Meet the Pensacola English teacher waging war on books

As for the penguin book one year after its publication, it became the single most banned or challenged book in the United States. According to the American Library Association So she isn't alone. Oh and one of the co-authors of that penguin book also authored Everything You Never Wanted Your Kids to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid They'd Ask). I really don't know much about gay penguins but considering these things I don't think I would want my child reading that book.

 

Effective? His party has a supermajority of both houses of the Legislature. He can get ANYTHING he wants passed through both chambers with absolutely no opposition. The Reedy Creek Improvement District law that dissolved all such entities went from draft to law in FOUR days. No public comment, no analysis of the effect on local governments after passage and no examination of any consequences of passage. That's not effective when your party has numbers.

 

Great question, I assume that is based on numerous factors. I don't know the answer. My kids were not reading "sexualized" materials until high school (that I was aware of and I did check) and then it was hard to "catch" such activity. Of course the internet has any and everything and it's next to impossible to police all access.

My suspicion is that kids have greater access to pornographic materials than most parents realize.

I make sure that my sons are aware that any "kiddie-porn" stuff means an automatic jail sentence for them and me. Ignorance is bliss but both my kids show no evidence of being involved in that kind of thing. Then again whom would have thought Jalen Kitna was either?

Sadly, I suspect that, just like in real life, underage kids are more suseptible to internet sexualization that have been sexually abused in life. Sadly, this is a much more common problem than the average citizens suspect, (IMO). It would be helpful if a member of law enforcement cared to share their thoughts on this matter. Clearly teens are overly burdened and targeted with this
societal problem.

Another sad fact is that divorced and/or single men (I am in this category) are solicitied every day. It's stunning how many invitations I recieve, with pictures, of adult women soliciting "dates". Our society does not wish to acknowledge that many young women have chosen internet "hooking" to support lifestyles or college educations. This issue is far far more prevalent and dangerous in American society than mentioned in "polite" society.

We tend to think that "Bangkok" or the "Phillipines" is where American men go to satisfy "urges" - think again, every American City has plenty of men and women, advertising "services", one hardly needs to go to SE Asia anymore.

Perhaps a behavioral therapist can jump in and explain things, but I think the way sex is addressed in the USA is like death - It's NOT dealt with, hardly at all.

Case in point, one of my associates in Nashville, TN whom was a "part-time" AOG preacher, his daughter got pregnant in HS. Her dad was about as religous and strict as any AOG member you would ever meet. Of course his solution was a "shot-gun" wedding. I'm not real sure nowadays, that is the best direction to go for a 17 year old country girl in central TN. More like a recipe for disaster, at least, IMO.

 

I liked Danny DeVito myself.

 

It sure is when you are a Republican with an agenda for Behavioral Control. Besides when was the last time the GOP supported Civil Gov't? Jan 6th??

 

I don’t know what the law is, but if a gay man walks into a bakery and orders a wedding cake with no inscription on it and no figurines on top of it, the law should be that the bakery is required to make him that cake. If not, then it also will be legal, I would think, for a restaurant to deny service to a gay couple because they are gay. We could go on and on about this, but there is a difference between creating something that is obviously gay oriented versus providing services and selling merchandise to gay people. As an aside, in my opinion, people who discriminate against gay people based on their religion are scum bags.

 

I am guessing that this English teacher has some serious issues, including a variety of prejudices, however, it does seem that the Wilma Rudolph book is a book that cannot be taught in a classroom in Florida without violating the law. I think that this fact should be made known to everyone. It is an example of a horrendous law that was passed by our Republican leaders in Florida. These jackasses should all be voted out of office, but, unfortunately, it is not going to happen.

 

You and I think alike but I was suggesting that 2000 years of Judeo/Christian indoctrination is a HUGE summit to climb.

I have ZERO PROBLEM with alternate lifestyles as long as that is NOT encouraged in front of my kids, at home, or at school, by strangers whom have political axes to grind. It must be subtle.

This of course is the rub. Queer folk have been demanding absolute equality given the recent court decisions. I think this has been a huge tactical mistake and has hurt that cause as well as the perception of the Democratic Party.

Democrats really screwed this up with a very large American demographic, ................caucasian, religous folk,........ regarding the assertion and implementation of queer rights..........I think it should have been handled much more subtly, again, not so "in your face" ............just my opinion.

 

Agree. You can do that at a public library.

 

Not every kid can get to the public library. To take it one step further, why even have a library at school? Books are overrated, amirite?

 

I thought the slippery slope was a fallacy?

 

There are all sorts of things that "exist" that you don't want exposing to children. Strippers have children going to school too, they exist, I don't want children being exposed to strippers.

"715, are you comparing gay couples to strippers?"

Only in that neither sorts of lifestyles are permitted under traditional Judeo-Christian values, and it's not the role of the school to dictate what is and isn't normal or permissible sexual lifestyles. I don't think drug usage should be criminalized either, but that doesn't mean I want children being exposed to this as something normal.

Should gay marriage and "dancing" be legal? Yes. It's a free country, you should be able to live however you want. Does that mean your lifestyle should be pushed as normal, amoral, or morally acceptable on children? Absolutely not.

 

So a school with 1500 kids, with every parent going through every book in the library to see what they want their kids to read? The parents aren’t aware of what their kids check out, and even if they were, the kids could get pretty far in a book before the school told them. But maybe that’s partially the answer, a parent has the ability to see what their kids have checked out.
The other problem is that these books are provided without context, if they are read as part of a class project there’s discussion, back and forth on what things mean. Whatever message is in the book is more likely to become the message kids take away. And of course often times that’s good. But imagine reading the perks of being a wallflower, and getting to the scene where a dad beats up his son for having gay sex. A gay kid might take that as shaming or devaluing his likely still budding self understanding, a straight (or even gay) kid might misinterpret it as the “correct” way to handle it.
So that’s why I say this is a valid discussion to have. If schools are careful in the curriculum they offer, that extending to the library isn’t a crazy idea.

 

Well the odds of a kid growing up to be a Hitler are about a billion to one and the odds of them either being gay or having a gay kid in a few short years are probably north of 10 percent. So it’s likely not the best comparison.
But the simpler way to make the point is this. We clearly have standards set up already at schools, or there would be pornography, extremist literature etc. Where we draw that line is a fair and necessary conversation. And that book in particular has some extremely serious themes in it. Some might think it’s too weighty for kids without other context - Like them knowing “that’s thankfully not the normal reaction from parents when you come out”, which I’m sure a closeted gay kid would love to hear for example. Especially in a religious conservative area like Pensacola where many kids could be petrified to tell their parents who they are and are less likely to have a support network. And yes I am arguing there in the opposite direction of this woman, but that’s kind of the point. These need deeper convos sometimes.
That’s all.

 

You’re a 100% right, although I do think that it is potentially harmful for a child to be raised by 2 people who wear tuxedos all the time.

 

That's dumb. I'm sure at one time the majority of people didn't think whites marrying blacks was "normal" and "moral". History is full of things the majority got wrong. I'm having a hard time seeing how gay marriage can be legal, approved by SCOTUS, congress, and the president ... but schools have to pretend it doesn't exist.

 

Okay then where do these norms come from? They have to come from somewhere right? We don’t teach toddlers about strippers, is that based on Judeo-Christian norms? If not where does that come from?

I’m not saying they have to “enforce” traditional Judeo Christian values, but they don’t have to completely crap on them either.

You may not think they’re comparable but we have to draw the line somewhere. Why do you get to dictate where that line is? What makes you so special?