Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 25, 1993 TAG: 9308310304
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
There are likely to be lots of them as the teachers of Oskaloosa, Kan., set about the new task the town's School Board has set for them: listing all the profane words used in books read in grades kindergarten through eight. Then counting them to tally how often each appears.
The point isn't to practice math.
But what, it should be asked, is the purpose of this tedious chore? After all the time-consuming numbers-crunching, parents are to review the lists, and decide which books their children are to be permitted to read.
This makes great sense to some of the townsfolk, who understandably want to set standards for their children. And they have. The school forbids its pupils to use profanity. This is entirely appropriate.
It is inappropriate, though, that one of the lessons being taught in Oskaloosa is censorship. That is what the School Board has set about doing, censoring books based on whether certain words are offensive to some people.
Some words to be found in some books undoubtedly are offensive, a few of them perhaps even to an overwhelming majority of parents.
Various books are written for different levels of maturity. One doesn't expect to have fluffy Mommy Bunny spew curses at her mischievous Bunny Boy. Thus, the fifth-grade reading list will differ substantially from, say, the first-grade reading list. And the eighth-grade reading list will be closer still to adult level, though it's not as though they'll be reading adult books.
Parents certainly have a right - more than a right, a responsibility - to keep up with what their children are reading. They have a right to ask that their child be excused from reading any book they find offensive.
But to force a schoolwide perversion of policy - to dictate to teachers what will or will not be taught according to a list of ``no-no'' words and their frequency in books - is not responsible parenting. It is mindlessness.
Glancing over a list of profanities - ``hmm, is it just too much to have three `damns' in a book my eighth-grader is reading, or is even one too many?'' - is no way to decide if a book has something of value to teach a child. Such a list of words would offer no context, no meaningful means to assess the book's overall worth.
Reading a curse word spoken by a character in a book won't teach a child to use foul language. That is something picked up by hearing it used constantly - at home, on the playground, on television and in the movies. Adults appalled by such language should exercise their parental authority - by establishing rules of behavior, enforcing those rules, and setting a good example.
They should not look for simple-minded solutions to the distressing, and increasing, decline in respectfulness and good manners by trying to expunge foul language from that most stationary of targets, the written word.
It is precisely there, between the covers of books, where the use of impolite language can be forgiven most easily - where it is used not to vent anger or frustration, not to insult or intimidate the child, but to draw characters for the reader and bring them to life.
Children who hear foul language on the playground or in home when they are in first grade will discover, by the time they are in fifth grade, some characters in literature who use it, too. If they are taught critical thinking and independence of spirit, they won't unthinkingly repeat such language.
The book that started the controversy that led to the decision to compile a dirty-words list had one passage that sounded pretty true to life, and created considerable consternation. A father asks his son: ``What are they teaching you at that damn school?''
In Oskaloosa? Censorship, for sure.
by CNB