By Corinne Hogseth
At the December 1st meeting of the School Committee, members of the community spoke regarding some highly questionable materials in our junior and senior high school libraries. (God only knows what’s in the grade schools.) Superintendent Peter Light referred to them as “vetted curriculum resources”. There were several other members of the community present, many of whom have never attended a school committee meeting but consider this to be an issue of great concern to their families.
Peter Light responded to these concerns by pointing out that most of this material is on Google. So are bomb recipes and hardcore porn – should we put those in the school libraries, too?
One of your members wasted no time taking to the notoriously crazy Acton Boxborough School Community Facebook group – where he knew he’d find a receptive audience – to call out these concerned parents as modern-day book burners and compared a book describing “blowies” and “bumming” to a passage from Catcher in the Rye – a scene in which nothing but a conversation between two individuals takes place. Talk about apples and hammers.
This is so typical of the illiberal progressives – resorting to false dichotomies and name-calling. He has nothing else to throw at us. His response is laughably, pathetically unoriginal. What is really concerning, however, is that yet another member of your committee has revealed himself as entirely contemptuous of parents who don’t share his leftist views. Like many of the members of our School Committee, he is more committed to his personal agenda than he is to maintaining high educational standards in our schools and ensuring the well-being of our children.
Parents have every right to be concerned about what our kids are being exposed to at school. In fact, it’s our job to be concerned. They are, after all, our children – not yours.
So let’s talk about books. We know these conversations have been occurring in communities across the country. The media often portrays the parents questioning the books as targeting the LGBTQ community, when that is not the case. Why are parents focused on certain books and not others? Well, some teachers and librarians show us right where to look.
The libraries at the junior and senior high schools both have collections dedicated to LGBTQ topics. This poster is displayed in at least one English classroom at the high school:
Why is this in any classroom? This is a promotional poster, intended to steer kids towards content that teacher wants his or her students to know about and hopefully read. These are the same books that were sent to ABRHS students during Banned Books Week in September. And of course, students will be more interested if they know the books are controversial, even better if they think their parents would object.
Even if that is true, what’s the big deal? They’re just books! Right?
Let’s take a closer look.
From the book Gender Queer, by Maia Kobabe (in HS library):
Does it even have to be said? This book is pornographic. Is this a “vetted curriculum resource”? If so, who did the vetting?
Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison claims to be a coming-of-age story about a Mexican American boy. Here’s the description on Amazon:
Nothing in that description prepares the reader (or their parents) for the graphic sexual content contained within. Here are a few excerpts:
These are the recollections of an adult male about sex acts he engaged in as 10-year-old with another 10-year-old boy. This adult author is writing about – thinking about — sex acts between children. It is pedophilia.
Lawn Boy is in the ADULT section of the Acton Memorial Library (AML). It’s not in the Children’s Department or the teen alcove of the Children’s Department. It’s not in the Young Adult section on the second floor. It’s in the ADULT section. Someone at the AML understands that this book is not for children. So who thought it was a good idea to put this book in a school library, where it is freely accessible to 14-year-olds? Who vetted this?
The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrisson (available in the high school library) details the incestuous rape of an 11-year-old girl by her father.
This book was written in 1970. I’m not suggesting Toni Morrison is a pedophile, but I highly doubt she anticipated that his book would be put on the shelves of school libraries when she wrote it over 50 years ago. This is not a Judy Blume book. It is clearly intended for adult readers.
From This Book is Gay by Juno Dawson:
Handsies? Blowies? Bumming?? This is an instruction manual for gay sex.
The – I don’t know what to call it – stuff in this book can have a negative impact on straight kids, as well. Girls are under tremendous pressure in our society to be stick thin, airbrushed perfect and sexually available to boys. Kids are impressionable and sometimes too eager to please. If you don’t know of at least one girl who is still haunted by “nudes” she sent to a boyfriend that wound up circulating for years, you will before your experience with the high school is behind you. Now it’s ok to tell girls that they should submit to anal sex on-demand?
This book also teaches kids how to get on Grindr, a “social networking” app for gay and trans men. The operative word here is MEN – not boys. Here are the step-by-step instructions:
The first screenshot of the three clearly states that this app is for users who are at least 18 years old. As the vast majority of students are under that age, it is fair to question if this is appropriate material for a school library.
The second screenshot even provides some “inside baseball” tips – use the word “fun” as a euphemism for sex to get around terms of use. It’s very clear that this app is used to find hookup sex. The scariest part is that the “meet ups” are most likely to be with adults. Do you get that? If kids can find adults, adults can find kids. “Vetted curriculum resource” my Irish a$$. The content within the pages of this book puts kids at risk.
Not on the promo poster, but in both the RJ Grey and ABRHS libraries, students can find Flamer, by Mike Curato and Looking for Alaska, by John Green.
Graphic content from Flamer:
The dialogue bubbles are a little small, but it includes this: “we’re each busting a load into this bottle. If you don’t cum, you have to drink it! Hahahaha!… Gimme that! I’ll show you.”
Should this really be in the junior high school library?
Looking for Alaska normalizes teenagers drinking, watching porn and having casual sex with multiple partners.
Around the country and in Massachusetts, schools and public libraries are purging their collections of Dr. Seuss books because of alleged racist propaganda. These same librarians are fighting to keep the smut referenced above in the libraries. Cat in the Hat baaaad, Gender Queer good! This is seriously messed up, and I think most parents would agree with me.
All students should be able to go to the library and find books in which they see themselves. There are 90 titles in the RJ Grey library Common Ground collection and 220 in the ABRHS LGBTQ Fiction collection. They can’t all be as inappropriate as the books described above. I believe we can provide access to age-appropriate books on all topics without including sexually explicit and graphic materials in school libraries.
You don’t have time to go through every questionable book the librarians have added to the stacks. Start with that promotional poster and get rid of those ten books, as well as Flamer and Looking for Alaska. Then at least temporarily remove the titles included in the LGBTQ Fiction collection at the high school and the Common Ground collection at RJ Grey. Take the time to actually vet all these books before returning any back to the shelves. And by vet, I mean get someone other than whoever chose these books in the first place. They are clearly incapable of vetting materials appropriate for school-age kids. This is a necessary step toward restoring trust between the schools and parents – on this issue at least.
Many parents are tired of the relentlessness with which the illiberal, progressive agenda is being forced down the throats of our kids and, by extension, our families. Once the kids are within the walls of the schools, we lose nearly all control over the content to which they are exposed.
We’ve long known about the refusal of many teachers to keep their political beliefs to themselves, but who knew we had to worry about the librarians?! Libraries are charged with curating cumulative knowledge to be shared by future generations. Pushing any agenda on an unwilling and unsophisticated population is insidious and immoral. In the case of several of the titles referenced above, it may even be illegal. (See Massachusetts General Law – Part IV, Title 1, Chapter 272.)
Most of the time we never find out what’s going on at school – and we know you count on that. But the result has been declining academic performance with increased behavioral and mental health problems. From school closures to Zoom School to mask mandates and yes, the progressive agenda pushed through the curriculum in our schools, your policies are at the root of these issues. You are going in the wrong direction. The answer is not to double down, but to seriously look at your practices and start doing the opposite.
As a 1981 graduate I am sickened by what this “library” is presenting to students. Shame on you!
I too graduated in 1981 and I applaud the school for having these materials in the library. Our son went to prep school where he read, and analyzed, and reported on Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye” – and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Very heavy topic. The bottom line, sadly, is no more than book banning. IMO it will result in little change. The kids of each generation have greater access to porn and the places to “experiment” with it. Most of us born after 1950 or so, in my opinion, live in two income homes resulting in an empty house for porn “experimation” each day. With this period of “freedom” the kids are going to spend time “experimenting” and we can’t do much to control it. Banning a few books will do nothing when there are magazines, paper back books and “stories on the net”. How do I know all of this: I was born in 1940. Practised sex beginning in 1947, with boys. Graduated to full sex with girls in 1955. We read only enough to keep the Sisters of Notre Dame happy. We learned about sex talking with each other! Our schools today merely reflect the societies surrounding them. Watch good and really bad television and note how many full frontal nudism you see, And, of course, the nudity is part of the porn. The porn itself is mostly unseen but it is there. You can’t stop the clock or the changes that come with progress. Remember, porn is an easy big money business in a country where capitalism appears to be very popular. (Sorry for,the spelling and sentence structure. )
Our 3 children went through the AB school system in the 1990s. My granddaughter is currently a high school freshman. I am appalled at the revelations made in this communication. Pornography has no part in public education. Let me know what I can do to help ensure education in Acton public schools remains morally acceptable.
Spread awareness and speak up at school committee meetings! It’s especially important that parents start to get involved. The sexualization of children is not limited to library books.
Fantastic piece, Corinne. Thank you.
The thing that has become increasingly clear is that the woke are waging a religious war, against the Judeo-Christian tradition. In this war, they are violating long held expectations for sexual behavior and child protection. It is valuable to note that protecting children was not always the norm. Ancient Romans would casually rape male and female children, alike. At that time, the rights to sexual domination had to do with class status, not with protecting the moral sanctity of others. Rape was not considered a sin, in this “might makes right” world. It wasn’t until the early Christians came along, deploying the Judaic tradition as a foundation, that the norms were established to protect children and poorer women from wealthy men. One observer of the time said of the victims, that the “exhausted women looked like corpses.” You can therefore see why Christian morality was greeted by the poor, as a form of liberation. They could finally breathe free from the assaults. With the social construct of “sin,” the church established sexual mores that protected the weak. Now, those protections are being challenged by the woke religion. One has to wonder why religious people are not stepping up to protect the innocent. Beleaguered parents can not be expected to fight this moral crusade alone. They need support.
American Conservative’s Ross Dreher is putting together a new book, to help reinvigorate Christianity. In this piece, he discusses the evolution of sexual rules, made by the early church. This history is something that Acton should consider because allowing pornographic library books into the school is cause for alarm. More transgressions are bound to occur. I urge you to set a boundary on the activity that you will tolerate and what is too outrageous. When they cross this red line, step up to take action. Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) will expose the children to a host of new problems, not the least of which will be the reduction of learning standards. Acton should be prepared for what lies ahead. https://www.theamericanconservative.com/sex-the-final-christian-generation/
Thank you so much for bring this issue to the forefront.
Corinne:
Many school-district parents, throughout the country, are experiencing these issues plus gender-neutral bathrooms, covered-up sexual assaults, the list goes on and on. Thanks for shedding light on this Woke issue.
What has been learned from others brave enough to fight back is that volume counts. A/B needs many enraged parents to make required change. Not easily won, change is achievable if those parents will take the incoming slings and arrows and stick to their agenda. School Board members are being replaced in many locals where Woke approaches have come to light. The process takes time, coordination, and the willingness of concerned parents to join the fight and call out the schools when abuses are seen. The task is not easy, but is being done for the right reason, the well-being of your kids. The effort will pay off.
The National School Boards Assn. requested the Biden DOJ define concerned parents as terrorists because the Association knew their approach, once exposed, was losing in the public-opinion arena. Parents have been called many things, ridiculed, lied to, and ignored. Tough skin is needed to protect our kids from these abuses. Although Sleepy Joe thinks kids belong to the schools, DNA suggests otherwise.
The Loudoun County, Va. Superintendent, thanks to a special grand jury report on sexual assaults, is gone, and this school board, who in 2021 allowed explicit materials into their libraries, is coming under the scrutiny they deserve. The Fairfax County, Va. School Board, pushing CRT in 2021, has endured a recall. Across the land, Woke school boards are infiltrating the schools, and are slowly being exposed, and parents are fighting back.
These Woke agendas can be broken, as is happening across the country. Keep observing and keep fighting.
One path taken by a growing number of parents with kids currently in public schools is to opt-out of “sex ed”. The numbers are significantly increasing I’m to understand in the Worcester school district (thousands!). Leominster’s SC is in the process or has ceased its program.
Massachusetts does not require sex education but instead allows local school boards to make such decisions.
It’s not just some parents and their children opting out, but fed up teachers as well.
According to an article in ‘The 74 Million’, teacher’s union membership has dropped by 59,000 in last year, while schools added 95,000 employees. These numbers are partial from what’s reported from states like CA, RI, VT and NY. Could sex ed be to some extent responsible for the membership changes?
https://www.the74million.org/article/teachers-union-membership-drops-by-59000-across-the-nation/?utm_source=The%2074%20Million%20Newsletter&utm_campaign=15c1af6c04-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2022_07_27_07_47_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_077b986842-15c1af6c04-177171621
Excellent job, Corinne. I hope this article finds a large audience, and more importantly, results in quick action to bring our schools back to their basic function.
Nijan