Dad arrested for complaining about girl's school assignment

[Jazzy]

A New Hampshire father is in trouble with the law after he complained to school board members about a book his 14-year-old daughter was assigned to read for school, CBS Boston reported.

Baer's daughter was assigned to read "Nineteen Minutes," by Jodi Picoult, for her Gilford High School English class. School officials have said it has important themes, and its defenders say it's thought-provoking and appropriate for the ninth graders who've read it there for years.
There is some controversial material in the book, including a sex scene.

"It reads like a transcript for a triple-X porno movie," said Baer. "We had no notice of it whatsoever, no written notice, no verbal, nothing."

He took his concerns to a school board meeting. When he exceeded the allotted two minutes for public comments, he was told to stop talking. When he refused, he was arrested.

"We went into the police station, went through the booking process, and I sat there like a criminal," said Baer.

Gilford's acting police chief, Lt. James Leach, said he had no choice but to arrest Baer.

Baer was charged with disorderly conduct. If convicted, he could be fined up to $1,200.

Source

Two questions:

1. Have any of your read this book? If so, do you think it's an appropriate read for a 14 year old?

2. What are you thoughts as to the father getting arrested?

 

[Bluezone777]

Their problem that led to his arrest was not that he complained but that he went over his allotted time and therefore stole the time for other people to speak their piece. I think two minutes is enough time to get your point across as to what your issue is and why you don't want your child reading such a book at that age.

As for the book, I took a look as to what it was about and it's about a fictional account of a school shooting and a look at the life of the shooter leading up to the shooting and how it affects the lives of those shot and the families of those killed.

http://www.amazon.com/Nineteen-Minutes-Jodi-Picoult/dp/0743496736/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1399573420&sr=8-1&keywords=19+minutes

You can read a more detailed summary of the book and take a look at a few pages of it to see for yourself.

Apparently someone included a portion of the offending text that probably got the dad mad in the first place in a review.

http://www.amazon.com/review/R2GPUZIRW78WPK/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0743496736

I don't think that's exactly proper for a child to read nor was it necessary to drive the point they wanted to make in the entire story.

 

[Bluezone777]

Does it really need three hours though and what about the other people that had something to say on the matter? Tell them tough as I am more important then everyone else?

The arrest might have been a bit much that I agree but he has to realize that other people have other issues that they need to address or want the time to address the same issue he is addressing and we can't spend a week while each parent waxes on for hours about an issue(How exactly would anything get done if we did this for everything?). It is not to say the issue they address isn't important only that there has to be a balance in place so everyone can get to speak and be heard. I wouldn't be against giving him a little more time but if his time is limited then he should have what he wants to say written down ahead of time so all the thinking is done beforehand and only has to read the message he wants to convey.

 

[Sinon]

I don't think he should have been arrested, but at the same time I don't think his complaint was entirely worthy. A huge amount of the books and study pieces you have to read in high school have adult themes. When I was that age, I had to read Once in a House on Fire (featuring physical and sexual abuse and depression), Lord of the Flies (featuring the so-called mob justice after a group of children are abandoned on an island; I recall at least one of them being killed) and Shakespeare (seriously, read any Shakespeare play, they're pretty much all full of awful things).

In the end, I think the father was stupidly overprotective. If one page is enough to vilify an entire novel, then we should just stop teaching kids about books at all, because a great deal of more mature works involve violence, sex, and other mature themes. They may not be the core focus, but if even a single paragraph has something deemed offensive, we should rattle our sabers, right?

 

[Evil Eye]

I haven't read it, but I had to read similar crap when I was around that age. There's nothing especially inappropriate about it. Keeping your teen pregnancy rate in mind, I doubt the book had much of a corrupting influence. Or at least no more so than books that would be considered appropriate such as the aforementioned Shakespear or... maybe the Bible.


As for him being arrested, well, he kinda brought it on to himself:

"There were repeated attempts to ask him to stop,". Leach said. "I asked him to leave. He refused. He said, 'Arrest me or I'm not going to'... so I did."

Weird story though, you'd think he'd just be escorted out of the room.