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Thursday, July 16, 2009
J. K. Rowling and Phillip Pulman = pedophiles?
Posted by Camile on Thu, Jul 16, 2009 at 11:50 PM
Say you write children's books. As a promotion for your latest work, you decide to visit a few schools and read to children. But before you can do this, first you'll have to shell out roughly $104 to register for a national database. The database will run a background check on you to ensure that you're not a pedophile.
Sound like over kill? Tell that to Britain's Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA).
Under the Vetting and Barring Scheme, children's authors will have to register with the ISA to prove they aren't child molesters before they'll be allowed near children.
Among the authors who would be affected by the Vetting and Barring Scheme are J.K. Rowling, Phillip Pullman, Michael Morpurgo, and Anne Fine. The latter three are now boycotting school appearances in protest.
Read more about the story here, here, and here.
The assumption that children's authors need to be cleared before being permitted into schools reminds me of the rumors that Lewis Carroll and J.M. Barries were pedophiles. Most of these allegations were based on the authors' relationships with children. No evidence exists that supports the idea. This is making mountains out of molehills. Children's safety is incredibly important. No one would argue that. Anyone that wishes to work with children should be required to undergo a background check. Should those checks be extended to writers or other visitors? I don't think so. Visiting writers and other speakers are rarely (if ever) left alone with children during their school visits. Nor, as Phillip Pulman points out, should children be given the impression that "no adult will ever approach them other than to prey on them or do them harm."
Do you agree with Pullman and Fine? Where do you draw the line?
Comments (6)
Showing 1-6 of 6
Alright, that is a great article! That cracks me up J.K. Rowling could be on the same list as a Catholic Priest! So, I wonder about Stephanie Myer, I mean, there is more sex in her books than the entire Harry Potter series....oooh, she's goin' down! Seriously, though, its way, way, way, too overboard.
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It sounds perfectly reasonable to me. It is essentially exactly like the finger printing and back ground checking that we must go through in America. I have no issues with every individual who volunteers in a school be finger printed and undergo a back ground check. Regardless of how much time the volunteer will spend with the children, it's just good policy. Frankly, I think that everyone who works in a school system or with a school system in any capacity aught to have a background check run on them before permitted on property. Now, the part I have issues with, the $140 dollar price tag. That seems seriously overkill in my opinion. Here in Florida it only costs roughly 58 dollars to get your finger prints taken and have a back ground check run on you for school volunteering. That's messed up and sounds like it's an effort to pull in some extra cash to me. It also seems as though this might be a case of discrimination with a possible lawsuit. Unless this policy is broadened to include everyone who works in the school system, then the authors are being unfairly singled out and that would just be wrong.
That's not reasonable at all. These are respected professionals not John Wayne Gacy dressed up as a clown at some street corner.
Guest shouldn't have to do something like that. They are never left alone with kids. Now volunteers, like office workers, and PTA and the like should have to get screened. They are around kids for more then a hour a day,and sometime are left alone with them. The price is a bit much though. The state should pay for the safety of public education.
I dunno, when you go to an Elementary school to volunteer, they do scan a drivers liscence and check to make sure your not a criminal, but I don't think you should automatically be double-checked because your a writer. I mean, c'mon, we're not that weird, are we? hey! Stop that!
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