
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, October 2, 1994                   TAG: 9410030084
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: D-12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HILLSVILLE                                LENGTH: Medium

MOVE A BIG CHANGE FOR TEACHER

In 1992, one year after Marion Goldwasser had been named Carroll County's Teacher of the Year, she was being vilified by some community residents for having some of her high school English students read a novel by North Carolina writer Clyde Edgerton.

This year, after 24 years with the Carroll County school system, Goldwasser took a new teaching job at Mount Airy (N.C.) High School. There, an Arts Council representative contacted her to see if she could get Edgerton to come and talk about his writing.

The move was not that far in distance - Goldwasser still lives in Carroll County and drives 30 minutes to her new job - but seems to have been a quantum leap in attitudes.

``It was a big move, I have to admit,'' she said. Her biggest regret is not being at Carroll County High School when her daughters will be going there. But, she added, having a mother teaching in the same school could have been negative for them as well.

Not all of Carroll County disapproved of Edgerton's ``The Floatplane Notebooks'' being taught as literature. The parents and radio evangelist J.B. Lineberry who objected to a chapter with a sex scene were a small, but vocal, group.

They did, however, succeed in getting school officials to order the book dropped from the class - until Goldwasser filed a grievance because the School Board had not followed its own policy on removing such material. The board then made its own study and held a hearing, and the book ended up being kept for use in senior honors courses only.

Goldwasser says she has no hard feelings about the episode, and appreciated the parents, former students and educators who supported her in the matter. Actually, she said, she approves of parent involvement in choosing what books their children study, but objected to a small group imposing its values on everybody else.

She recently attended a reading and talk by Edgerton at Radford University, as part of McConnell Library's celebration of its expansion on the campus, and could not help but be reminded of the controversy in which Lineberry even demanded her dismissal. ``Is Mr. Lineberry here tonight?'' Edgerton asked before sitting down at a piano and belting out an original song poking a little fun at Hillsville.

Goldwasser said the uproar two years ago had nothing to do with her job change to teach a focused program on world literature. ``I didn't think it did. I just wanted a challenge,'' she said. ``I've heard so many things about Mount Airy, about the school system. But I have to admit, now that I'm here, it's really nice to be in a really positive mood every day.''

It hit her when she was driving home one night from an educators' meeting where, as it often does, the book issue came up. ``I just realized,'' she said, ``I don't want to talk about that anymore.''

by CNB