Last week William Baer, a father of a 14-year-old girl was arrested after he broke the two minute rule during a school board meeting.
The problem, the school assigned a sexually explicit book for his teenage daughter to read without properly notifying the parents.
As a result he was forcefully removed from the meeting, handcuffed and taken to the police station where he was charged with disorderly conducted and released on $700 bail.
This story caught my attention because I am the father of a 14-year-old girl who loves to read and I could feel this father’s pain and anger as I watched the video.
However there is more to this story than just a father who was arrested for his righteous indignation and attempt to protect his daughter’s mind and heart.
The book in question, Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult has been lauded as a wonderful resource for anti-bullying. On her website Mrs Picoult even promotes here book as a valuable part of anit-bullying curriculum for schools.
The irony is too great to ignore, a book claiming to help children make good moral choices when it comes to bullying is also encouraging our children towards premarital sexual experimentation through its detailed description of sexual intercourse between two minors.
So the logic seems to go like this, it’s ok to expose your child to overtly pornographic literature as long as it’s balanced with a good moral message on bullying!
This is like teaching driver’s safety to a classroom full of pubescent boys using a playboy magazine!
Sure it keeps their attention and after all you are teaching them a good lesson that could keep them from getting in to a car crash!
But what are the results?
Maybe it’s that nearly 50% of all highschool students who have already had sex or the 300,000 unmarried teenage births every year in the US or worse the 200,000 abortions preformed on pregnant teenage mothers!
I’m just going to come out and state the obvious here!
Kids having sex with kids is a far greater problem than bullying in our schools!
“Nineteen Minutes” and books like it encourage students not only to be understanding and love each other but also to make love to each other and that’s a problem!
You can try to teach children the ills of bullying by using pornography but eventually you’re going to get a form of bullying that is far worse and far more destructive than you could have imagined.
The school board in Gilford, New Hampshire needs to remember bullying happens when one person harms another for their own pleasure. The worst forms of bullying include things like rape and abortion, two terrible but logical outcomes of minors who are exposed to pornography.
Hopefully the school board will learn a valuable lesson here. They didn’t just make a mistake of not properly informing parents that they were assigning their children pornographic material, they made the mistake in thinking that this sexually explicit literature will encourage students to make good moral choices.
Isn’t there a better way to teach our children not to be bullies? Can’t we teach them the character traits of kindness, compassion and humility without feeding them garbage?
I think we can! You don’t really have to look far for these kind of books because many of them have been around for years.
Here is a short list of wholesome fiction books that teach valuable lessons to their readers.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
And here’s another 34 books that my 14 year old daughter picked out!
Kimberly A Edwards
May 13, 2014I would be as upset as the father in the article. It Is so sad to see that teaching had come to this. It’s gone from one extreme to the other. I like your reading list suggestions.
Caleb
May 13, 2014I was upset when I watched the news clip. I was unbelievable. I remember when I was in highschool and there were a couple of books that the school assigned that my parents didn’t want me to read. This kind of think is much more common than we think.
Kimberly A Edwards
May 13, 2014Yes.
Rick Dawson
May 13, 2014My folks were grateful that I read a lot; had they known what I was reading (above and beyond school assigned reading, which – compared to the Bible itself – was tame) they might have objected, but the books were those they had purchased and left in the house for a precocious reader to discover.
Caleb
May 13, 2014I guess that’s the danger of leaving those books around the house! However, you’re right about the Bible, there are some pretty adult themed stories in there. I’ve written about that before too.
Rick Dawson
May 13, 2014We call them adult themed – are they not stories carved from the lives of the people of God? The first violent act is murder – of a brother. We (as parents) do our level best to not tell our kids the story of Lot – not because his wife turned back, but because the drunken incest appears to be excused away. Joseph being sent to prison because he *wouldn’t* sleep with the boss’s wife? Sex and injustice. The penalties for rape? Give me a break… Time and again the OT does not show us the best behavior of God’s people (and truly, not all of them *are* His people)
Teens of every culture I’m aware of experiment with sex. This is not giving permission, but stating a truth. How we respond to that truth – and to those teens – will tell the world whether we plan to live out the words we say we believe, or show them to just be hobbies to be talked about.
We see fewer and fewer people making it into the eye of the media firestorm whose moral behavior is going to match up with what we, as believers, would like to see held up for emulation simply because sex – and violence – have *always* been hot sellers, so that is what they will focus our attention on. We are called to stand against the tide of our society. I don’t expect to turn it, and pray for the daily grace and ability to merely stand against it. In order to do that? We need to know the word, and the Word, and give an honest account of what we believe, think, and feel. It is far too easy to be written off as intolerant once you say you’re a Christian, but far, far harder to do so when the way you answer the question is by loving your enemies.
Caleb
May 13, 2014You’re right sex and violence do sell and we shouldn’t be surprised by that. Our response must however remain solidly placed in the principles of God’s Word.
Maureen Ray
May 13, 2014Arrested for standing for righteousness! The controlled responses of the teacher are a testament to her moral ineptitude. Sign of the times.
Caleb
May 13, 2014True, true! I thought of that too, it was kind of sickening!
Maureen Ray
May 13, 2014I still bear the scars on my legs of bullying I sustained at school more than 50 years ago but the effects of even overtly pornographic literature leave mental scars that should not be imprinted on young minds. It is sexual abuse of minors.
Caleb
May 13, 2014Yes, bullying is a problem for sure that we need to deal with but we must deal with it in a way that doesn’t create and even worse problem.
floyd
May 13, 2014Wow… So much for freedom of speech! That goes far beyond bullying! The man protecting his daughter and his rights is hauled away and the school and the author are given the rights of being above any laws. God help us… literally.
Caleb
May 13, 2014Yes, it’s hard to believe!
TCAvey
May 13, 2014I’m glad you posted on this. People need to be aware of Common Core. I’ve touched on it in numerous Newsletters and even in my new book, “The Precipice: When Everything We Know Ends”.
People are starting to wake up to the problems with Common Core, but removing it from our educational system is far from over. People need to be made aware.
Thanks for sharing.
Did you see the video of the daughter’s response to them arresting her dad?
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/05/12/greeces-neo-nazi-party-gets-ok-to-participate-in-eu-vote/
Caleb
May 13, 2014That’s a great response from his daughter. It sounds like the guy is a real stand up father. I’m not exactly familiar with “Common Core” can you explain a little more?
TCAvey
May 13, 2014I’ll email you, it’s a LONG explanation.
DS
May 14, 2014Not sure what all TC emailed, but basically it’s a federally funded education program that is revolutionizing our education systems that have historically been determined on a local level with local input and local values.
Caleb
May 15, 2014I just happened to be in the room yesterday when my mom was watching O’Reily and he had Glen Beck on talking about Common Core, so that really helped me understand a little more about it.
Maureen Ray
May 14, 2014The teacher anticipated there could be strong reactions for she ensured law enforcement officers were present. Those extreme measures would not have been necessary if she had been efficient. Her diary should have been ready and with but a few words, “I take your comment on board and I will make an appointment for you NOW so this matter can be discussed more fully”.
Caleb
May 15, 2014So true Maureen, it seemed that the woman moderating the meeting didn’t really want to deal with the issue.
DS
May 14, 2014This whole story is just one example of so many things that are frustrating at this time. I would have been shocked, hurt and disappointed if, without my knowledge, my children were required to read this book or something like it.
It’s further disappointing that a person could be arrested for disobeying a 2 minute rule. Could all parties involved acted differently? Sure.
The real issue I see continuing to develop is that as American citizens we’ve grown comfortable expecting honesty, decency, and the ability to freely express a Christian lifestyle without fear of hostility. Across the world we can explore places that have removed (or never had) Biblical morality from it’s midst and what the results are.
Caleb
May 15, 2014That’s a good way to look at it David, the more common these things become the easier it is for us to dismiss them and pay no attention.
Bryan Entzminger at Engaging M
May 20, 2014Words don’t describe my feelings towards even the possibility of my children being assigned some kind of reading like this.
Caleb
May 20, 2014I agree Brian! Actually 20 years ago when I was in high school I remember that I had also been assigned this type of reading, thankfully my mother knew what was going on and asked my teacher to assign me a different book, which he did.
Strahlen
June 7, 2014Hi Caleb, I’m a single mom of five boys. So many people blow off raising boys with sayings like, “boys are so much easier than girls,” implying or saying outright that you don’t have to worry about who they date and where they go. As the mom of boys, I think I almost have a harder time because it is so hard when so much of society is telling boys not only is it okay to pursue peruse premarital sex but good to pursue it. Worse, if a boy gets a girl pregnant, he has no say in whether she has the baby or an abortion. That is so heartbreaking to me. I am so thankful for my boys, but I wish that, at least at school, they could have these pressures taken off them and just learn! Thank you for posting and for providing a good male role model. I’m going to suggest my older boys (13, 15, 17) check out your site and pray for all of you. God Bless…
Caleb
June 7, 2014Thanks for sharing that Strahlen, you certainly have your hands full with those boys! I grew upon a family with 5 boys!
Here’s something a wrote a while ago that is specifically for teenage boys, maybe your boys will find it helpful. https://sukofamily.org/advice-for-a-teenage-boy/
Blessings!
Caleb