BOOK ELICITS IMPORTANT DISCUSSIONS OF DRUG USE

It's happened again. Another set of well-meaning parents wants to ban
a book because they think it's inappropriate for all elementary-school
students, not just their own.

Laura and Aaron Nevel of Salem object to the content of the
award-winning book, "The Dead Man in Indian Creek," which their
daughter Echeo Nevel, 10, was reading in her fifth-grade class at
Auburn Elementary School. The couple has filed a formal complaint with
the Salem-Keizer School District asking that copies of the book by
Mary Downing Hahn be banned from all district elementary school
classrooms and libraries.

They're not content to have it read with parental permission or to
have students offered a different assignment option, or better yet,
allow teachers to discuss the book and its content in a constructive
way. Nope, this couple has decided that the book, which is about two
middle-schoolers who confront murder and cocaine smuggling, should be
banned from elementary schools because they claim the content is more
appropriate for sixth, seventh and eighth grade.

Despite its Herculean powers, I'm still of the mind that parental
instinct isn't enough to justify censorship.

Salem Police Officer Craig Seibel, the city's lone officer teaching
S-K children about the deleterious effects of alcohol, tobacco,
marijuana and other drugs through the D.A.R.E. program, said that if
couples such as the Nevels wait until middle school to talk to their
children about drugs, they'll be too late.

"Parents need to realize that middle school is the battleground for
drugs, alcohol and substance abuse," said Seibel, who this year will
reach about 16 fifth-grade classrooms with the Drug Abuse Resistance
Education message. "This isn't the classroom of 20 or 30 years ago. We
need to equip our kids with the skills they need before they get to
middle school and beyond, or we'll miss out. Fifth grade is where we
begin to lay the foundation."

Unfortunately, Auburn Elementary isn't on the list of schools that get
the 10-lesson D.A.R.E. program. Due to severe city budget shortfalls,
Salem's D.A.R.E. program lost one officer this year, and the number of
schools being served was cut in half. Auburn, being in Marion County,
is served by the Marion County Sheriff's Office, which has no formal
classroom drug-resistance education program. Two school resource
officers visit the seven elementary schools as needed.

Don't get me wrong. The Nevels have an absolute right to question
what's being told and taught to their child. But when they want to
stifle a message for all children, it's time to question their science.

Elizabeth McConnell, deputy director of education for the D.A.R.E.
program, applauds the Nevels for caring and wanting to be involved,
but says that if fifth grade is the last year of elementary school,
it's important to give those students who are going to be exposed to
older children information so that they might model good
decision-making. All but a few of Salem-Keizer fifth graders advance
to middle school for sixth grade. Auburn included.

It's all education, McConnell told me.

"Like multiplication and ABCs, we need to teach decision-making,
resistance skills and refusal skills early so that they are prepared
for later," she said.

"We know from research that it is absolutely imperative that parents
first and teachers second talk about drugs. Fifth grade is not too
young. They need it now more than ever," Seibel said. "We need to look
for teachable moments to give them truthful and factual information
about the harmful effects of things like alcohol, tobacco, marijuana
and now prescription drugs. This is not speculation. It's based on 20
years of tested research."

It was just about 16 years ago that the book was first challenged in
the Salem-Keizer district. Then, its violence was considered too
graphic for elementary students, but the district kept the book, which
has won awards from the Children's Book Council and the American
Library Association. It's important for parents to protect their
children's innocence. But it's equally important for parents to admit
to themselves that their children's universe isn't perfect, and that
they can only control their steps in it. If the Nevels want to shelter
Echeo from some realities until they believe she's old enough to
process them, that's their prerogative. They can home-school her or
request an exemption from the lesson.

What they should not be allowed to do is quash the candid discussions
that children Echeo's age are having. Teachable moments should be
savored, not squandered. If they're talking in the schoolyard or at
home, those are moments parents and teachers can use to their advantage.

Since 1975, the University of Michigan Ann Arbor has done an annual
survey of American youths, called Monitoring the Future. The study
concluded that in the past three decades initial marijuana use has
fallen from the 15- to 16-year-old age group to 13- to 14-year-olds.
We cannot allow it to drop any further.

Dr. Herbert Kleber, professor of psychiatry at Columbia University and
a member of D.A.R.E's scientific advisory board and a pioneer in
research and treatment of substance abuse for the past 40 years, said
it best when he told me that not talking to fifth graders was a missed
opportunity.

"As parents, we want to do everything possible to protect our
children," Kleber said. "Unfortunately, keeping them from certain
kinds of knowledge may do less to protect them and instead make them
more vulnerable."

If the Nevels don't want Echeo to read the book, they have every right
to ask that she be assigned a different story. But the book should
stay on the shelves and in the libraries, and parents and teachers
should talk about its message. Sooner rather than later.