Recently Claire and her classmates were asked what their favorite books are. Claire said her favorite book is “Dante’s Journey”, which is a cute little children’s book we purchased for her in Florence, Italy last summer. It’s a cute little children’s book where Dante’s a little boy and goes through this land with Virgil, his doll. One level includes people who lie and what happens, and so there are these positive messages. She was excited to take this book to class, and at the end of the day, I asked her how it went. She said she wasn’t allowed to share her book “because it’s too scary.” She told me that her teacher said that, then i wondered if her teacher bothered to actually read the book. Perhaps she just saw the darker images or the child walking through a land that was depicted to be hell. Her teacher had the book put away where the kids could not see it.

So now we censor in kindergarten? It’s a child’s book, for God’s sake. It explains why you should not be greedy, why you should not lie, etc… It shows consequences. It’s not the original Dante’s Inferno (which they do teach in schools), so why censor? The kids read Where the Wild Things Art (at this age and younger) with their monsters gnashing their terrible teeth, etc…

So far I have kept my mouth shut, chose my battles and took the book home. But it still bothers me. How much censorship shall my daughter and I go through in her education over the next 13 years?

The day Donna knew she was pregnant one of the first thoughts that went through my mind was driver’s licenses and prom dresses. None of the thoughts had to do with kindergarten. Last week, it was the only thing on my mind as Claire and I went off to register for school. Originally we considered her attending an elementary school near my work but we don’t know what the future holds so recently we spoke to friends whose son attends an elementary school about a mile from our house. They only had great things to say about the school and both are teachers.

So we checked out the school and realized that if Donna were to drive to or from school, this elementary would be so much more convenient for our family. We stopped in one day to pick up the paperwork and we took it home. It was odd to fill it out because it was the same exact paperwork the students fill out at my high school.

Together Claire and I drove the paperwork over to the school; as we exited the car she took the packet from me to take inside. I shot a few photos and followed her in. We met with the attendance clerk and turned in all of her paperwork. The woman said Claire needed to take a placement test, and we asked what it entailed. She said Claire would be asked to identify her colors; Claire’s response was “do you want me to spell their names, too?” Very very fun.

This past weekend I was off at PodCampAZ while Claire and Donna were home. Claire was excited because it began to rain on Saturday, which never happens in Arizona. She ran inside, put on her bathing suit and rain suit, and then ran outside. She played for awhile in her play set area where we have artificial grass (the rest of the yard is mostly dirt (err…. mud)). After that got boring, she decided to play in the mud. This continued until she was pleasantly covered in mud. And as she rubbed mud up and down her arms until she looked “brown”, she called out “look I look like “. She repeated that with her other friends who are African American.

When I was in college in multi-cultural education, the professor wanted us to describe people not by skin color but by hair color, etc… If I got a room full of people and thirty are white and one is black, I sure the hell ain’t gonna say “the man with the black hair” instead of saying “that black dude”. That’s crap. I am a white boy and the first to admit it, but see, I get it. I get what “they” think we should say and not say, but little people aren’t with it, yet.

Does it make me insensitive if I describe someone as brown if they are, in fact, brown? Black? White? etc … How’s this different than saying “the red-head” or “guy with beard”.? It’s not. It’s all in meaning. If you’re talking about someone’s race in a negative way and use him or her as an example, then WTF. You suck. If you’re literally describing someone and that’s what he or she looks like, well then who the hell cares? Not me.

But, as I said before, my 4 1/2 year old sure doesn’t know the difference, so how do I balance between her learning stereotypes of race and neutrally describing friends, like the few “brown” kids at school? In the car on the way home, when we’re discussing school, I’ve specifically not talked about color of people. But she sure does know (you’re an idiot if you pretend to not notice!). I don’t have an answer for you, but it’s something to think about.