“Liberty High School has decided not to stage a fall production of the controversial play The Children’s Hour,” reports Theo today, “because of parent and school administrator concerns.”
The play, described by the paper as “about a troublemaker student who tries to smear two teachers at a boarding school by starting a rumor that they are lesbians” at the end of which “one of the teachers commits suicide off stage” was seen by the school principal as not adding “value” to the students’ education.
Worse yet? In the words of the paper, the drama teacher herself ultimately “worried that doing a play that requires a lot of pre-education or talk-back sessions” might be problematic.
High school is not a time of hearts and flowers. It’s right in the midst of adolescence and young adulthood, with all of the surging conflicts that can be both deep and dark. If a play about rumor-mongering and the destroying of reputations isn’t approriate for high schoolers, for whom, exactly, is it good?
“I think it’s kind of sad that our community isn’t quite ready for us to do something like this,” the paper quotes sophomore Mallory Everton as saying. “Everyone has been affected by the words of others. I don’t have any friends who haven’t been hurt by rumors.”
If I can ignore the often-bogus line between so-called high culture and so-called pop culture for a moment, I’d like to add the following Hard Harry quote from Pump Up The Volume: “High school is the bottom. Being a teenager sucks, but that’s the point. Surviving it is the whole point.”
There is a fine line between educating students and patronizing them. It would be nice if public schools remembered on which side of that line they are supposed to be.
Addendum: For background on the now-ironically named high school’s debate over the play, see the earlier Hillsboro Argus story by someone who bases their description of the play on “play reviews” rather than the play itself, but does have sensible remarks from the drama teacher and yet another student. Also see a brief Theo item from several days ago in which Liberty’s principal, who apparently would be feel right at home in 1925 Dayton, Tennessee, says, “If the community doesn’t see this as a positive experience, then our students don’t benefit.”
