Sasha Grey

Given what I know of teachers and how stretched they can be at times -- dealing with a room full of inquisitive children while grading homework, coming up with lesson plans, watching to make sure they hit the test scores right and also possibly watching for trouble signs with kids -- volunteers are necessary to make sure that a teacher hits all the bases and has time to teach.

They're also good for kids because sometimes the kids need reminders on how to act when someone not familiar to them is around. Speaking as a parent -- I know my kid definitely acts one way around me and another way around the teachers, strangers and volunteers. Thankfully she's a lot more polite in areas where it's not just me and her and not vice versa.

And seriously, it depends on the kid. If they keep asking questions, then you toss out the non-porn movies that she's done like Soderbergh or Entourage. Most kids I know would be satisfied with that. They might ask her what it's like to work as an actress and I'm sure she's savvy enough not to talk about her porn activities in front of kids.

Yes. To all of that. Not to mention that having six-year-olds read to other six-year-olds means...they...will...like...ly...read...at...this...pace.

I can get why some parents would be upset, but personally, I don't think "these kids MIGHT find out what she did" is a good enough argument to prevent her from doing it. It's the Internet age. If you didn't want to accept a volunteer who might or might not have done something "shady" in the past, you're not going to be able to hire anyone to do anything. Bring in a sports star or non-porn actress and it won't be long before that one inquisitive kid googles information about their steroid abuse or coke addiction.

Oh! And I forgot about the SHEER TERROR of reading out loud as a kid. And how self-conscious you get. Having a kid stand up and read to others has got to be one of the worst tortures ever.

Often those volunteers also sit and work with children in the class who need extra help in learning how to read. They might take a few aside and the volunteer might read & then have the kids read back what they have working on. Like others have said, it gives the attention needed while allowing the teacher to continue teaching the rest of the class.

It is just plain old fashioned slut-shaming at work. I have volunteered in schools over the years -often helping to do this very job and I don't think I have ever had a kid ask me what I do for a living. They are more likely to ask me if I like animals, what my favorite dessert is or if I like some sort of cartoon they are into.

Yes, kids do not care about what grownups do. Like, at all. I have never ever had a kid ask me about my job. Seriously, no six year old is going to ask anyone what that lady who read to their class does for a job. They ask about my clothes, or if that's my favorite book, or if I can read more books to them, or if I want to play Legos, but kids don't think about adults as actual people, and they certainly don't think that jobs are anything to care about. If they heard their parents say "her job is TERRIBLE" then yes, they would ask, but otherwise no. And yes, this is a situation where parents are ridiculous to get upset, and the only reason it's relevant to their kids is that they got upset.

I'm not sure why adults reading to kids and teaching them about literacy is pointless, that seems like actually the best possible thing for an adult to do. Why do we need volunteers to read to kids? We need volunteers in schools to do just about everything, have you been to any elementary school lately?

If my kid asked me who Sasha was because she came in and read to the class, I would have had no idea. "Another volunteer out of the many who come to your class?" I didn't even know her name or that she was a former porn star. Maybe I'm just not in the right loop when it comes to porn but I can't see how it would be completely obvious to all the children and parents that a volunteer reader had a secret identity as a former porn star.