Middle school students prove maturity in censorship battle

The Sherwood Gazette, Mar 3, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (4 Reader comments)

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When Sherwood Middle School principal Anna Pittioni made the last minute decision to postpone her school’s production of “Higher Ground,” an original play by sixth-grade teacher Jennie Brown that confronts the harsh reality of bullying, she cited concern for her students.

Pittioni worried that her students were too immature to handle certain aspects of Brown’s play, including the fact that an obese girl is called “a cow,” a teacher is called “a Nazi,” and a mentally disabled student is called “a retard.”

“The issues that are raised are extremely sensitive,” Pittioni said in an interview with The Gazette. “They’re poignant, they’re hurtful and I’m not convinced students are ready to view the play as it is.”

Pittioni’s students disagreed.

In a display of what we view as extreme maturity, the cast of “Higher Ground” voted to reject Pittioni’s request to censor the script, even though it meant that their months of hard work might be in vain.

Then these students took it a few steps further. Some of them refused to let the play die and started hunting for alternative venues to perform “Higher Ground.” Others decided to go public and let the media interview and photograph them – something most adults related to this story refused to do.

Fighting against censorship and going public with controversial opinions shows that these students are not only mature enough to handle the content of Brown’s play, but mature enough – and courageous enough – to stand up to the very adults who say they’re too young to understand the realities of bullying, homophobia, racism, sexism and violence that have become a daily part of being a young person in this country.

After reading through Brown’s play, we wonder if Pittioni – and the parents who called her three days before the play was supposed to open to complain about the script’s content – have ever really opened their eyes to what’s going on in our schools today.

Bullying is rampant and it doesn’t start in middle school. Most of Pittioni’s students have probably been putting up with teasing – or teasing others – since they were in kindergarten.

According to a 2001 report by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency, “bullying generally begins in the elementary grades, peaks in sixth through eighth grades and persists into high school.”

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