I admit it. I didn't know what the word "scrotum" was until at least middle school (possibly later. I'm from the Bible Belt and my sex education was rather lacking). However, I'm pretty sure that being exposed to it within the context of a dog being bitten by a rattlesnake probably wouldn't have scarred me for life or encouraged me to become sexually active at the ripe old age of ten.
Needless to say, I don't even know where to begin with this (NYT, may require registration). A few choice excerpts:
The inclusion of the
word has shocked some school librarians, who have pledged to ban the
book from elementary schools, and reopened the debate over what
constitutes acceptable content in children’s books. The controversy was
first reported by Publishers Weekly, a trade magazine.
Ms. Nilsson, reached at Sunnyside Elementary School in Durango,
Colo., said she had heard from dozens of librarians who agreed with her
stance. “I don’t want to start an issue about censorship,” she said.
“But you won’t find men’s genitalia in quality literature.”
“At least not for children,” she added.
Typical. A controversial book (in which the human body is discussed in frank, medically accurate terms- oh, no!) gets published, and knee-jerk banning from elementary and middle-school libraries immediately follows. Nevermind that the book is about the character learning about body parts, and that the context surrounding the term is about as sexual as, well, an injured dog- them's be talkin' about nekkid boy parts, and we can't have that polluting the children's minds. Heaven help us all if anyone stops to think critically about the relative merit of educating children about their bodies instead of shrouding them in the usual shame, secrecy, and silence that only seems to lead to widespread STDs and high rates of teen pregnancy later.
But noooo. That would make some educators uncomfortable.
Andrea Koch, the librarian at French Road Elementary School in
Brighton, N.Y., said she anticipated angry calls from parents if she
ordered it. “I don’t think our teachers, or myself, want to do that
vocabulary lesson,” she said in an interview.
Sometimes I wonder if educators ever stop to consider the fact that it's, you know, their job to educate children, even on subjects that might make them uncomfortable.
I'm sufficiently irked by this to track down a copy of the book and read it. The college of education's library usually keep several copies of the Newberry winners (oh yeah, I failed to mention the part where the book was so well-written that it earned the highest award for children's literature there is), so I'll try to swing by there sometime this week and pick up a copy.
I'll also be telephoning my sister, an elementary education major, and see what she has to say about all this. And then I'll buy her a copy for her classroom.
