School Critics Attack Books In Mount Si Library
Published 2:37 pm Thursday, October 2, 2008
Is the Joseph Heller best-seller, “Catch-22”
proper reading material for high school students?
LaVaun Daub, a critic of values clarification, questionnaires and invasions of students’ privacy
in school doesn’t think so and she said as much
during the District 410 School Board meeting last week.
Bearing a copy of the novel, a seriocomic tale
of World War II bonber pilots, Mrs. Daub asserted
that “Catch-22” should not be available to
14-year-old students” in a school library. She said the
novel “refers to women as whores” and that there are
overly descriptive passages of violence. She also noted that
a copy of the novel in the library at Mount Si
High School has numerous “dog-eared” pages,
apparently indicating that several passages in the book have
been marked.
Charging that the school board has done nothing
to respond to complaints about reading material,
values clarification and other grievances, Mrs. Daub
suggested that the bond and levy failure might be partially attributable to their alleged inaction.
She said district patrons do not want their
money spent on reading material such as Heller’s novel.
“I don’t want my money going to pay for
garbage like this,” she said.
Mrs. Daub was accompanied by Mrs. James
Hall and Mrs. Ed Shapleigh, who have also voiced criticisms in the past of teaching methods and
class content. Mrs. Shapleigh, describing herself as
“a concerned grandmother,” criticized biology
and history textbooks for “teaching evolution”
and misrepresenting the history of the United States.
School Supt. Larry Lindberg asked the trio
to produce the books they criticized and show him
the questionable passages so that the district
could properly respond to their complaints. He also
told them that there are proper channels for such
complaints and that those avenues must be followed
before the board can take any action.
Mrs. Daub suggested that a “search committee”-
on which she was willing to serve -should be
established for the purpose of going into the library and
extracting books which they feel are not fit reading material.
She stated that such an action would help “clean
the school up.”
When Mrs. Daub asserted the school board
had done nothing to respond to the demands of
parents over the past several months, she was challenged
by Director Joe Monahan, who told her abruptly, “I
resent you saying that we haven’t given any answers.”
Monahan reminded her that the board did
establish a policy concerning the teaching of
controversial subjects in class and also regarding the use of
questionnaires.
In reply, Mrs. Daub asked to see specific
language in board policies which bans the use of values
clarification as a teaching method. She told the board that
if they want parents back to jam the meetings, “we’ll
get them back.”
