The Lucknow Sentinel, 1978-05-03, Page 13Dirty books to be reviewed
BY;TE.FF EDDON
The Huron County Board of
Education sent its dirty book
problem to a committee
Monday to decide if three
English literature texts
contain material "ob-
jectionable'' for teaching
county secondary school
students.
The board voted to give the
problem to the school
programs policy committee
which decides what textbooks
to recommend to the board
for use in the classroom. The
move was made to avoid
another confrontation bet-
ween teachers and students
who feel the books are wor-
thwhile and parents who feel
they should be banned from
school use.
The three books — The
Diviners by Margaret
Laurence, C.ptcher in the Rye
by J.D. Salinger. and Of Mice
and Men by John Steinbeck —
became the centre of at-
tention for a third time
recently when the . St.
Joseph's Catholic Women's
League from Kingsbridge
begana letter writing
campaign to have them taken
off the list of books used in the
secondary . school English
literature curriculum in
Huron.
The CWL cited about half a
dozen excerpts from each
novel, in a campaign in-
volving board trustees,
parents, members of
parliament, the minister of
education, township councils
in the county and other
Catholic Women's Leagues.
The campaigns asked that the
groups and individuals
contact the board requesting
the three novels be banned in
Huron high schools.
Seaforth trustee John
Henderson said at Monday's
board meeting that he would
like more positive action
taken by the board. He said
the board had "wrestled with
the problem" before and still
faced the same controversy.
Henderson said once it went
to the education committee,
once to the executive com-
mittee and now the school
programs committee. He said
he would like the motion
sending the three novels to
the committee amended to
have The Diviners taken off
the list.
ANOTHER °
CONFRONTATION
Director of education John
Cochrane told the board that
by doing that the board would
probably face another parent -
teacher -student con-
frontation. He said that move
was suggested before and one
board meeting brought the
groups together in an
emotional display that solved
nothing.
Cochrane suggested that by
sending the matter to the
committee the problem could
be resolved between the
principals of the schools,
English department heads
and trustees. He said the
books would probably not be
on the list of texts for next
year if the board took that
route.
"It would be a fair bet, if I
were a betting man, that the
books won't appear on the list
next year," he said. "That's
the, reason they were sent' to
the cot°nmittee.'' '
The director told the board
that recent board policy
required the board to allow
one month for groups affected
by a board decision to come to
the board to appeal the
decision. He said by
removing the texts from the
list the board was inviting
opponents of that move to
make their case known to the
trustees, something that was
done last year over the same
issue.
Henderson asked board
chairman John Elliott why
the matter was dealt with by
the executive committee. He
said he felt that if there were
a lot of letters sent to the
board the matter should have
been dealt with by the board.
He said he was not aware of
the number of letters
received on the issue.
Elliott said the letters were
sent to individual§ on the
board and not to the board
itself. He said the executive
committee dealt with the
issue for public relations,
wanting to show good faith in
dealing with the requests of
the opponents of the books.
Cochrane said the board
office had received many
letters on the issue that had
been forwarded to the
executive committee.
"I don't know how close to a
bushel basket we have now,"
he said. "A sample of the
letters was •put on each one of
your (the trustees )desks."
Henderson agreed not to
ask the board to vote on his
motion to •remove The
Diviners from the list of texts
and the board agreed to allow
the school programs com-
mittee to deal with the issue.
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Lucknow Sentinel, Wednesday, May 3, 1978—,Page 13
NOTICE OF MEETING
Lucknow Business
Association
Thursday, May 4th
at . $ p.m. _
AUDITORIUM - TOWN HALL
' Agenda:
1. Rest Tent at International Ploughing Match
2. Town Christmas Lights
3. Farmer's Market
4. Summer Business Hours
5. Other New Business
ALL BUSINESS PERSONS URGED TO ATTEND
OTHER GROUPS OR INDIVIDUALS INVITED
' LARRY COWAN - Secretary Treasurer-
,
BIN Bogoes. = President
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