cwfa.org/articles/13744/CFI/family/index.htm

[Clara Lou]

I can’t believe that the titles aren’t in the article.

[Eepsy]

http://www.culturecampaign.com/IL_Cook_Distr_126.aspx

[durasell]

I only saw one title. What’s going on? Are the title profane as well?

[TexasCajun]

The next board meeting should be fun.

[Graymatter]

I don’t see the books mentioned, except for two references, one being “Fat Kid” and the other “Fat Kids.” Neither is to be found on amazon.com. No mention of authors either.

[wintertime]

It is time to blame teachers.

It was teachers who assigned this stuff.

It is teachers who not using their union to fight it.

It teachers who are not at the board meetings demanding that this stuff be removed.

Hey! It´s their profession and what are they doing about it?

[John Leland 1789]

Home School the children. That’s the answer.

Parents! Take the responsibility and the time to research reading material for your own children and treat government indoctrination centers (e.g. public schools) as if they don’t exist with regard to your own children.

ABANDON THE GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS.

All of the parents who complained to that school board in Sickinois (ILL-inois) should yank the kids out and don’t bother notifying the perverts who want the kids to read smut and sexual indoctrination. Don’t legitimize their authority anymore by thinking you must respond to them. Cut ‘em all loose like a ripped sail!

[durasell]

Apparently the books are so profane, vile and evil that just reading even the title — even if you are an adult — will cause you to go completely mad, burn your eyes from their sockets and send you writhing on the floor in mouth foaming agony.

[Graymatter]

The dickens you say!

[Eepsy]

And here’s what the author of “Fat Kids Rule the World” thinks of the fuss:

“Obviously, I am against book banning. In my opinion, profanity is something kids are exposed to already and I don’t believe it is used gratuitously in my books, but rather it’s there to paint a realistic portrait of the life of a teen who lives in a particular subculture where profanity is present. If I was writing about a religious community or the world of a very sheltered teen I wouldn’t use it. I believe that the ability to accept cultures different from our own, even when there is a part of them that we might find offensive is an important step towards developing empathy and finding alternatives to violence as a means to squelching view points we disagree with. Fat Kid Rules the World is a book with so many positive messages, about self acceptance, accepting the hard parts of reality, and learning to love ourselves and others despite our grimy, less than perfect selves. It’s about seeing through the facades of perfection and being okay with the reality underneath.

Isn’t the attempt to ban a book with these messages simply an attempt to deny such imperfections exist in the world? To me, it’s the equivalent of saying, “I can not learn to love people who use bad language or have sexual thoughts, therefore I will try to pretend they do not exist.” Is this what we want to teach our children? Or instead might we use this book in the way it’s intended, as a window into another life that, whether alike or different, is just as faulty, beautiful and fragile as our own?”

http://klgoing.wordpress.com/2007/08/16/another-book-challenge/

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

Wow, I used to live in that area, near 115th St and Pulaski Road. Sad what’s happened to Illinois.

[Fester Chugabrew]

If true, then:

Robert Berger = worse than millstone + neck + deepwater

Same holds for his willing accomplices in so-called “educational endeavours.”