My local paper featured a provocative story on the front page this morning, prominently displayed above the fold. The article was headlined “Hoover teacher writes erotic novel.” The subheading was “Back in classroom after suspension.” Needless to say, as a graduate of North Canton’s Hoover High School, I was intrigued. I love books, and I like reading as well as writing, but I’m not a fan of censorship. I sped through the story, and then read it again.
Seems the teacher in question authored an erotic novel titled Schooled, under the pen name Deena Bright. Her students, thankfully possessing naturally curious minds, found out about it somehow. Then the parents found out and some of the more outraged ones brought the matter to the attention of the Board of Education. The paper states that the superintendent showed the teacher’s personnel file the newspaper reporter, showing evidence that he had conducted an investigation into allegations of school-related misconduct in November. The teacher in question was placed on paid administrative leave for three weeks during the investigation. As a result of the investigation, she was suspended for five days without pay.
Parents were apparently in an uproar, not specifically about the graphic sexual nature of the book, but because the protagonist is a school teacher who has relations with fellow teachers and former students. The teacher’s union president got involved, and put the beleaguered English teacher in contact with the union’s lawyers, but he speculated that she didn’t like the advice they gave her. Seems they wanted her to resign. He said he was surprised to see her back at school. Such is the typical reaction to this type of situation in North Canton. Make it go away and we’ll never speak of it again. Personally, I’m glad she is back in school.
In the acknowledgment section of her book, the author wrote the following note: “Dear My School District: I love my teaching job. I love raising my kids here, being a part of this close-knit and outstanding community. I am proud to be here, honored and humbled to be a part of this district. Please don’t fire me! I’ve never slept with a student, not even remotely close. I love my students: they’re my kids, nothing more. We teach our students to dream big, work hard, and it will all pay off in the end. This was my ‘dream big.’ I do work hard every day, inspiring the future of America, but they have in turn inspired me to reach my goals.”
This morning, before turning my attention to The Canton Repository, I finished reading David Baldacci’s latest thriller, The Forgotten. The story deals with the modern-day slave trade and includes several murders, not to mention sex between the protagonist, an Army NCO, and a senior officer in the U.S. Army (which I believe is a violation of conduct, if not illegal). Not once while reading this book did I think that Baldacci was engaged in the slave trade or was contemplating murder. I never thought that James Patterson, John Grisham or even Agatha Christie was more likely to be a potential murderer than anyone else in our society. Their only “crime” is to have an extraordinarily gifted imagination, a necessity when it comes to writing fiction. We should be willing to make the same leap of logic when it comes to the author of Schooled. It is not her blueprint for planned debauchery; it is the realization of her dream to become a published author.
The unpaid suspension that the would-be author received was not because of her book. She was suspended because she had used a school computer for “social networking of a personal nature.” If everyone in the United States were placed under suspension at the same time for accessing a social network at work, our economy would grind to a halt, because so many people would be at home. I’m willing to bet that it has happened before at Hoover High, and has happened since. It will no doubt happen again. The only real crime that I see anywhere in this situation was when the school superintendent showed the reporter the teacher’s personnel file. Isn’t that a violation of the teacher’s right to privacy?
Stay in school and fight for your rights, “Ms. Bright.” At least until you get a decent publishing contract. You have accomplished what your fellow teachers have been trying to do since the dawn of public education: you got a student to read a book.
“Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to be always part of unanimity.”
- Christopher Morley (1890 - 1957)
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