Book of Questions Violates Values Clarification Policy

by Joel McNally

August 27, 1996

Imagine a teacher using a book in the classroom that raises provocative moral questions and forces students to think about their answers. That sounds dangerously like education to us.

But not to worry. Once again, a parent's protest has kept a book from falling into the hands of young people. That was a close one.

This book was even more frightening than most. It was called "The Book of Questions." The only thing worse would be "The Book of Love." This book consisted entirely of questions. Hard questions. Questions that made students think. Heaven forbid.

An English teacher at West Allis Central High School was ordered to stop using "The Book of Questions" to help students come up with interesting topics to write about. What are students doing writing about interesting topics in school anyway? We didn't need interesting topics when we were students. We always wrote about whether Red China should be admitted to the UN.

Some of the questions in the book related to sexual behavior such as one that asked whether you would have sex with a stranger who offered you $10,000 if there was no danger involved and payment was certain.

For a change, though, sexual content wasn't the reason for the complaint against the book. The teacher had specifically avoided questions related to sex, drugs or alcohol.

The primary objection was that the book didn't provide answers. Not even in the back of the book. That turns out to be a violation of some gobbledygook in the West Allis-West Milwaukee school district called a values clarification policy.

This is an example of the subversion of education in recent years by people who have no concept of freedom of expression and thought as fundamental American values. The on-going battle of the American Civil Liberties Union is to educate everyone including educators about the benefits of living in a free society as guaranteed by the US Constitution.

When nobody was looking, the West Allis-West Milwaukee School Board passed a so-called values clarification policy that specifically prohibits teachers from presenting moral dilemmas in the classroom without telling students what to think.

That's not an educational policy. It's a policy against education. It means students are never taught to think for themselves.

Socrates was the one who invented the teaching method of asking questions. It's a good thing that old coot never applied for a job at West Allis Central. Thinking obviously has no place in the West Allis-West Milwaukee school system.