"Chocolate War" revisited
Harford County Public Schools superintendent, Jacqueline C. Haas will present her decision on the use of a controversial novel, The Chocolate War Monday. It's listed as a presentation item on Monday's Board of Edu. meeting agenda.
The Chocolate War is on the American Library Association's list of the top 10 challenged books and was banned last year by Haas after about 40 parents complained about vulgar language and homophobic slurs. The 1974 teen-oriented novel is about a boy who is bullied because he refuses to participate in his school's chocolate-selling fundraiser. The book was used in a 9th grade course called Living in a Contemporary World, that is designed to ease the transition to high school and part of the course dealt with bullying and its destructive effects.
According to a Sun editorial from April, "...when some parents protested against the book, Ms. Haas quickly announced that a review committee including teachers, administrators, students, parents and community members would help determine whether The Chocolate War should remain as part of the course. In February, the committee unanimously recommended that it should.
But Ms. Haas unilaterally decided that the controversy over the book made it unusable at this time, took bullying and harassment out of the LICW (Living in a Contemporary World) course and wants another committee to take another year to come up with an alternative literary selection."
The second committee convened three times and has made its recommendation to Haas. She will issue her decision Monday.
Some accused Haas of trying to "sanitize" reality, by banning a book that dealt with issues faced in high school. Others supported her decision saying that the book was offensive and controversial, thus didn't belong in a school environment. Either way... stay tuned.
Comments
this is because people read the book by the word and sentence while missing the overall message. the book encourages people to stand up against the things people are complaining about.
Posted by: jim | November 16, 2007 3:47 PM
Teachers in Baltimore City do have a lot to complain about sometimes, but it's stories like this that make me happy I am where I am.
They're banning The Chocolate War, a book about standing up for what is right. What a disappointing piece of censorship. I hope saner heads prevail.
Posted by: epiph | November 16, 2007 8:24 PM
Being a teacher in BCPSS was quite a challenge, but at least we were given autonomy over our school library!
Of course, I understand (though disagree) with the prerogative of a school district to censor - they censor the internet as well. My biggest concern with this story was the Superintendent's willingness to disregard completely the recommendation of the first Committee. She obviously appointed that Committee assuming it would agree with her and would take some of the heat off of her for banning the book. "Look, the Committee made me do it." To completely ignore the community/staff Committee is why I would vociferously be against Ms. Haas' decision to ban the book.
All I'm saying is that if she wanted to ban the book, then she should have just done it in the first place without wasting a bunch of people's time trying to make the process seem legit. She obviously had already made up her mind and if I was on that Committee that tried to be more thoughtful about the decision rather than emotional like Ms. Haas, I would have felt indignation.
Posted by: Artie | November 17, 2007 10:11 AM
I am a teacher in Harford County Public Schools and find it comically ironic that I was awarded a curriculum award by HCPS for a lesson I created meant to increase awareness of the First Amendment. Part of the assignment required students to select a book from the Top 100 Banned Books List. Students had to first receive permission from their parents and then read and report on the censorship history of that particular book. I was honored and commended for this project; the county even asked me to teach and share this lesson to media specialists in the county.
I also organized a panel discussion on censorship made up of parents, lawyers, school and library officials, and even reporters from The Aegis and The Examiner. Panel guests fielded and discussed student questions. Intelligent discussion ensued and the students learned from this lesson.
Once the Superintendant decided to pull the book from the curriculum, the students learned a lesson in school board politics.
Posted by: Award Winning Harford County Teacher | December 13, 2007 4:20 PM
Great book!! I loved it
It took many hs stituations in to perspective
Posted by: tony | April 23, 2008 7:51 PM