Yesterday, I shared that I was going to discuss a letter sent by Deerfield High School English teacher Jeff Berger-White to his students regarding a vulgar, polemical play about homosexuality that he was going to teach. Because of a community imbroglio over this play, he was compelled to send a parental notification/permission letter. But what he ingeniously decided to do was send his students a manipulative letter prior to sending their parents a letter. Below is the text of the student letter, which was brought to me by a concerned community member, together with my commentary. The teacher’s words are in black and my comments in blue:

8 February 2008

Dear Students,

A version of this letter will come to your parents shortly, but I wanted to share it with you first.  (It was unethical and unprofessional of this teacher to share this information with students quite intentionally prior to sharing it with their parents. I can’t imagine a reason for that decision other than his desire to influence them in favor of Angels in America prior to discussions with their parents.)

When I re-framed the thematic focus of the A.P. Senior English course to Blindness and Vision, Tony Kushner’s Angels in America seemed a fitting addition to the curriculum. Last year, I had the great pleasure of teaching the play; it went well. We even had the incredible good fortune of having Tony Kushner spend a full hour on the phone with us. And so it was with enthusiasm that I decided to teach the play again this spring. The second time teaching any work usually goes better, and I was eager to see how another group of students would respond to the play. But it has been a much more challenging journey than I had anticipated and I want to tell you about it. (This whole passage in which he waxes enthusiastic about the prior year’s experience is an obvious hard sell of Angels during which he foreshadows the “challenging journey” that, like a master storyteller, he’s going to recount. In addition, he lures the students in with the prospect of speaking in person to a famous playwright–fame being something that even adults find enticing. He also communicates that his teaching of it will likely be “better” and that he is”eager” to see how these students will respond. Of course, this will make students reluctant to disappoint him. None of this drama is appropriate or necessary in a letter in which he is offering students a choice of texts to read. Nor is it necessary to discuss the controversy boiling in the community. He could have used his rhetorical skills to diminish the emotional disruption by being factual and professional, but instead he fans the flames of dissension.)

Angels in America is a provocative work. It is for mature and thoughtful readers, (By implication, those who choose not to read Angels would be immature readers, incapable or unwilling of being “thoughtful.”) and I was not certain last spring that it would go smoothly. Though recent editions have eliminated the play’s subtitle, it is called, and with good reason, “A Gay Fantasia on National Themes.” Before I taught the play last year, I thought there might be some students who would not want to read such a work, and so I gave them an opportunity, as is our school’s approach, to opt out of a reading experience if they believed that such a book would be problematic. No one took the offer.  (And what is his point in telling students that no one took the offer to opt out the year before other than to make those who might want to opt-out of reading Angels feel odd or self-conscious? He might have mentioned in this paragraph that the prior year he never informed parents of the shockingly obscene content of this play and its controversial perspective on homosexuality. Evidently, his and/or the “school’s approach” to teaching obscene material didn’t include offering parents an opportunity to opt their child out of reading this pernicious text. And last year, the inadequate parent letters were sent only after the play was challenged.)

I want to say more about the provocative nature of the play. It uses a great deal of language that you wouldn’t expect to read in a classroom, and there are a number of sexually explicit moments in the text. In fact, earlier this winter, a local organization, the North Shore Student Advocacy Group, filed with the district an official challenge to my teaching the book, saying that they “object to the pervasive vulgarity, sexually explicit content, religious denigration, disrespect toward women, and overall age-inappropriateness.” They go on to say that they “also object to the pervasive homosexual content of these books.” (As a community member so insightfully pointed out, this teacher never articulates, in his own words, a description of the pervasive vulgarity, sexually explicit content, religious denigration, disrespect toward women, overall age-inappropriateness, and pervasive homosexual content of these books. He cleverly and strategically quotes NSSA, an organization that many in the Deerfield community disliked, thereby tainting the substantive concerns by association with the group.)

It has been my experience that young people are a lot more sophisticated and insightful than many adults believe. (Here he uses the disreputable practice that manipulators of youth employ. By playing on the nature of the adolescent beast to desire the autonomy of adulthood and to think they possess the maturity of adulthood, manipulators tell young people that though others view them as immature, unsophisticated, and lacking in insight, they–the manipulators–don’t. This draws young people in and renders them less likely to oppose the manipulator who appears to value them in ways that other adults do not. In addition, by implication, those students who might not want to read Angels, would now be uncomfortable with the image of themselves as less sophisticated and insightful.) In the face of all kinds of intellectually and emotionally challenging material, I have found in the last sixteen years that students almost always rise to the occasion and handle readings and discussions with skill, thought, and maturity. That was my experience last year, and it has most definitely been my experience so far this year. (Here he implies that reading Angels represents nothing less than “rising to the occasion, and handling readings and discussions with skill, thought, and maturity.” So what does opting out then represent to students? And what might they think it means to this teacher? Does this not suggest that their teacher might view them as not rising to the occasion, and unable to handle readings and discussions with skill, thought, and maturity?)

The voices of dissent have entered my dreams, and some days I would imagine my response. I believe deeply in all great works of imagination, and I believe in the intelligence and humanity of my students. (If reading Angels indicates something about the intelligence and humanity of his students, not reading it means what–that they are less intelligent and less humane?) I stand with Robert Cormier who said, `I think a controversial book belongs in the classroom where it can be discussed, where a teacher can guide the students, where, in fact, a student can get up in class or write a paper saying that he or she doesn’t like the book and objects to facets of it. That’s the kind of freedom that we must preserve.’ I know that my students will approach this work thoughtfully and critically.” (So now this teacher quotes a famous author to defend teaching controversial material. He puts the criticism of Angels in the mouths of people who are disliked, and defenses of controversial texts in the mouth of a famous published author. And no one sees the manipulative strategy here? I’m sure I could come up with someone famous who would find repellent the teaching of something as obscene and controversial as Angels in America in publicly funded high schools. Moreover, Cormier and by extension this teacher who quotes Cormier fail to admit that public school teachers never present resources that intelligently express the conservative side of the controversy about homosexuality. They never invite famous conservative writers to speak to students. Teachers self-righteously claim that students are free to disagree, but those same teachers won’t provide students with the voices of experts whose ideas will help students think critically from all perspectives.)

Nothing dramatic has transpired. I have stood behind Angels in America in the face of this challenge, and so too, after reading it and discussing it with me have a number of administrators, including our superintendent and our principal. Dr. Fornero and Dr. Hebson are not going to sing their own praises, but I will. And I do so not because of the decision they ultimately made, but because of the process they enacted. This has not been easy, and it would have saved us all a lot of time and frustration just to surrender. (Here he emotes mawkishly that he has stood strong, sacrificing his time and enduring frustration in his steadfast refusal to “surrender,” evidently to the forces of evil.) But they read the play and spent hours discussing their concerns about it and also its merits. I do not believe processes like this one happen in many other schools. (Perhaps, since he was so clearly invested in “sharing” this tale of courage and woe, he ought to haved shared with his students precisely how many administrators were involved in the decision-making process, and how many privately supported the teaching of this play. There were only three administrators, the superintendent, the principal, and the director of learning and curricula, involved in the decision. And what he neglected to inform his students was that many faculty members, including liberal teachers and the English Department chair who quit at the end of last year, were outraged at his teaching of this play.)

That brings us here, to your choices. Angels in America is still an option. It is, I think, one of the most important works of dramatic literature of the last forty years. It is a strange, funny, heartbreaking, inspiring play, one that challenges us as much emotionally as it does intellectually. It is crass and vulgar, harrowing and mystical, lyrical and beautiful. (Now, after all this magniloquence in the service of promoting Angels, pay close attention to the contrast in tone and detail present in his recommendation of The Plague.)

The other option is nothing less than one of the most important works of literature of the last century, The Plague. This novel, written by Albert Camus, just after World War Two, chronicles a group of sanitation workers and their attempts to keep at bay a new outbreak of plague. It is a rich philosophical novel, one that asks us to explore the toughest questions about what we do in the face of human suffering. I have mentioned The Plague a number of times this year, thought of it often, and even urged a few of you to read it. And so it is with great enthusiasm that I place it here as the other option. (That’s it. His description of The Plague pales in comparison to the glorification of Angels in America.)

As I thought with excitement about teaching The Plague to some of you, I became rather obsessed with the idea of teaching the books as a pair. (And now after his attenuated endorsement of The Plague, attenuated, that is, relative to his excessive praise of Angels, he now says that he is “obsessed” with teaching them as a pair. By hook or twisted crook, he is determined to get his students to read Angels.) They are wildly different on their faces, yet I think they share the same heart. I thought of the idea that they would play in a kind of repertory, offering echoes and variations on a common theme. And so, it is also possible that some of you may choose to read both books. There is absolutely no pressure to do so, but if you are feeling ambitious in April, this would be, I believe, an incredible opportunity. (Surely this teacher’s nose grew a few inches when he wrote the words, “There is absolutely no pressure to do so. . . .” This entire letter has been a manipulative effort to pressure students into choosing Angels by playing on their emotions and psychology.)

In my eyes, there are only good decisions. Read Angels in America, read The Plague, or read both of them. But whatever you decide, please do so thoughtfully. I trust that you will.

I believe in literature and in this curriculum and in the intelligence and humanity of you, my students.

And I believe in the wisdom and values of your parents, which is why I want them to know about all of this, too. (Of course, he wants the parents of his students to know about all of this after they, the students, know about it all first. Just imagine the conflict he had potentially created between students who want to read Angels in America and parents who opposed it.)