Campbell adviser: Readings had good intent

LITCHFIELD – The English curriculum adviser at Campbell High School, responding yesterday to parents' concerns about some classroom reading assignments, said the short stories were chosen for their tone and style, not to promote bad behavior.

Several parents of high school students objected recently to the use of four stories assigned in an elective class: "The Crack Cocaine Diet" by Laura Lippman, "I Like Guys" by David Sedaris, "Survivor Type" by Stephen King and "Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway. The stories -- which the school superintendent this week agreed should not have been assigned -- include profanity, explicit sexuality, murder, cannibalism and drug use.

In an e-mail to a reporter yesterday, English department curriculum facilitator Kathleen Reilly wrote: "The first story, 'The Crack Cocaine Diet,' was not intended to glorify bad behavior; rather, it was chosen for its tone and point of view and to show the often devastating consequences of drug use. In addition to its tone and style, the message of the story 'I Like Guys' was respect and acceptance, not an advocacy for homosexuality."

Reilly also said the stories were not left up to the students' interpretation alone.

"We discuss them extensively," she said.

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But Sue Ann Johnson, the parent who first raised the issue with the school, questioned the need to discuss these issues in an English class. She said she felt the stories promoted negative behavior and a "political agenda."

"What were they teaching with those stories?" she said yesterday. "Everything I read was negative, twisted and dark."

Johnson said she was not "a prude," but there were issues -- such as drug use, homosexuality and abortion -- that she would rather discuss with her children at home.

Instead of reading these stories, Johnson suggested, the students should be reading the classics or something relevant to current issues.

"We've got people who've been locked up in Guantanamo; how about a story about how we rounded up all of the Japanese people and put them in internment camps after Pearl Harbor was bombed," she said.

Kevin Smith, a Litchfield resident who is the executive director of conservative Cornerstone Policy Research, said he has been following the debate over the issue on The New Hampshire Union Leader's Web site, and he agrees with people who say they "don't want to be censoring material."

"I agree with free-flowing thoughts and conversation," said Smith.

But he was concerned that teachers weren't including for discussion stories that reflect good values, "stories that have redeeming qualities."

"I don't think it would be so bad if we had kids reading material that had good, wholesome values to it," he said, calling for "balance."

After reviewing the stories, the school decided to no longer use them in the classroom, and Superintendent Elaine Cutler apologized to parents for the inclusion of the stories in the school's curriculum, saying they were "inappropriate." In an interview yesterday, Cutler said a committee will be formed to review curriculum for the short-story course. The committee will be made up of teachers, the principal, the curriculum director and community members, she said.

Cutler said she didn't think there was a "bright line" that could be drawn about what material should be used in a high school classroom. Material should be age appropriate, and there was a determination that the stories in question were not appropriate for this level of education, she said.

"Good judgment has to be used," she said.

Cutler said standards for curriculum also have to "have some respect for the community you live in."