The ever-shifting line of taboo classroom topics
I’m hanging out with Holden Caulfield, contemplating profanities.
I’ve known Holden for a long time, since we were both 16 and I discovered his fury at whoever jotted and carved America’s most overused obscenity on the walls of his kid sister’s school. He wanted to shield the innocence of “old Phoebe,” though his 10-year-old sister was wiser than he knew.
“If you had a million years to do it in, you couldn’t rub out even half” of the world’s coarse scribblings, a resigned Holden concluded.
I might be less sensitive than Holden. When we met as high school students, I joined millions of others in recognizing his angst. The profanities just didn’t bother me all that much.
Our relationship has shifted over the decades. It’s harder to see through the eyes a teenager after you’ve made it to the other side. Holden seems like a stereotypical Republican now, what with the private school and outrage at the world’s moral failings. Or maybe it’s just the red hat.
These days I’m more intrigued by how his personality took shape while author J.D. Salinger was living in Stamford from 1947-49 and then in Westport before “The Catcher in the Rye” was published in 1951.
Around the time I read it in the late ’70s, it was banned in some Washington high schools by school board members who decreed it to be part of a communist manifesto. It was censored in the decades before that and in the decades since.
Yet most of you read it as teenagers.
It doesn’t mean its content shouldn’t be reconsidered as the years pass. I could present a convincing argument that “Rye,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” — all “Great American Novels” — are overdue for reconsideration and replacement in classrooms. Teachers should always shove the boundaries of curriculum. At this time of reckoning over race in America, educators should be as daring as Salinger was 70 years ago.
Some Greenwich parents now want to join Holden in erasing some graphic content from schools. In some cases, virtual learning has given parents a corner seat in the classroom, revealing lesson plans they previously missed.
About 60 parents sent a letter to the editor citing curriculum choices they deemed “disturbing.” Board of Education member Peter Sherr cracked open the Pandora’s box after he was censured for muttering obscenities caught on a hot mic during a virtual meeting. He responded by pointing to R-rated materials being taught within the walls of Greenwich schools.
One incident involved animated footage shown to two remote second-grade classes at North Street School. The film, designed to help children cope with fears, includes a silhouette of an adult penis. Superintendent Toni Jones declared it inappropriate for the audience (it is designed for private therapy sessions) and the teachers were removed.
A 7,700-word Atlantic article by Peggy Orenstein, “The Miseducation of the American Boy,” includes passages that sparked outrage from the parents who discovered it was used in 10th-grade classes. Their letter collected some of the most graphic content, which made it equally challenging to publish in a family newspaper. They withdrew it after we suggested edits.
Jones understandably decided the Atlantic article was too extreme for its audience and removed it. The content may have been triggering, but there is worth in exploring the concepts Orenstein proposes on how bullying and misogyny hurt not only girls, but boys as well.
The taboo words have drawn attention to the true stakes in this culture war. Sherr and Jones collided over an anti-bias survey used in seventh-grade classes at Western Middle School.
Based on Peggy McIntosh’s 1989 essay, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” the 25question Greenwich version includes queries such as “I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented positively,” and “If a traffic cop pulls me & my family members over, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my race.”
Use of the survey is a recognition of the Black Lives Matter movement as a teachable moment. In Tennessee on Wednesday, the General Assembly passed a bill to withhold funding from public schools that teach race theory.
This is America’s modern civil war. Given its reputation as a symbol of privilege and pride in its school system, should Greenwich,
Holden seems like a stereotypical Republican now, what with the private school and outrage at the world’s moral failings. Or maybe it’s just the red hat.
Connecticut, erase these kinds of lessons from the curriculum it could draw attention — including a fair amount of ridicule — on a national level.
Which makes this the perfect time to have the discussion. Schools can’t just teach syntax. No one joins a book club merely to consider sentence structure and spelling. Themes matter, and difficult debates should be embraced.
History can be part of that discourse as well. Conservatives might need a reminder that one of the architects of the common core standards was President George H.W. Bush, one of Greenwich’s favorite sons. His education secretary was Lamar Alexander, the Republican senator from Tennessee.
Such standards beckon English and history teachers to navigate themes of moral, ethical, and political context and consequences, and rightfully so. Failing to do so deprives students of the critical thinking skills they need to thrive after graduation day.
Old Holden liked to say “People never notice anything.” That parents are raising their hands to object to videos and source material makes them valuable watchdogs.
Holden fantasized about standing in a broad field of rye with thousands of kids he must be on guard to catch before they fall off a cliff.
Parents can’t be blamed for feeling an impulse to do the same. But everyone should pause to remember the perspective of the child running toward the edge.