Apparently the reading lists have changed a lot since I taught kindergarten and first graders in the late '70s.
Children read story of homelessness
Some parents wonder if it is age-appropriate
By KAREN LANGLEY
(Concord) Monitor staff
April 02, 2010 - 7:17 am
When Michelle Carignan looked over the storybook chosen by Beaver Meadow educators for a school-wide celebration of reading, she was shocked by its depiction of a homeless youth.
After discussing the book, Eve Bunting's "Fly Away Home", Carignan and her husband agreed the scenes of hiding from police officers and a brief mention of a mother's death could overwhelm their 6-year-old daughter.
They decided not to read her the book, and Carignan said she may ask her daughter not attend today's all-school meeting, where Gov. John Lynch is scheduled to read the story aloud.
"How do you discuss something such as homelessness with a kindergartner?" said Carignan, a former teacher at Conant and Rumford schools who now owns Kaleidoscope Children's Museum in Manchester.
"You do it in small pieces, and this is a lot for kindergartners to take in: the mom is dead, the dad and kid are homeless, they fear the police. That's just too much information in one story." [EDIT: Ya think?!!]
A team of Beaver Meadow educators developed the idea of sending a single book home with every student as a way to encourage reading at home and school, said Principal John Forrest. Members of the committee thought hard before choosing Fly Away Home as a work appropriate for students from kindergarten through fifth grade, Forrest said.
The school bought 330 copies of the book, purchased from Gibson's Bookstore downtown, and sent them and an accompanying audio version home two weeks ago to every family.
"It wasn't to make a social statement," Forrest said. "It was to engage parents and have them reading with their children."
He said it was clear the book addressed weighty issues, and he accompanied each reading package with a letter listing points parents might consider raising before and after reading. ("What is a home?" as well as "What does it mean to not have a home?") Carignan is the third parent to complain about the book, he said.
In the story, published a decade before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks would transform airport security, a boy and his father live in an airport. They had lived in an apartment before the boy's mother died, but now his father only works on weekends. They spend their days blending in, washing at morning rush hour and moving between terminals.
It is, to be sure, a sadder story than many written for children. But Forrest pointed to the devotion of the father to his son and the scene of a trapped bird escaping the airport to illustrate the theme of hope that he said anchors the book.
"It's a book of compassion," he said. "It's also a book of family, whether a mother or father, whatever it may be, sticking together through tough times."
In any case, he said, the topic of homelessness is not innately inappropriate at a school where upward of 10 families are homeless at any time.
Carignan said she agrees small children should not be shielded from difficult social issues. Her family was driving along Interstate 93 in Concord one day when her daughter asked why tents stood along the Merrimack River. Carignan said she told her how things can happen that cause people to lose their homes, and while many can stay with friends or family, some may live by the river. Her daughter wanted to know whether it was cold or scary.
More .. LINK
|
