It’s a day that begins like any other: a proud mother sends her innocent fifteen year old to high school, confident in her knowledge that her child will learn in a safe environment, shielded from vulgar and unsatisfactory ideas and behavior. However, the day takes a turn for the worse; upon her child’s return home she is astounded after reading one of the pages in her son’s new English book.  The characters had engaged in unspeakable, scandalous behavior—they had kissed!

While most people would agree that kissing is not necessarily “scandalous” behavior, a vocal minority, including some Virginia lawmakers, disagree. Many similar instances like this have occurred throughout Virginia, prompting lawmakers to come together in order to attempt to solve the issue of whether or not parents should have a say in what teachers teach in the curriculum.

The result of this disagreement was the development of a bill that allows parents to “veto” certain books that contain “sexually explicit” material that they do not want their kids to see. However, the bill does not define what makes material sexually explicit, leaving this definition up to the State Board of Education. Should a parent deem a book unfit for his or her child, the student will be provided alternative reading.

The bill was recently sent to the Virginia House of Delegates where it passed. The bill seems fantastic on the outside: it allows parents to decide what is appropriate for their children, it gives parents more control over what their children are exposed to in school, and it shelters children from being given material that is too mature for them. However, if made into law, the bill would cause more problems than it solves.

A main concern is that the bill does not define “sexually explicit” material. This means that the parents can cite anything as sexually explicit, including holding hands, hugging, and kissing which are behaviors that students are inevitably exposed to on an almost-daily basis in public. This means that almost all books provided to students can be capable of getting vetoed, depriving students of knowledge and literature that they should be exposed to. This would include such classic works of literature as Romeo and Juliet, The Diary of Anne Frank, 1984, Huckleberry Finn, and A Streetcar Named Desire.

Romeo and Juliet and The Great Gatsby could be exempt which means less @LeoDiCaprio in our lives and no one wants that. #FCPSex

— The Saxon Scope (@SaxonScope) February 26, 2016

Some of these pieces of literature are considered staples of a good English education and should be read by most people in order develop their reading comprehension and writing skills. Many of these books are fantastic pieces of writing, and it would be wrong to deprive students from reading them. “I believe that it’s important that students read books that they are assigned to- any narrative selected by the school will be designed for the purpose of analyzation, not to shock with its ‘sexually explicit’ content,” said sophomore Anya McKee.

Teachers would also have to change the curriculum for a student if a book were vetoed, and it would decrease the quality of education that teachers would be able to provide to their students. Requiring teachers to make two sets of quizzes, lectures, and assignments is unnecessary work that would place a burden on teachers that already put in hours of extra time. These alternative assignments would severely restrict students’ educations, preventing them from mastering the content.  AP Government teacher Allison Cohen stated, “Education happens best when you trust good teachers in the classroom.”

Additionally, the ability of parents to remove books could lead to classic works no longer being taught in Virginia school systems. If too many parents oppose a certain book, English teachers may not want to go through the hassle of finding half the class alternative reads.

While the government definitely has a place in defining what a public school education looks like, the government should not be able to define cultural values. That should be up to the school and the school system. If parents have a serious problem with a book, they could talk to the teacher or principal, but they should not have the right to censor a book for their child based on a law passed by the state legislature. This marks a clear overreach of power by the Virginia legislative branch.

Furthermore, parents should realize that their children cannot live in a sheltered box forever. They will be exposed to this type of behavior at some point, and wouldn’t it better for them to discover it in a controlled learning environment? One in which they can ask questions in a systematic way rather than learning about it later with no prior knowledge? Chances are they will have already heard things like this before, either from friends or on TV and internet.

The focus of these books is not sex. Tests never have questions like “how did Othello caress Desdemona?” #FCPSex @SenatorLocke

— The Saxon Scope (@SaxonScope) February 26, 2016

Sophomore Naila Masom stated, “I think that kids should not be shielded from harmless realities such as sexual material in books, and parents should trust the opinions of educated professionals that are our teachers, and also trust that the educational value outweighs the slight uncomfortableness caused by a scene, which by this age we are already familiar with.” Masom reflects the feelings of many students, further emphasizing that many students are not the “innocent” daffodils many parents believe their children to be.

Additionally, it’s not only up to the parents. Students should have the right to be able to make their own decisions regarding what books they read in English class. They are already trusted to make decisions regarding drugs, sex in the real world, and college– things that have a large effect on their futures, so why are we not allowing them to make a simple choice regarding what books to read?

“Children should be able to make their own choices on if they can handle the content of the book or not,” said sophomore Lindsey Brinkley. Parents should not have to step in and protect their 16-18 year old child in matters like this. The only age that this might be necessary (as they have little knowledge about the topic) would be elementary schoolers and middle schoolers. However, the books read by these students rarely contain any sexual content whatsoever, meaning that the bill would largely be for high school age individuals. Most likely, these individuals have already been exposed to the content of the book either in real life or have heard about it. After all, they have now been in Family Life Education (FLE) for at least four years, and, in the case of seniors, some students are legally adults, meaning they can make their own choices (the parent who started this whole controversy, an FCPS mother named Laura Murphy, was upset over a book being read by her son, a senior in high school).

If parents are so concerned about exposure in English class, there is a simple solution: teach your kids about it before they start to read in-depth literature. It is understandable that some parents might still think that age to be too young, but many children in other parts of the country and the world are exposed to it through culture, internet exposure, or first-hand experiences.

Sexually explicit material is everywhere, and students are exposed to it eventually one way or another. Parents should accept that school is about education, and this sometimes means reading certain books containing some adult behavior. Parents should not be able to dictate what their children learn in public school; if they don’t like the curriculum, home school is always an option.

—Ben Howlett