In my role as English Curriculum Leader for Grades 6-12, one aspect of my job was to deal with parental complaints about books and their requests that their child not have to read a particular book. By the way, I never received such a request from a parent who had read the entire book. Rather, the parent would point to a word, a sentence, or a scene from the book that the parent found objectionable.

My job was to listen to the complaint about a book, explain why that book was chosen for the students to read in that course, urge the parent to see the way that book would satisfy the course goals of developing their child as a reader, writer, and thinker and then, if the parent still objected to the book, offer the parent the opportunity to suggest another book for their child to read which could give their child similar opportunities to develop as a reader, writer, and thinker as did the book which had offended the parent. When the parent decided to suggest another book, then their child would be given that alternate book to read and either stay in the class and share in the class conversation about the assigned book and the alternate book or go to the school library to read the book, based on the parent’s wishes.

It worked well. The educators were in charge of the curriculum, in charge of developing the students as readers, writers, and thinkers. The parents had a voice in what their individual child could read in school, and no parent had any say about what other students could read in a class or what books would be banned from the school library.

I suggest putting that kind of procedure in place instead of banning books. It recognizes that books are ways to develop students as readers, writers, and thinkers, requires parents to look at a book as a whole, and it gives parents a voice about their own child’s education but not a voice about curriculum, which is the learning experience of all the students in a course, and not a voice in what books are available in school libraries.

A wonderful by-product to this school policy is that the conversation that results is about reading literature as a way to develop students as thinkers, readers, and writers, not about what book adults like or don’t like.

If Connecticut children and teachers are forced to return to unsafe schools, and children and teachers start being hospitalized, teachers and parents should demand resignations from Connecticut’s Top Education Policymakers.

Jesse Turner, CCSU

I agree with Professor Turner. UCONN has announced that it will go to remote learning when the spring semester begins later this month. Our kindergartners are no less precious than our college students. Protecting the children in our K-12 schools is far more important and far more morally significant than protecting economic interests.