World’s Emily Belz points to a protest over a high school library which would not take certain donated books. “Librarians had banned [so to speak – phil] their collection of books against homosexuality. While the teens argued this was intolerance of their views of homosexuality, the librarians said the books did not meet their standards for donated books which require recommendations from two positive reviews from professional journals.” I don’t know if these books are worth fighting for. The protesters were apparently informed only by Focus on the Family info sheets, not by scanning the books themselves. But a commenter, Michelle, gave good insight on reviewing books for schools. She said:

This is what drives me crazy about those who listen to Focus on the Family but don’t do their own research. There may be legitimate reasons to add books, or even to ban some books, but when you show up waving papers and talking about resources you’ve never examined, you look silly and you do damage.

I sat on a “controversial book committee” for our Washington state school district for three years. During my tenure a series of textbooks were being considered. The meeting to discuss the books was noisy and loud with plenty of well meaning folks waving faxes from Focus on the Family. Unfortunately, they hadn’t looked at the books and were immediately shot down.

I, however, had read the textbooks and could cite pages that I found disturbing–do second graders really need to read a story about Vasilly the younger that includes descriptions of bloody decapitated heads on fence posts? Second graders?

The teacher recommending the text books, unfortunately, hadn’t read the books either. I found other things about this series problematic–the first most often cited job for a woman was mother, no problems there. But the second most common occupation was witch. Does that sound unbalanced to you?

I only had to point out facts. The textbooks were not used in our school district. The fact kids in this story were used to protest without provided with information is very unfortunate. And yes, the school should have books arguing both sides. That’s what a liberal education truly is about.