Now that more students are having to write about Looking for Alaska, I'm getting more and more email requests for a biography that is not years-old and primarily kidding, like the one here.

(For some reason, it seems that when students are asked to write about a book, they are also asked to discuss its author. This is a little weird, since anything good in my books is more likely to be found inside them than inside me. But I suppose that we can no longer "read and run," as Salinger put it. We have to know that Twain had a crush on a girl like Becky, that Salinger was fixated on teens, that Ann M. Martin was denied the opportunity to be a babysitter, and so eventually turned to writing about them.)

So anyway, I am trying to write a bit about myself that will be useful to students.

In this process, I have come across the wikipedia page about Looking for Alaska, which has recently been edited to include something about "the controversy" surrounding the book. In a conversation about the book over at the excellent ASIF blog, I said this:

"You know, I believe that sexual morality is important. I really do. But Jesus Christ. There comes a point when you begin to confuse having a system of sexual morals with having an actual comprehensive system of morals, and it seems like we're coming to that place. The relentless focus on sex and nothing else--it's sort of weird, really. Why is it that some people find it so repugnant that a book contains a brief, funny scene about how physical intimacy can be uncomfortable and awkward and generally miserable -- and yet no one mentions the fact that it contains teenagers who binge drink and smoke?

"By focusing narrowly in on this one facet of morality, we really do a disservice to the larger moral questions: How should I treat others, and how can I expect myself to be treated by the world? What should I value? What if anything is the meaning of suffering? What are my responsibilities to the social order? How do those responsibilities differ from my responsibilities to my friends?

"Those are questions worth asking, and while sexuality has some bearing on those questions, it's certainly not central to them. Maybe I'm crazy, but I've just never thought that sex is THAT important in the scheme of things. And that, finally, is why I only devoted about 800 words of my 65,000 word novel to it."


I still believe most of what I said there. But I've been thinking recently that there's another argument to be made here. When people say that a certain book should not be taught in schools, or that it should not be on the shelves in school libraries, we should remember that schools do not exist for the benefit of parents, or for the benefit of students.

Public schools exist because they are good for the community. They help us build infrastructure; they help our economy grow; they keep us competitive in the world; they make us better citizens and people.

(That's why it's in the best interest of all Americans, at almost all times, to vote for school bond issues--whether you have kids in school or not.)

Schools are as much for me, an adult with no children, as they are for parents of school-aged kids or the kids themselves. And ergo, I should have as much say in what they study (whether it's evolution or world history or an English class) as parents should.

I realize that they are your kids. I understand that. But they are our citizens. So parents and school administrators must inevitably have some say in what children are taught. But ultimately, the authority lies with the community, not with the parents. And as a community, we put our trust in well-trained teachers and librarians who are professionals in their field and know how to educate children in the interest of the public good.

Which is a very, very longwinded way of saying that I think we should let teachers teach.