On June 18, the School Board of Campbell High School in Litchfield, New Hampshire decided to remove four short stories from the “Love/Gender/Family” unit of an English class. Early last week, Kathleen Reilly resigned from her position as English department head, citing a desire to teach elementary school in a different district.
Reilly, who had taught at the high school since it opened in 2000, did not teach the junior/senior “Short Stories” class herself, but did choose its curriculum. She did not explicitly state that the controversy forced her to resign. However, the principal’s suggestion that she had made a “mistake in judgment” when choosing the stories, coupled with the School Board’s decision to impose more oversight on curriculum development in the future, likely influenced Reilly’s decision to leave.
A number of parents objected earlier this month to four stories by Ernest Hemingway, David Sedaris, Stephen King, and Laura Lippman because of their themes of abortion, homosexuality, cannibalism, and drug use, respectively. In an email to the Union Leader Reporter, Reilly defended the use of the stories in class:
The first story, ‘The Crack Cocaine Diet,’ was not intended to glorify bad behavior; rather, it was chosen for its tone and point of view and to show the often devastating consequences of drug use. In addition to its tone and style, the message of the story ‘I Like Guys’ was respect and acceptance, not an advocacy for homosexuality.
Certain parents, particularly Sue Ann Johnson, insisted that the inclusion of the stories was part of a liberal “agenda” and that they did not want their children learning about homosexuality in school.
Reilly’s resignation is a sad development in this ongoing controversy. No teacher should have to feel compelled to leave a school because of angry objections to the books she teaches. Parents have a right to prevent their own children from reading certain stories, but other students may read what they want–and teachers have the right to assign any story that, in their professional opinion, has educational merit.
Read an op-ed piece by Andy Towne, a 2007 graduate of Campbell high school, in defense of Kathleen Reilly and the banned stories.
Tags: Andy Towne, banned book, David Sedaris, Ernest Hemingway, Kathleen Reilly, Kids' Right To Read, Laura Lippman, Litchfield school controversy, Stephen King, Sue Ann Johnson
June 30, 2009 at 12:56 pm |
cool!!! – thanks a lot for this post!!!
July 4, 2009 at 8:07 am |
Good riddance to the teacher who tried to dumb down the education in Litchfield. This was never CENSORSHIP…the parents can go out and get the trash and read it to their own children. THis was about a school that dumbed down the education to the level of Jerry Springer and got caught. A few parents demanded a HIGH quality literature class and since it’s THEIR money and THEIR children, THEY should have a voice.
July 8, 2009 at 4:13 pm |
[...] All of this blog’s coverage of the removal of Hemingway, King, Lippman, and Sedaris from Campbell High School’s curriculum may be found here and here. [...]
July 14, 2009 at 9:51 pm |
MOMwithAbrain this is censorship. Pure and simple. It is also bigotry being that at the orignal meeting the book they are were most concerned with is “I like guys”. I have read this and there is NOTHING wrong with it. Kevin Smith, who was quoted in the original Union Leader article, does not have student at Campbell but he was vocal in trying to block the gay marriage bill from passing. While he did not speak at the second meeting (which I did attend and speak at, twice) it was because after all that was written about Mrs. Johnson they decided to hide behind “Crack Cocaine Diet”. I have also read this book and see nothing wrong with it. The first paragraph is a little shocking but that is something that people need to get past. I also listened to the books on tape version in which the narrator is very sarcastic, which is the way I believe the story should have been taken.
By reading these short stories Mrs. Reilly who was my teacher freshman year, my drama director freshman-junior year, and I was her teacher’s aid senior year, is trying to get students to think. This is something that the students simply don’t do enough of, because of parents who haven’t taught their kids to think and question things. Reading these stories does not dumb down the school it simply makes the students aware of issues. I have heard people say “why aren’t they reading Shakespeare instead?”, and Shakespeare is read, just not in this specific class. There was even a Shakespeare class for a long time but the school stopped offering it when not enough students were signing up.
Mrs. Reilly is the more dedicated than most imagine. She was always there at school starting at 6am and during drama season she would stay until 10-11pm to make sure everything got done. She always had a smile on her face and was always there to talk to and the attacks on her character by people who don’t know her are completely unfounded.
I am completely ashamed that the town I have spent my whole life in and that the high school I graduated from have done this. They talk about the “liberal agenda”, but what about the conservative agenda of these parents?
September 6, 2009 at 2:30 pm |
All this from a town that had its last cross bruning in 1994!!!!! Do you think Sue Ann Johnson was among the offenders? this town is totally backwards and racist.
Get real, you religious nut-jobs. Seriously though, she probably loves burning crosses. She sucks.
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-8308867.html