As Long As I Have You Here

One of the things I love about Ordinary Times is the way our writers say, "Wait, what?" and read up before opining on a subject. Here, @wvEsquiress takes the air of the Hudson School Porn controversy. https://t.co/nJtw9nV6Z9

— Beskar Hal (@Hal_RTFLC) September 18, 2021

Two things: yes, this was a college level course, so expect high school seniors (who will be in a college before the end of the next calendar year; do they suddenly become mature, responsible adults over the summer?) to be exposed to college level material. As the article says (and I post that tweet so you'll read it), you don't want your kid exposed to that in high school, don't let them sign up for the college level course.

Second:  as the article points out, nothing about the text is "child pornography," which is illegal in a college course as it is anywhere else in these United States.

The main problem here is how we understand and teach the "liberal arts," but I won't go there, it's too tendentious and this is too weak a reed to support that weight.  My third point (and yes, the reason I bother with this, other than the excellence of the linked article) is personal.

I teach college students, and under Federal law I have to treat them like adults.  That doesn't mean I teach them porn (child, or otherwise), or that I force them to read the final section of Ulysses or any part of Lady Chatterly's Lover or even "Jug, jug, to dirty ears" (okay, I have taught "The Waste Land," but experience has taught me not to cast such pearls before swine.  Yeah, I'm pretty jaded about my students; deal with it.).  It means, largely, I can't talk to anybody else about their progress in the class, such as their grades.

I mention this because I got a call (ages ago now; nobody knows my phone number anymore; nobody who is a student in my class, I mean) from an irate father about his son's grades.  Now there's a bit of a difference here, between students taking a college level course in a public high school, and students enrolled for the same course at my college.  I started out teaching high school seniors as a community college instructor (all I am now, two decades on), at their high school.  I never ran afoul of a parent, but it might have been tricky if I had.  This student was in my class on the college campus.  I actually had no idea he was a high school senior (and he was one of my better students; that should have been a clue.)  Anyway, I got to happily tell the father I couldn't tell him a thing about his son's work, progress, grades; nothing.  Under federal law (FERPA), as the school explained it to me, I couldn't even send an e-mail to the student discussing his/her grades, because that could be read by anyone, and so violate his/her privacy rights (personal mail is a different matter, but e-mail can easily be read by anyone not the intended recipient, is the reasoning of the law).  So I couldn't talk to him, either. (It was easier because he was a student in my college class, not a student in a dual-credit course offered only to high school students.  I'm not sure what the outcome would have been then.)

I never heard from the man again.  It was quite satisfying, on my end, to not have to explain myself to him.

Bottom line:  you put your kid in a college class, learn the college rules.  Or don't put 'em in a college class; or don't let 'em go to college, for that matter.  More and more I think it's not worth the expense, because the purpose of college (IMHO) is to teach you to think; and who wants to learn to do that?

Your kid might think thoughts you don't want 'em to think.  Like in the '60's!