Colorado teacher assigns students 'sexual poetry' without parental consent
According to Fox News, the poem was in a book that was approved by the school board and the offensive language was censored.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFFPagan diety Moloch(photo credit: WIKIPEDIA)
A school in Steamboat Springs is under scrutiny after a parent reported an assignment in which students were required to recite sexually explicit and/or distasteful poetry that includes worship of the pagan deity Moloch as well as conveying the topic of "sexting" in society - which was assigned to eleventh grade students without parental consent.Brett Cason, the father of 16-year-old Steamboat Springs High School student Skylar, reported the content his daughter was being taught in her "Music Literature" class to the school's administration after being exasperated upon discovering the assignment for himself, according to Fox News.The teacher himself, Ryan Ayala, formally apologized to the offended parents for composing his lesson plan around Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl," acknowledging the fact that it was the "most offensive" coursework covered in his class - where students were instructed to "fill in blanks" of censored poems, including phrases such as "f***ed in the a**" and "c**t" as well as other lewd language.According to Fox News, the poem was in a book that was approved by the school board and the offensive language within the books was censored - which sparked the assignment idea by Ayala."Students should never feel shame and guilt as part of an assignment at school," Jeremy Dys, legal counsel for Cason, told Fox News. "In the age of MeToo and Harvey Weinstein, it's hard for me to understand why Superintendent [Brad] Meeks would think requiring teenage girls to meditate on a song normalizing sexting would be acceptable," Dys added. "If they want to teach on controversial materials, they can, but they should warn parents and give them an opportunity to choose an alternative assignment."The School's district superintendent, Brad Meeks, issued a statement following the discovery and report of the offensive course material.Meeks apologized that "parents were not given advance notice that would have allowed them to opt their child out of participating" in coursework he labelled as "controversial by some for its use of expletives and portrayals and descriptions of sexual matters."Meeks is now working to make sure that teachers are fully aware of "proper procedures around [teaching and] incorporating controversial materials.""We do believe that what occurred this fall was simply an oversight as a result of not understanding the policy," Meeks wrote. "We regret if members of our community were offended."
