My main purpose in writing this letter is to share with you my thoughts and feelings during and following the assembly you recently led at our school.
Of course, I do not presume to speak for the other members of our school's faculty and staff. Even though I have had several conversations with various of my co-workers in the days since your visit to our school, and found some of them to share my opinions on your presentation, I'll leave it to them to share with you, or not, their thoughts and feelings as they choose. Every opinion shared in this letter will be entirely my own.
On Monday, March 26, our entire middle school began a “read aloud” of your book, Nerd Girls. At the start of each class period, every class in the school would be read the prescribed number of pages by their teacher before beginning the normal classwork routine. The premise of the book sounded like one with which many of our students would be able to connect. Sadly, before the end of page 1, you had drawn me into the protagonist's story and then alienated me again just as quickly. On page 17, I realized that this book was going to be one filled with filth and inappropriate words for no reason other than to add shock value to the text. My realization came after reading this bit: “He was the king of the practical joke. From covering the toilet seat with Saran Wrap when I was being potty trained so that the pee-pee leaked all over my leg, to turning my alarm clock forward a few hours every now and then so that some mornings I was up and ready for school by three thirty a.m., to putting spicy vapor rub in my training bra so that my nipples felt like they were going to burn off when I first started preparing for 'womanhood'...” (You know, you could have accomplished the same effect with itching powder in her socks or dog poo in her shoes.) I continued to participate in reading the book to my students, dreading your visit more and more with every turned page.
On the morning of Wednesday, March 28, 2012 (one week ago today), you made a visit to the middle school where I work in Pensacola, FL. To be honest, I had never heard of you until our literacy coach began to tell us that we were going to begin another school-wide “read aloud” and that the author of that book would be coming to make an appearance at our school. But with as many authors as there are in the world, this fact is nothing particularly notable. It sounded like a great opportunity for our students, many of whom are not afforded such special opportunities very often.
When I arrived at school the morning of your visit, everyone was buzzing with the excitement of preparing for a special assembly. During homeroom, I spoke to my 6th grade students about the schedule changes they could expect that day and we discussed again what sort of behavior was expected of them during an assembly. I told them that your visit was sort-of a big deal for our school and that they could expect to see many unfamiliar adult faces there, many of whom would be district-level school staff from downtown. I asked them all to give their full attention to what would be said. When they announced over the intercom that it was time for all the 6th grade classes to proceed to the gym, we went, and I've never seen those students walk so quickly!
I had barely had time to sit down before our literacy coach came out to introduce you to the students. To the shock and concern of many of us, the first thing you did was to invite any student who wanted to come sit on the floor of the gym surrounding you. The stampede that ensued was nothing short of absolute chaos. Once everyone had found a new seat, I could only sit and hope that my students, wherever they had ended up, would act appropriately.
As soon as the lights in the gym went off, those of us in the stands could see the light show starting up among the students sitting on the floor, each dot of light representing a student in the middle of the swarm of students sitting around you—students who were packed together tightly enough that teachers could barely patrol the perimeters of the mass.
You began to speak to the students, and you seemed to have many positive and helpful things to say to them. I saw you engaging students who I had never seen engaged in anything school-related before. So, even though I had found your book to be filled with unnecessary use of less-than-appropriate language, it seemed that, in person at least, you might have a good message for these students after all.
Unfortunately, during the course of your talk, you cursed numerous times, and later in your presentation you showed a series of several inappropriate images, the worst of which was unquestionably pornographic in nature. With your excellent reputation and Disney backing, none of the school's faculty or administration had had any reason to feel like they might need to preview your presentation materials; it was simply assumed that they would be appropriate for our students. I want you to understand that, in my opinion, your speech and that photograph were not appropriate for the eyes and ears of any student of any age attending any school. I cannot put into words how relieved I was that my own son was not among the students in the room that day.
I was embarrassed and disappointed for you, as you seemed not to even realize how grossly inappropriate these things were. I was embarrassed and disappointed for our students, as several of the ones sitting nearest to me were noticeably bothered by your language and the images being shown. I was embarrassed and disappointed for the school faculty who had put so much time and effort (and expense) into arranging your visit, none of them ever knowing that you would put such damaging material before our students.
Several days later, I would find myself disappointed again, over hearing that when you had been approached about these issues by our literacy coach and someone from the school district, your response was something to the effect that you had come to speak to students, not to teachers. But you weren't only speaking to students. You spoke to a room full of people, most of them students, but also including many teachers and other school and district employees. I imagine you were intending to reach the students by talking to them on their level, and that is certainly an admirable goal. It seems to me, though, that our goal in working with students should be not only to reach them effectively, but to help bring them up to a higher level. With the many successes you have had, I am sure you would have been able to reach them without the vulgarity. You could have, instead, set the example for how to have a “cool” open dialogue and connect with students in a respectable way.
In the days that followed your students, I was surprised to find that most of the students, thankfully, had been able to take away something positive from your presentation. Additionally, I spent several days shocked as I read emails sent out by teachers and staff from my school and around the county, all singing your praises and sharing their enthusiastic approval of the message you brought to our student body. I'm comforted to know that the overwhelming majority of the people who heard you speak that day did not take away the vulgar parts of your show. Regardless, I think it is sad that you chose to use such distasteful tactics to get your message across to the kids.
I'm sure you've had scores of positive responses from your visit to our school, and I regret that I am unable to be one of them. I've heard a rumor that we may have another visit from an author next year, and I'm truly excited for that opportunity.
I hope that you will reflect on the methods you use to get your message to students, and evaluate whether there might be a better way, a way that takes a higher road and can help those students ascend to a higher level of thinking or behavior.
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A note to Red! readers: When I initially began to write this letter to post here on my blog, I fully intended to show, within this post, the most offensive of the images Mr. S. used in his presentation at our school. However, in order to find the image through Google's image search feature, I had to first log in with my username so that Google would know that I was legally an adult and then I had to fully disable Google's “Safe Search” feature (which prevents offensive or graphic material from being shown to users who don't want it) to even get the picture to show up as one of my search results. The photo is hosted on numerous websites, none of which are remotely appropriate for children or teens. Because the image is so graphic, and because I know that several of my friends allow their own children to read my blog, I have decided against publishing the photo here. This damaging material has already been seen by far too many childrens' eyes—every student who has seen Mr. S.'s presentation—and I will not contribute to it being seen by any others.
Additionally, in the days following Mr. S.'s visit to our school, I had the opportunity to speak to my school's administrators at length about the parts of the presentation that I had found to be inappropriate or offensive. During the course of our discussion, I learned that they also found the use of certain language and images—especially in the presence of students—to be both inappropriate and offensive. They shared that this was truly a disappointing way to learn that they will have to more closely inspect future presentations brought to our school, even those being led by people with exemplary reputations.
