By Muriel J. Smith
Pornography? Age sensitive? Offensive? Or should books or plays with brief sexually-graphic and profane descriptive paragraphs within stories acclaimed internationally continue to be on the Required Reading list for juniors and seniors at Rumson Fair Haven High School?
These are the questions, which will be discussed at the Oct. 13 meeting of the Rumson Fair Haven Regional Board of Education brought up by parents who strenuously object to their inclusion in the curriculum at the award winning high school.
Specifically, numerous parents are objecting to Cal, a 1983 novel by Bernard MacLaverty of Northern Ireland, and Death and the Maiden, a 1990 play by Chilean playwright Ariel Dorfman.
Action against the books being required reading is being led by Siobhan Fallon Hogan and her husband, Peter, parents of a senior and a freshman student at the school. Hogan said she has been very concerned about some of the material in the English curriculum, saying she believes much of it is laced with profanities and sexually explicit material. In an email to several others in the school district, Hogan said she “ tried to quietly express my concerns by going to Board of Education meetings in May and June.” Each year she has been shocked by choices in the curriculum, she said, but making Cal required reading for juniors was the issue that prompted her to go to the Board. “Then just when I thought it couldn’t possibly get any worse,” she explained, “The Seniors in English 4 had to read “Death and the Maiden” by Ariel Dorfman over the summer.”
Other parents share her concerns.
“I think my biggest complaint is I lost control as a parent in this matter,” said Elise Lawless of Fair Haven. Lawless has both a freshman and a senior at RFH, and is not calling for any book banning or controversy, simply asking “our children be required to read age-appropriate books.”
“If the contents our children have to read are too offensive to put on the pages of the local weekly newspaper, and if I am not given any choice in what my child has to read in order to pass a class, I think I’ve lost some rights as a parent,” Lawless continued. “We’re just looking for alternatives. “If my children are being asked to watch R-rated movies as ‘homework,’ I as a parent should know about it.”
Superintendent Dr. Peter Righi told the Two River Times that books for required reading are selected by the English and Social Studies department after careful consideration of a number of criteria. Jack Shea heads the 13-member department. He is looking forward to the board meeting as a time when opinions can be discussed openly and candidly.
Cal details the experiences of a young Irish Catholic involved with the IRA and his attempts to come to terms with taking part in the murder by his friend of a police officer. The book was adapted into a film starring John Lynch and Helen Mirren.
The author is also a playwright, screenwriter, acclaimed short story writer and librettist, and has written more than ten books and five books of short stories. Now 73, MacLaverty lives in Scotland.
Death and the Maiden had a world premiere at the Royal Court Theater in London 24 years ago. It takes place in an unnamed country recently given a democratic government years after being under a dictatorship and is the story of a political prisoner who may have been raped by her captors. The play opened on Broadway in 1992. In 1994, Roman Polanski directed a film of the work and author Dorfman composed a libretto for an opera based on it.
“The controversy, which should not exist, is whether these books should be required or optional reading,” said parent Rob McHeffey. “According to the RFH acceptable practices manual, students may not write, use, send, download, access or display materials that pertain to crime, violence, intolerance, obscenity, profanity, rude and disrespectful language … pornographic, inflammatory, threatening and abusive, text, graphics and photo/ video imagery unless expressly authorized by a teacher for a specific school assignment.” McHeffey continued, “I am pro choice on reading…but required reading that goes against the school’s written protocol, unless authorized … or assigned should have teachers attest to said authorization. Difference of opinion is not intolerance, intolerance of difference of opinions is the epitome of intolerance.”
Maria Maita, a Fair Haven parent of five children, three of whom are graduates, two still in the high school, said this is not the first time concerns have been raised over required reading, and cited her own surprise when her oldest daughter was required to read “Kite Runner” with its description of sodomy. “What I quickly learned,” she said, “is that our children are ready to read and more importantly discuss what is troubling in all of these texts and so much more.”
Senior Eli Rallo of Fair Haven, who is in an advanced English class, said, “Many parents of students at my school are making uneducated assumptions … with all due respect, the crude and selective language used in “Death and the Maiden” was used for a purpose. Without such language his words would not have made any impact….”
Public discussion sessions, according to the board’s policy, are 30 minutes long. The meeting, held in the school library, begins at 7:30 runs until 9:30 p.m.
