Questionable Curriculum:

Parents Against Bad Books - www.pabbis.org

 

            A group of parents in Virginia banded together against some objectionable books that were on the assigned and recommended reading lists at their school districts. They say these books contained graphic sex and violence that were totally inappropriate for the children and youth in the schools.

 

            Apparently, school officials and elected politicians ignored them.

 

            So they did what any red-blooded American parents' group would do - they started a website and kept on advocating for better curriculum choices in our schools.

 

            The website is Parents Against Bad Books in Schools - www.pabbis.org

 

            Publishing passages that almost everyone would agree are objectionable on their website has been a great help to concerned parents, citizens, taxpayers, after-school program personnel - everybody who cares about the ideas and emotions that books are putting into young people's hearts.

 

PABBIS has an excellent PowerPoint presentation that tells the group's story. It has a truly remarkable links section showing the dozens of other parents' groups out there fighting objectionable curriculum.

 

            But best of all, the PABBIS site has short book reviews on some of the most controversial books that are quite often assigned in class, or kept on school library shelves - maybe in your child's backpack right this minute!

 

            You can go to the website and browse through titles and get an eyeful. It's well worth it to get a list of the required reading that your child will be assigned to in the FOLLOWING school year - advance notice is always great - and then borrow copies of those books from the school, or buy used ones online.

 

            And that's the point: read the book YOURSELF and make up your own mind whether it violates your sincerely-held religious and moral beliefs, or the people-building and character-building mission of your after-school program.

 

            Also investigate other books in the same genre or with the same teaching points that manage to tell a story WITHOUT objectionable content such as graphic sex, violence, profanity, vulgarity and the like.

 

            The PABBIS site can get you started - but it's only a resource. The action part of successfully removing objectionable curriculum is up to you.

            By Susan Darst Williams • www.AfterSchoolTreats.com • Reading • © 2010