Book too raw for school?

Burke board member objects to novel 'Kite Runner'

Sunday, Feb. 24, 2008
By Marcie Young
Charlotte Observer Staff Writer

Forty years ago, it was "The Catcher in the Rye."

Today, in Burke County, it's the fictional story of two boys growing up in pre-Taliban Afghanistan.

"The Kite Runner," a New York Times bestselling book taught earlier this year to a Freedom High School honors class, has drawn recent criticism from at least one member of the Burke County school board because of a scene of male rape and use of profanities.

Board member Tracy Norman last week asked that the novel be pulled from the county's public school system curriculum because she believes the content is inappropriate for high schoolers.

"We have a responsibility to the students in our system," Norman said. "I don't think it's the public schools' place to be the one exposing them to this."

But others, including parents and at least one other board member, said banning "The Kite Runner" because it describes a scene of sexual violence, alludes to molestation and includes profanities could compromise the students' educational experiences.

"It's not about vulgarity or the rape scene that's depicted," said board member Buddy Armour. "It's a look into the culture, and there's value there. Our kids need to know a little bit about the world, and it's not all pretty and lovely."

Cultural education

The book, which was adapted as a movie in 2007, was taught earlier this semester to a 10th-grade world literature class at Freedom High and was picked as one of four books meant to teach the honors students about other parts of the world, said Randal Garrison, the head of the school's English department.

"Our curriculum was just updated to try to do a good job at acknowledging other groups of people and cultures," he said. "We have a well-recognized canon. It's not just about teaching Greek and Roman (literature)."

Norman's recommendation last week to pull the book from the county's educational curriculum wasn't honored by the school board, which opted instead to rely on the system's challenge procedure.

The policy, instated in late 2006, allows parents and members of the community to file official complaints about material they think may not be appropriate for underage students, said Superintendent David Burleson.

Once a challenge is made, he said, a media advisory committee of teachers, parents and students will review the complaint and content and decide whether the material should be barred from the curriculum.

But the decision, Burleson said, cannot be made by just one person.

"Where do you draw the line? That's a fair and valid question," Burleson said. "You draw the line based on your community make-up and what the community expects that's why we have the advisory committee."

About the book

"The Kite Runner," which was meant to be taught this year by three teachers at Freedom, gives a cultural and historical account of Afghanistan from the late 1970s through the Soviet invasion and into the Taliban regime.

The book will not be read by any other classes until the issue is resolved, Burleson said.

Norman, who was contacted by a parent with concerns about the rape scene, said the book's story line is strong, but she worries that teenagers are being forced into reading content that's too mature for a high-school setting.

There must be other ways, she said, to teach students about other cultures without depending on scenes of sexual abuse and books with foul language.

"Does the benefit outweigh the exposure? I don't think it does," she said. "Anything in our school curriculum that has foul language and these issues (doesn't) belong in the classroom."

But Tony Matthews, who has a 10th-grade daughter at Patton High School and is the pastor at North Morganton United Methodist Church, said literature is a powerful tool for teaching lessons about the world.

"The point of the book was to show the horrors of living under an oppressive regime such as the Taliban," Matthews said. "Getting a set of facts on a piece of paper is a way to sterilize the problem. A character in a book becomes someone you're familiar with and you bond with. By telling the story in a piece of fiction it makes the horrors more real."

High school students are not naive, he said, and are capable of handling difficult material, especially when they are guided through it by a trained and professional teacher.

The concern, Norman said, is not only with "The Kite Runner" but with all books that use profane language and include graphic sex scenes and other potentially offensive material.

But Armour said what Norman is proposing borders on censorship. If "The Kite Runner" is banned from Burke schools, he said, other material will likely also be forced from the curriculum.

"If you start tossing out the books that might be offensive, you won't have anything left," he said.
What's happening at other schools
The Hickory and Newton-Conover school systems and Alexander, Caldwell and Catawba counties have similar procedures for banning books, although none have had challenges in recent years.

Catawba County Schools approved "The Kite Runner" last year, said spokeswoman Carleen Crawford, and it is being taught to at least one advanced English class. Caldwell County is considering adding the book to its curriculum next year, said spokeswoman Libby Brown.

Staff Writer Jen Aronoff contributed

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