Sketchbook

Rev. Jerry Falwell Screen Test #1

“Now you see,” said Mark
By Virginia Kidd

To the Editors:

In 1969, California adopted a new line of textbooks for use throughout the state for children four to eight years old.[1] The major line of first-grade texts is the Harper & Row Basic Reading Program. During the fall of 1970, 376,500 students will enroll in the first grade in the California public schools,[2] and most of them will now be taught to read from these books. I would like to examine in this letter the first-grade readers from this series designed for use in “usual” classrooms[3] —not to judge whether they will teach “reading skills” but to show the implications of their rhetoric. These seem to me alarming.

The first observation to be made about the Harper & Row readers is something we all had realized about Dick and Jane in the even more popular Scott Foresman readers: once you start them, there is no escape. That is, the first book is about Janet and Mark and so are the second and the third. Janet and Mark and their ever-patient Mother and Daddy become the first grader’s Everyman. There is only one world in these books—the world of Janet and Mark.

There are no extremes in this recurring world. The rhetoric is clear: a bland world is a good world. The attitudes of all characters are uniform; no one deviates from them. The same kinds of events recur regularly, and they never provoke criticism.

Janet and Mark live in a plain house in a plain suburb.[4] They go to the playground,[5] they go on a picnic,[6] they visit grandma,[7] they own a dog.[8] They buy shoes in a building conveniently named “Shoe Store,”[9] and they give to the Red Cross.[10] Mother wears clothing of another era. She still wears gloves to town[11] and a dress on a picnic.[12] (On one occasion she does don knee-length shorts.[13] While it could be noted that she was at a swimming pool at that time, still we might generally agree that it represents an improvement over the skirt and blouse she wore in the speedboat.)[14]

In keeping with modern trends, Janet and Mark have friends of different races. Negro children are easily recognizable in the playground.[15] Mark’s friend David is clearly dark[16] but Janet still cheers the cowboy over the Indian, and it becomes evident that face colors could be changed indiscriminately without affecting the stories.[17] Indeed, in one unforgettable instance a child changes color with just a flip of the page.[18] While this can be passed off as simple inefficiency on the part of artist or printer, it may well be a reflection of the books’ viewpoint.

The difficulty with this description of a world lies in its omissions. Janet and Mark never talk about school, paint pictures, take music lessons, write verse, or wonder about a God. There are no crises; their parents do not divorce, their grandmother does not move in, they do not wear glasses, their dog never gets pregnant, they’re never embarrassed or ashamed.

They learn to behave in this way from their parents, who never quarrel, espouse political ideals, engage in artistic activities, hire baby-sitters, get sick, display mutual affection, or—most depressing of all—speak to each other. In 410 pages, Daddy and Mother say only two lines to one another: “I want a speedboat ride, Daddy,”[19] and “Look in the box, Mother,”[20]

The language of the reader steadily implies that there is only one sort of experience for all people, as is demonstrated clearly in Mother’s speech when she talks of Mark’s birthday party: “This is what he wants…and this is what all boys want.”[21] And again, when she describes the food for the party: “Just what all boys like! Just what all boys want!”[22]

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