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I find your on-line publication an ideal link to what is going on in Franklin. You are doing an excellent job. You are very professional. Well done! Now on another matter as regarding the discussion of books by Toni Morrison and other writers before a meeting of the Franklin School Committee as reported in your publication.
I do not, not have I ever, believed in anything but academic freedom and teaching in an academic arena free of censorship; however there is such a thing as the concept of what might be a discussion of what constitutes “Age-Appropriate-Reading-Material”. I believe that undertaking such consideration is an intrinsic part of the job of creating a curriculum. What constitutes any curriculum depends on not only the chronological age of the student, but their psychological age, as well as, their level of sophistication, and emotional age. Do school authorities have to use their best judgement from time to time in area of age-appropriate-curriculum? The answer is a definitive, “Yes.”
I am, a professional educator and have been since 1966. After my formal retirement from the Franklin Public Schools in 2000, I continued my involvement in lecturing and educational assistance when requested. Teaching for me was a total pleasure, and the young people of this town were and continue to be great people. They wanted to understand the world and its past in all of its complexity. There is a special academic relationship that exists between the pupil and scholar in which mutual respect and intellectual honesty are a vital part.
By the time a student has reached high school . there is very little that a young person has not experienced vicariously, but that does not mean that bad behavior is ever validated or sensationalized as it might be perceived to be in some books in the curriculum. There is a place and a time for the exploration of human feelings and troubled situations depending on the sensitivities and sensibilities of individual communities as defined by The Supreme Court.
There is much great literature that deserves study, discussion, and consideration by young people who have the right to be in a positive environment in the development of their intellectual and emotional growth. But great literature, which can be appreciated by a more mature scholar of eighteen, might be inappropriate for a less mature fourteen-year-old student. And unless we have instruction in a ratio of one or two students per teacher, we must educate our students as best we can in larger groups while individualizing instruction as allotted time allows. Books of a gratuitously shocking nature may not be suitable for very young students. It is hoped that good sense and judgement is employed when selecting literature for an academic age-appropriate curriculum.
Yours truly,
Jim Johnston
[James C. Johnston is the author of multiple books including two on Franklin -- Odyssey in the Wilderness, and Franklin, as well as, The Yankee Fleet: Maritime New England in the Age of Sail, and The African Son. He lives in the historic Oliver Pond House and was a contributing columnist to the Milford Daily News for some 20 years. He led the Franklin Bicentennial celebration in 1978 and served the town as a Selectman.]