Joe Silvestri is a schoolteacher. He teaches American history at the middle school level. He started in New York, moving here to Clark County eight years ago.

"I brought this up to my administrator. I told him in New York I taught 'Roots' (the 1977 miniseries about the history of slavery); I make it a mini-section, I had some questions worked out. I showed it to my administrator. A couple days later he came back, this was my first year out here. And he said I'd better not do that. ...

"So when I went to Kenny Guinn Middle School, I didn't ask for permission. I just taught it; I just showed it. I sent a consent form home for the parents to sign and I never had any problem, five years with no complaints, I never had an issue over it, the kids loved it.

"I would show maybe a third to half the film in class during the fall semester." (The full miniseries originally ran 12 hours over eight nights.) "The kids would beg to see the rest, so I said, 'If you kids are good, we'll have a couple movie nights,' and I showed the rest after school where kids would come on their own volition; I would have a separate consent form just for that, the parents would bring the kids.

"Last year was my first year at Becker (Middle School), and after I had shown a few episodes I guess it became an issue to the administration, and they told me to stop showing it.

"I never had any complaints. The principal told me, 'Yeah, we had one complaint.' I said, 'But everyone signed the consent form.' She said 'Nevertheless, I don't want you showing the film anymore.' I asked, 'Can I show it after school just for the kids who want to come?' and she said, 'No, don't show it anymore.'

"As a government reaction, this is oversensitivity. Anything that's even potentially controversial must be excised from the curriculum. Because when you're teaching 170 people, somebody is going to be offended by something. When it comes to history, it's pretty hard to sanitize everything; it's pretty frustrating. ...

"That was last year. I'm so angry about this, because the kids love this film."

But the Becker Middle School administrators don't have to worry about Joe Silvestri teaching anything controversial in his history class anymore. Because he doesn't teach history, anymore.

"They shifted my curriculum, and I don't know if this is related or not, to teaching basically all geography."

Perhaps they have a surplus of dedicated, innovative history teachers at the school.

But "Roots"? Didn't that show on prime-time television almost 30 years ago?

"It's controversial; it's not politically correct now," Joe explains. "And this is the number one watched miniseries of all time."

But lazy teachers might love to just turn their classes into "movie time," I said, playing devil's advocate. His principal, Karen West, told investigators for the Legislative Counsel Bureau (investigating for state Sen. Bob Beers a parent's complaint that "Roots" had been banned at the school) that the objection to using the miniseries was not only the use of the familiar "n-word' to refer to black slaves, but also the show's length.

"That length-of-time is definitely a red herring," Joe replied, "because I would show a day or two at one time, and then I'd take a break. I used it as a motivation factor. The kids would say, "When do we get to see 'Roots' again?' I would say, 'When you finish the next chapter.' But I would never show more than a third to a half of the whole 12 hours in class. I used it to teach various time periods of American history. At one point (author) Alex Haley's family is seen during the American Revolution, so we'd show just that part when we were covering that time period, and then come back to it later. So I think that was purely a red herring. I think it's related to the language and the power of the film. There's a scene in there where Kunta Kinte is whipped; it's a very powerful film. So I get them to think about these things.

"There's an argument about whether blacks are meant to be slaves, whether it's best for them to be slaves. The slave owner says that's hogwash; slaves aren't born, they're made. He points out that he was an indentured servant. 'I was bound for seven years servitude, and then I was cut free.' So I let them in on this discussion, that people are not born to be slaves, they're made to be slaves. It becomes a powerful discussion with the class. Well, that doesn't happen anymore.

"In the government schools there's no incentive to keep good people; all that matters is do what you're told. They'll target one good person and drive him out. And that keeps everybody else toeing the line. But I've never been one of those people who just toes the line out of fear."

I know Joe Silvestri, father of two. We're both Libertarians -- a group that, at times, could probably meet in a good-sized phone booth. And having talked to Joe at some length, and heard his concern for "making history come alive" for his students, I think that last is a fair statement.

Joe Silvestri's principal, Karen West, never returned my phone call.