Teacher makes high school girl read poem about being sodomized by motorcyclists aloud in class leaving her feeling 'guilty and shameful'
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, COLORADO: A high schooler has been left outraged after her teacher made her read a poem that described being "f***** in the a** by saintly motorcyclists" out loud in class without warning.
The student, 16-year-old Skylar Cason, chose an elective class called Music Literature at the Steamboat Springs High School because she "loves literature and music", according to Fox31, and had been enjoying it perfectly fine until her teacher decided to assign the class an Allen Ginsberg poem for discussion.
The poem in question, 'Howl', not only has explicit references to sodomy but also discusses sailors "scattering their semen freely to whomever come who may" and a "vision of the ultimate c***."
While the poem was in a book that was approved by the school board, it had words that were considered offensive censored. However, the teacher, Ryan Ayala, had his students fill in blanks for phrases such as "f***** in the a**" and "c***" and other lewd language without seeking parents' permission.
Skylar said she felt guilty and shameful when Ayala asked her class the symbolism of the phrase 'granite c***" during a classroom discussion. "The second we started reading the book it just went south," she said. "It was filled with sexual content that I wasn't aware of and I wasn't prepared for."
In another assignment, students were reportedly asked to review a song that talked about sexting and offering sexual favors to a teenager.
Unsurprisingly, parents of children in the class were not pleased, with Skylar's dad Brett saying, "She came home and shared it with us and of course as a parent the way we’ve raised our kids I was like, there’s no way a teacher in a public school would have done this."
"A lot of the kids, you know, were scared to say anything to their parents because it was so awkward and just weird. I was completely taken aback by the material and the content in the material, what she was required to write," he continued.
"I would’ve been fine with it if I was given an opportunity to opt out or give her an alternate assignment. That was never offered to us or her. This is just too sexually explicit, it's vulgar, it's obscene, it's almost pornographic. It does not belong in a high school setting," he added.
Skylar's family has hired a religious liberties lawyer from the First Liberty Institute who will be demanding that the school district make major changes moving forward.
School district superintendent Brad Meeks said the district will work to make sure teachers were aware of "proper procedures around incorporating controversial materials" in the future.