BY DAN
KENNEDY
Notes and observations on
the press, politics, culture, technology, and more. To sign up for
e-mail delivery, click
here. To send
an e-mail to Dan Kennedy, click
here.
For bio, published work, and links to other blogs, visit
www.dankennedy.net.
For information on Dan Kennedy's book, Little People: Learning to
See the World Through My Daughter's Eyes (Rodale, October 2003),
click
here.
Thursday, June 12, 2003
Forbidden reading on the North
Shore. It can't happen here? Oh, yes it can -- and does. Leonard
Broughton, principal of the Masconomet Regional Middle School, which
serves the well-to-do towns of Topsfield, Boxford, and Middleton, has
decided to remove two gay-theme books aimed at young people from the
school's summer reading list.
"We don't [believe in]
teaching values," Broughton told Ben Casselman of the Salem
News. "When it comes to these kinds of value decisions, they are
up to the individuals and their families."
Did it ever occur to Broughton that
by engaging in such puerile censorship, he's condoning a particularly
harmful sort of values education?
The books in question -- Nancy
Garden's Annie on My Mind and Marilyn Reynolds's Love
Rules -- are said to be aimed specifically at teenagers, which
makes Broughton's decision all the more inexplicable.
The Salem News website is an
enigma, but if you click here,
you should be able to read the story until sometime this afternoon.
After that, try this.
posted at 8:19 AM |
comment or permalink
MEDIA LOG ARCHIVES
Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
