Years later, when I had moved to the school library, I had a parent come storming in to tell me the book his son was reading was filth and he threw it on the desk. I asked him to explain his concerns, but he refused snd left. The book? “Drums Along the Mohawk” published in 1936. I read that book three times, trying to figure out his objection, but could find nothing other than outdated prose.

It’s not the story that makes me doubt my future carreer in teaching, it’s the comments of the people who are judging the profession from a distance, jumping to conclusions.

Dear old mom manages to make herself look like a pristine picture of motherhood. Oh how reasonable she is, how correct she moves. Meanwhile we all ignore the fact that the deluded crone makes no mistake in pointing a bony white finger at this teacher and insinuating, if not downright telling us, that he’s a pedophile.
Not only that, but she manages to do the same to damn near every other teacher out there. Because so many predators are lurking in the shadows, and apparantly the best place to find those shadows to hide are in front of a classroom. Or so Danielle has us believe.

Maybe our overly protective mother should have a good look at her husband, who seems to be up in arms about this. Me thinks he doth protest too much. After all, isn’t it true that most cases of abuse and rape occur within a family?

But who cares right, it’s easier to just point a finger at teachers.

People are going so far as to say that a male teacher can’t even talk to a female student after class. This paranoid attitude sends out very clear signals to male teachers across the globe that they’re by default guilty creatures with a perverted agenda, and that in such cases they are always to blame.

I reckon Fisher resigned, not because of a guilty conscience, not because he has something to hide, but because he knows that once the case takes a certain turn, one that flatulent father has insisted upon taking, he will never ever be able to live a normal life. Because even when innocent, you are never able to live down the accusation of improper behaviour with a student, a minor.

That’s an accusation that one will never live down, something that will haunt a man for the rest of his life. This mother has just given her daughter all the reasons to jump to that conclusion, because it’s not a defense, it’s an attack. A last resort to get your way.

If I can’t survive this ordeal the way I had initially intended to walk from this, if I’m made into a perpetrator instead of flawless victim, I’ll always be able to cry rape, because nobody will ever question a young girl who cries rape, especially not if she calls her teacher a rapist.

Mommy and daddy have made it clear in their replies to the media that they’re already steering towards that conclusion.

Drat. I knew I should have paid more attention in high school.

I am really very impressed with your insights as to preventing crime. You sound like you’re either a law enforcement person or someone who works closely with teens and has an real empathy for their development.

I’m sorry, but if the law enforcement agencies of this country took your views, we would have be in incredibly bad shape. It is so childish and unrealistic to believe that because there is no hard proof of intent, that that intent is not there. We safeguard against the possibility of wrongdoing. Everywhere in society we do that. We can’t bring pocket knives on planes. Why? Because people in the past have used those knives to kill passengers or hijack planes. Does that mean that everyone with a pocket knife is a threat. Of course not. But we aren’t going to take that chance. This principle can be applied to almost any crime prevention tactic. Teachers can’t single out students and give them mature reading assignments without the administrations knowledge. Why? Because, in the past, these actions have led to inappropriate teacher/student relationships.

I’m sorry if you have a fundamental disagreement with this concept Markus. It may not be fair, but it is the only way we can safeguard our students and prevent crimes from being committed. If, as a teacher, you take it upon yourself to do something without the administrations knowledge, involving a behavior that is a pre-courser to inappropriate behavior, then expect to loose your job.

You can use scientific fact all you want, but police and law enforcement use something called “case study” to determine crime prevention. And case study clearly illustrates that inappropriate relationships between teachers and students leads to crimes being committed.

Is there somewher I can reference the case study you refer to?

http://www.fairfieldweekly.com/article.cfm?aid=3252

Behind the Eightball
Guilford teacher place on administrative leave for giving an “inappropriate” comic book to a student
By Christopher Arnott

It’s not that Clowes’ work doesn’t deal with adult themes; in 29 interlocking vignettes, Eightball #22 tells tales of abduction, desperate young love, carnal and violent instincts, depression, loneliness, paranoia, and unlikely career goals. The 40-page story ends somewhat hopefully but documents numerous harrowing life journeys.

Vhttp://www.fairfieldweekly.com/article.cfm?aid=3287

Booked: Barely Legal Lit
Five books that faced more than an irate house frau
By Nick Keppler

The American Library Association has deemed this week “Banned Book Week,” although the ALA uses the word “challenged” more often than “banned” (as if these titles needed a little extra time to get up the stairs). The group defines a challenge as “a formal, written complaint, filed with a library or school, requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness.”

I know several people from my school / class who started to have sex in 6th / 7th grade (~12-13 years old), and many many who started in 8th grade (14 years old).

I’m not saying IT SHOULD be that way, just getting the facts strait - your children are not living in some kind of bubble (even if you made it a full time job to keep them in such bubble). They masturbate, watch porn in pre-teen years, have sex, experiment with drugs etc etc.

I would maybe understand this situation if the comic in question was for example Milo Manara’s work, but Ice Haven? You can turn it upside down as much as you like, but that comic just isn’t pornographic.

The only thing which can be debated is this: is Eightball 22 really appropriate for 14 year old girl, but not because of its explicit content / pornography (there isn’t any in that book), but because of the various intellectual and sociological concepts in that book. And that’s definitely not reason for loosing a job. In worst case she would miss some points from this book, couldn’t grasp some concepts, miss the irony etc. (and even that is questionable - it really depends how advanced student is).

There are much worse (mainstream) comics which do far more damage to one’s psychological health, which parents buy to their 9-10 years old sons / daughters without a second thought about it.

IMHO this is just another instance of pedophile / terrorism / whatever hysteria.

And I also agree that this hysteria did much more damage to psychological welfare to that girl than would reading of ANY comic book. I just can’t understand why this issue couldn’t end with: “Look, I don’t think this book is appropriate for my little girl to read, please give her something else, and in the future let me know in advance if you plan to give some book which isn’t on the list etc.”. Any “normal” parent would act like that.

As for me, I’d hug I guy who’d give Clowes’ comic to my teen child (although mychildren would probably already find it and read it in our home library…).

“And to everyone of you who is attaching Danielle and her husband, you should all be ashamed of yourself. She doesn’t owe any of you a explanation as to why she acted how she did. You people make me sick.”

when I was in high school, I was a huge english geek, and me and my english teacher got along great. I would hang back after class, we would talk about books, he’d give me stuff to read that he thought I’d like, I’d tell him what I thought about it when I was done.

Through the course of us having this friendship, a few books with what these parents would think was “over the line” were definitely recommended and read. Now, if my mom had happened along something like the comic in question (which, by the way, I AM a fan of.) she would’ve been mildly pissed too, but there is no way it would have gotten past me, to the police. I would have had a conversation with my mom about it, where it came from, etc.

so either these parents ARE reactionary, bypassed their daughter, and freaked out about nothing bigger than a english teacher who probably was cool and probably was just trying to get a student actually INTERESTED in literature, or, the girl thought that it was possible that the teacher WAS coming on to her, and didn’t stop this chain of events.. in which case, it probably was justified.

because when I was 14, I was old enough to understand when someone was coming on to me. it’s not like she’s 8, she’s a teenager and a rational human being.

sorry for the super late joining of the conversation after it’s somewhat been closed.

Hell, I just like seeing the comment number move up.

1. The first assumption is that works of art and/or literature possess some sort of mystical power. By believing in the need to “protect” people of whatever age from a work, one attributes to that work a certain kind of unidirectional (tyrannical or imperial) power that imposes itself upon the reader - who in this model of reading is reduced to the role of passive witness-victim to the work.

There is a strange combination of neo-Freudian ideas and religious fundamentalism at work here. Reverence of the Word as unassailable (uninterpretable) divine revelation is here somehow partially transposed onto all written words. Books are then conceived of as messages from their makers that one must either accept or reject. An element of Manicheanism enters here, because written words, while retaining the power of the Word, do not necessarily retain its moral orientation. There become Good Words and Bad Words, and one must be extremely careful to distinguish between the two, accepting the former while shielding one’s eyes from the latter.

And why must one be so careful? Here’s where the neo-Freudian element comes in. The Bad Words are usually distinguished as such through their presentation of sex and violence. In Freudianism, pathologies (which can persist an entire lifetime!) are theorized as originating in one moment: the traumatic witness of the primal scene (the ignorant child - in the role of witness-victim - stumbles across his parents having sex, unable to properly distinguish if the act is violent or pleasurable). The primal scene taints the child’s subjectivity, warping her psyche in some mysterious way. For the Freudians, one main function of the work of art is to re-enact or work through the primal scene. But it’s safe, because it’s just a work of art, not the real thing. But for those who transpose the power of the Word onto all written words (including Bad Words), the Bad Words somehow pose the same threat as the actual primal scene (which only poses a threat to modern mystics (Freudians) in the first place).

Very weird, and this weird, confused, mystical idea of what art and literature are and what reading is throws the hermeneutic operation entirely out the window, denying human intelligence its interpretive, critical faculties, denying Gadamer’s simple and intuitive notion of the meeting of and negotiation between historical-contextual horizons of understanding (the individual reader has one, and so does the work, and they’re always different unless the reader wrote the work himself). Here the act of reading is an act of communication in which the reader’s understanding changes the work just as much as the work changes the reader’s understanding.

2. Which leads me to the second assumption, which is more of a fear, which is the parents’ fear that their “value system” is extremely fragile (which it necessarily is, value systems being contingent and arbitrary). As Devlin Thompson admirably pointed out, parents and kids (and teachers!) need to “TALK ABOUT STUFF,” about different points of view and how they relate to one’s own. But the assumption on the part of litigious parents seems to be that the hold that their value system has on their child is so tenuous that the slightest exposure to “outside” viewpoints simply cannot be withstood. They hunker down into a defensive position, and in the spirit of “the best defense is a good offense,” they go to the police.

It bears repeating: why go to the police at all? Putting aside the false specter of rampant-and-increasing pedophilia running amok in Bill O’Reilly’s America, this act is revealed as the hysterical defense that it is: an excessive action on behalf of a value system as a substitute for the verbal articulation/affirmation of that value system required at a time of crisis. Why can’t the parents fully explain what exactly it is that this “borderline pornography” might threaten? One answer I can think of is that they themselves perceive their value system to be untenable. Another answer is that they have never actually defined a system of values for themselves, but instead cling - like many of us - to a vague muddle of Judeo-Christian traditions.

At any rate it betrays the assumption that morality - whatever it is - is something to be policed, not worked through and discussed. It seems there was a great, missed opportunity here for these parents and their daughter (and maybe even the “offending” teacher) to articulate what their value system actually is, using the work and their reactions to it as a reference point for articulating their values in a new and relevant way. Now, as things unfolded, “values” in the context of what was defended by these parents and the “pro-parent” voice in this discussion has become an empty signifier - a solid, dutifully guarded wall surrounding something or nothing, who can know?

On a final note, it is sad that the most interesting topic of this discussion was consumed in the fires of such an entrenched comment-board flame war. This story clearly implies a persistent bias against comics as an art form in its own right, a bias that the prevalent “comics are art too!” boosterism somehow seems to inflame… Here’s a tragedy we all as comics proponents could have profited from considering in more depth. Eric Reynolds was certainly on the right track by pointing out the inconsistency of deeming Eightball 22 inappropriate while Bukowski is on the official reading list…unfortunately it seems like his posts were mostly either shot down or ignored. Not by me, but I’ve already written more than I’m sure anyone will bother to read.

http://www.fantagraphics.com/blog/2007_09_23_fantagraphics_archive.html#7548833639633914978

I believe a hate crime has been committed against this teacher and that the police overstepped their authority and may even be guilty of criminal activity regarding the sudden resignation of this man.

http://region19.blogspot.com

- krasicki

(From a person who was given a copy of 1984 from a teacher when she was 12.)

We can give parents a list of books we plan on giving children, but what about news articles or books that relate to issues in classes that involve current events. You couldn’t possibly send a note to every parent saying, “Is it ok if I let your child read page 6 of whatever news paper?” It’s just not practical. Teachers do need to be able to have some choice in what your kids read. Sorry, but it’s true. If you don’t like it, then homeschool.”

In your example a parent would, I think, at least be aware of the fact that that type of reading material would be being used in the class. I’m sure that the parent in this case or the school or school board had no ideal that Eightball would be assigned.

And to everyone of you who is attaching Danielle and her husband, you should all be ashamed of yourself. She doesn’t owe any of you a explanation as to why she acted how she did. You people make me sick.

Anonymous Annoyed Parent Said:
I don’t know for sure but from what I can tell in the news and this thread, I don’t think this teacher was a threat to your girl and you going to the police was over the line. You made what is already a difficult job, teaching, just too much for someone… and they threw in the towel.

Wow… so you guys both live in Connecticut, you know the teacher, and you’re sure that he wasn’t introducing her to this comic as some sort of inappropriate advance?

Or are you making accusations on what you *wish* to be the truth of the case?

I mean, at least Emma kept her hyperbole to a minimum, rather than hiding behind an anonymous screen name to lob accusations at a parent who came her to calmly and rationally tell her side of an emotionally-charged story. But either way, both of you seem to be ignoring the elephant in the room in making your case, which is that there’s *no way* to know whether this was entirely innocent on the teacher’s part or not.

There were mistakes on both sides of this case, folks. The teacher had known her for *two days*. Even if the teacher had the best of intentions, he made a huge error in judgment in giving a comic with mature content to a 13-year-old when he had no way of knowing if she were ready for it or not.

Should the parents have gone to the teacher, rather than the authorities, when they got the brush off from the administration? Yeah, probably. But they were looking out for their daughter, and they were acting on advice they got from friends and family. I think that should earn them some leeway in terms of harsh judgment. (Although I’ll admit the dad comes off badly in the original news article, although I can’t say it if were my daughter that I’d be any calmer about the whole thing. Except, of course, that I probably wouldn’t be freaked out by Eightball, as I’m a comics guy.)

And the teacher may well have been trying to teach his student, which should earn him some leeway. It just seems that everyone wants to jump in and choose which side was “right” when in fact, everybody (from the teacher to the administration to the parents) made some errors of judgment.

But, I’ve gotta ask, in the 3 days you had said comic in your possession did you read it through? Or were you merely acting on the what you saw at first glance? I also must ask if you allow your daughter to watch TV, and Movies with similar mature themes/content? How much of the book had your daughter read of it before the “snickering” incident? Did you discuss the material with her?

Now, I don’t want to seem like I’m attacking you. It’s just that you never stated whether you had read the material, or what you thought about it other than freaking out over the naughty bunny.

And certainly the teacher having resigned from his job can be seen as dealing with the consequences, whether that resignation came under duress or not. I do not take such a resignation as an admission of “guilt” as other commenters have intimated.

As for the police investigation, it seems egregious. Even from the mother’s own account, I cannot see how a crime was committed here. usrngrx seems to point at the “9-11 changed everything” argument for guilty until proven innocent, but I cannot go along with that. The media, including the internet, over hype the stories and generally create a fear-induced panic about our children’s safety. With people so very anxious to condemn and criminalize, I honestly wonder why anyone would aspire to teach. It doesn’t seem worth the risk.

After everyone is finished digesting Clowes’s “Eightball #22″, may I recommend David Mamet’s “Oleanna”?

I makes me sick that you went to the police and school administration prior to speaking with the teacher.

With that being said, the teacher seemed to have not worked through acceptable channels, he should have never given any book that wasn’t part of the aproved curriculum. He could have told the student to get such a book, but it does seem that he should have made some attempt to include parents in any assignment that is off the beaten path.

I can related to the way you must have felt to think that you 13 yro daughter’s teacher is some kind of predator, you must have been scared. Felt the need to protect you kids, I get it. I know that I am often very protective of my own middle school age daughter, but you crossed the line.

I don’t know for sure but from what I can tell in the news and this thread, I don’t think this teacher was a threat to your girl and you going to the police was over the line. You made what is already a difficult job, teaching, just too much for someone… and they threw in the towel.

Shame on you.

How hard would it have been to at least talk to the guy?

And I feel bad for your girl, at a new school, everyone hates her because her parents flew off the handle and got a popular teacher fired, oh and I forgot to mention that she is 13 …er 14 Isn’t that an age where she would be looking for approval from her peers?

I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m really appalled that this kind of behavior from overwrought parents is acceptable. In fact, it’s the norm now in America. Michael Moore talks about our “culture of fear” in Bowling for Columbine, and Danielle and her husband are perfect examples of that. I can’t believe we’d rather start a witch-hunt in this day and age instead of talking to the teacher himself and asking him what he was thinking.