Fighting the fight...

So this past week we had to deal with an issue involving Lisa at her High School. No! She wasn't doing drugs or hanging out at the 'make out' wall. She didn't cut class and she certainly didn't bully anyone in the locker room. It had to do simply with a tiny sheet of paper that came home from her Spanish I teacher asking permission for her to view an R rated movie in class that would help the students learn to appreciate the Hispanic culture.

First of all, can I please say in my defense that I am not an idiot. I have watched my share of R rated movies back in the day as a teenager when my parents told me not to watch them. They involved chain saw masacres and celebrations surrounding Friday the 13th and I still to this day am paying for my lack of judgement in viewing them. Chainsaws will never be my friend and hockey masks are just plain creepy. Anyway...

As parents Arnold and I stand firm on the concept that Rated R movies aren't what they use to be back when we were growing up and trying to sneak into them without our parents knowing it. By today's standard PG-13 movies contain material that would've easily been labeled Rated R only a few short years ago. The industry has certainly lowered the standards and allowed much more MATURE content to sneak into our theaters and even onto our television sets.

Back to Lisa's High School....Arnold and I knew immediately what Lisa was thinking as she handed up the permissoin slip. (Its exactly what I would've been thinking had I been in the exact same position with my parents some 10, 20 or even 25 years ago. Yikes! I'm getting old.) She wanted us just to sign it and let her sink into annonimity in the classroom and not make a big deal of it. Well...if any of you know me you would know that I couldn't just let this one lie.

In order to show Lisa that we were at least willing to research the movie being shown in her class we looked at all the options before we ultimately said no. After googling the said movie it took me only three sentences to realize that my first instincts were correct and this was definitely not an appropriate movie for Lisa to be watching at home let alone shown in her High School classroom.

Arnold and I spent the next hour or so typing up a nicely worded letter to Lisa's Spanish teacher asking her to consider other biopics that would not include the R rating and still serve its purpose in the classroom. And that we would not be signing the waiver and that we strongly encouraged her as an employee of a public high school NOT to show the movie to ANY of her classes regardless of whether or not the parents sent in the waivers to do so.

Am I the only parent that feels this was inappropriate material to show in the classroom? Since when did teachers have to start showing R rated movies to keep the attention of their students? Is there no other feasible alternative? Why do I as a parent have to worry that 1) I'm either going to have to buckle to what the majority of the parents are doing or 2) allow my daughter to have to go to school and be singled out by her peers as she picks up her bags and walks out of the classroom on the day the film is showed because she was the ONLY one who didn't turn in a waiver from her parents allowing her to view an R rated film at school!

I'm not blind nor did I think that High School would be a bed of roses for Lisa. I did not expect her to walk away in 2011 unscathed from drugs, sex, rock n roll, cheating, bullying, etc. But never in my wildest dreams did I expect her to have to face such obstacles from right inside the classroom from one of her very own teachers.

Since when did keeping the attention of students by showing them a film that was 'updated' and 'trendy' and rated R become the only avenue teachers have to help teach their students about a culture?

Well needless to say, it was a very quiet weekend in our house. Deep down inside I ache for Lisa. Knowing very well that although we stood for the right thing, it will not be easy for her. And she alone will have to face the music and walk out of that classroom this week by herself. If only I could be there to give her that support any parent would want for their child in a time such as these.

Ultimately the right decision was made, but right decisions are sometimes really hard to make.