Nickel & Dimed

Some times I'm amazed at what goes on right here in our little community. Some times it just makes me mad.

Too often it seems, stories come out of Lenoir City High School that defy logic. Most recently it was the Knoxville atheist that somehow worked his way into the school system and then tried to inflict his views on students. I understand that's been dealt with.

Now, it's been brought to my attention, a book that is required reading in certain college prep English classes called, Nickel And Dimed. Not surprisingly, the book is a fairly left winged view of the plight of the working poor in the era of welfare reform. It could be argued that it might encourage children to strive to achieve a life that would be better than working for low wages.

The problem is, the book is filled with graphic profanity along with some belittlement of Christianity and of course written by a self proclaimed atheist. 

My question is, what kind of teacher would require students to read such material? What school system would even provide such material to their students?

Below are just a few excerpts from the book. I bleeped them, the book did not.

She's good to work with but she'll stab you in the back. Linda's OK but she came down hard on Pete last week for letting a dessert slip onto a diabetic's tray (residents who can't make it to the dining room have trays made up for them in the kitchen), and what does she think this is, a go**amn hospital?

No one is going to say, after I vacuum ten rooms and still have time to scrub a kitchen floor, "go**amn, Barb, you're good!"

 I've got another cart full of returns to go, and wouldn't it make more sense if we both worked on the carts, instead of zoning the go**amn T-shirts?

I enter the first day through the kitchen, where a red-faced man with shoulder-length blond hair is throwing frozen steaks against the wall and yelling, "F**k this s**t!"

We all admire her for standing up to Billy and telling him, after some of his usual nastiness about the female server class, to "shut the f**k up."

"So make up the motherf**ker," she orders me

There is no vindication in this exit, no f**k-you surge of relief,

blaring out a rap tape consisting largely of the words "F**K YOU, AS**OLE"

The meeting ends when Andy, one of the cooks, gets up, muttering about breaking up his day off for this almighty bul**hit.

Let's talk about s**t, for example. It happens, as the bumper sticker says, and it happens to a cleaning person every day. The first time I encountered a s**t-stained toilet as a maid

Is this kind of trash suppose to be enlightenment? I'm sorry, this is unacceptable in a high school setting.

I did speak with the Lenoir City Director of Schools about this issue a while back and she said she wasn't aware of the reading material but would look into it. I haven't heard back from her.

While the responsibility for placing this kind of book in the hands of children lies directly with the teacher, the true responsibility is squarely on the Lenoir City Board Of Education who would place such teachers in their school system.

Parents of Lenoir City High School students may want to take a much closer look at the material your children are being forced to read.

Below is a link to the book. Read it for yourself to see what you think or just do a word search for the most vile words you know.

Nickel And Dimed

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10/16/17