The Mayor of Hudson, Ohio is as mad as hell about students in his small Akron suburb being told to write “a sex scene you wouldn’t show your mom,” and wants “all five school board members to resign or face possible criminal charges,” according to a report on Monday in the Akron Beacon Journal.
Mayor Craig Shubert made his demand after parents complained about some of the material in a book called 642 Things to Write About used in local schools’ Writing in the Liberal Arts II class.
The book provides writing prompts for students, including “write a sex scene you wouldn’t show your mom,” and a follow-up prompt that instructed high schoolers to “rewrite the sex scene from above into one that you’d let your mom read.”
That looks to me an awful lot like getting kids to write hot sex scenes for teacher, then teaching them how to hide those thoughts from mom and dad.
Or as one concerned speaker at Monday night’s Board of Education meeting described it: “Grooming.”
“I’m going to give you a simple choice,” Shubert told the school board. “You either choose to resign from this board of education or you will be charged.”
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The Beacon Journal notes that it’s unclear (probably at best) whether the board members could actually be charged with anything.
Superintendent Phil Herman said that “At no time were any of these inappropriate writing prompts assigned as part of the class.” And high school principal Brian Wilch admitted, “We did not exercise due diligence when we reviewed this resource and as a result, we overlooked several writing prompts among the 642 that are not appropriate for our high school audience.”
642 Things is meant for college students, but was being used in Hudson as part of an Advanced Placement-style class in association with local Hiram College.
Even at the college level though, being instructed by a professor or teaching assistant to write a sex scene too hot for mom absolutely buries the needle on my Gross-o-Meter.
The second-to-last thing anyone ever accused me of is being a prude. (The last is being sober.) But it’s awkward and embarrassing enough for young people to figure out sex without bringing mom and teacher into it.
Hey, teacher, leave those kids alone.
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