28 August 2008

Ignorance on School Boards, Vol. XXIII

Mason BOE member Jennifer Miller is a good Christian. She knows that challenging young minds to think for themselves could have disastrous consequences, like leading them to think for themselves. She knows that Satan spreads his Muslim homosexual agenda by many means, but among the most insidious is that implacable scourge upon the minds of good folk: award-winning literature.

Board member Jennifer Miller challenged one of the books, The Kite Runner, because she said it includes a rape scene and she questioned how it would be used in class discussions about religion.

"I don't think this book is appropriate for our community," Miller argued, adding it would be irresponsible to add the selection.

Miller said she is concerned about how teachers would lead discussions about religion... she was concerned about questions that could arise concerning whose side God would take in the novel. "I just wonder how Christians are going to be portrayed in that setting,"


(article)

So she recommends lowering expectations and avoiding challenging the students in order to safeguard her own religious bias. WTF? If this woman wants to be involved in education it should be in her church's Bible study, not in public schools.

The other BOE members didn't buy her thinly veiled religiosity and overruled her, 4-1.

3 comments:

Kate The Great said...

I saw that article and it made me so angry.

This woman is one degree of separation from Footloose.

Anonymous said...

Didn't the book make Islam look bad? Wouldn't she be happy? Is someone using the Jedi Mind Trick on her?

Wes said...

She has a long history of being a fundamentalist loon.

A few years back (think 1988 - 2000), the Religious Reich made a concerted effort to seed downballot, low-information races with lunatic Godbags. This is one example of that. (Marie Irish Kearney - I believe that was her name - was one such as well; she ran for the State Board of Ed and, fortunately for those of us who want our kids to do better than we did, lost.)

WF