Biology class at the continuation high school. After the student took her seat, she pulled out a book from her purse. She explained to her friends that she was going to spend the period reading.
The book: Fifty Shades of Grey.
On the one hand, she's reading. A book. Voluntarily. These students don't do that sort of thing usually, so reading is one thing I try to encourage. But Fifty Shades of Grey? Seriously?
(Do I have to censor this? It's not school appropriate. She's under age. But what if she has parent permission?)
The other students recognized it. "Is it that sex book?"
"Read it out loud to us."
There's the limit. I don't know if I should take the book away from her, but I do know that letting her read it to her fellow classmates is definitely not appropriate for school. Especially when they do have an assignment. So, I gave them my definite no.
"You've heard of this book? Have you read it?"
No, I haven't read the book. However, I don't live under a rock. Knowledge of the title and its subject matter has made its way to my attention.
The student opened the book. (She couldn't have been more than a page or two into it.) She looked at it for about a minute. Then she decided that perhaps she should do the class assignment instead. And she put the book away.
I wonder. Do you think if I had made more of a fuss, might she have continued to read?
Ah well. Problem solved.
Friday, December 21, 2012
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I love that she read a couple of pages and then put it away to do a school assignment. Maybe she has to act like it's not a big deal to read a "sex book" but she isn't all that interested in it after all.
ReplyDeleteI think you're right: she was trying to get a rise out of you. Nicely handled.
ReplyDeleteOf course, you could have confiscated the book. Then again, nothing's grosser than someone else's used sex book.
Or, maybe, it was just -that- bad. Like she really, really did want to read it... until she opened it and started reading it. Like when that chocolate cake looks sooo good but you finally take a bite and it tastes like cardboard.
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