Posted on 10/18/2013 10:36:45 AM PDT by Nachum
Common Core, the controversial set of education standards being instituted by many state governors and education leaders, is coming under fire for its selection of a book that’s on the suggested reading list for 11th graders. 'The Bluest Eye' ok for high school students?
‘The Bluest Eye’ ok for high school students?
The book, a past selection of Oprah’s Book Club, has graphic sex scenes and descriptions that make many readers blush.
The work in question comes from Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison who explains her motivation for the book.
Morrison, says that she wanted the reader to feel as though they are a “co-conspirator” with the rapist. She took pains to make sure she never portrayed the actions as wrong in order to show how everyone has their own problems. She even goes as far as to describe the pedophilia, rape and incest “friendly,” “innocent,” and “tender.” It’s no wonder that this book is in the top 10 list of most contested books in the country.
(Excerpt) Read more at theglobaldispatch.com ...
Had not seen this posted. From August.
I read stuff like that from the time I was 10 or 11 because it was in my house. In sixth grade I got a letter from my mother letting me take out anything I wanted from the library.
In hindsight, it wasn’t appropriate and I set stricter limits for my own children. However, the only reading that actually did me harm was the occult which was mild stuff in terms of sex and violence.
What I object to in the present school curriculum is not the individual book like The Bluest Eye. It’s the endless parade of death education starting in fourth or fifth grade, the holocaust, racism, mental illness, abuse, war, drug use, bullying, dystopianism, despair. Nothing good ever happens in the public school canon.
1) just because it was on oprah’s list doesn’t; make it a good book
2) there are plenty of books that are good for kids without all the perversions.
3) unless they’re trying to desensitize kids to perversion...
Well, we wouldn't want any one to feel bad about themselves, would we? Self esteem is SO important, even to the truly sick, you know.
I don’t know much about Common Core yet, but if Jeb Bush and Huckaby are for it, I’m probably agin it.
The message has been sent: schools can NOT teach ‘positive’ ethical values as they might be seen as support religion...however, they clearly can and are teaching ethical trash.
Schools should not be doing things like that to kids
‘The Bluest Eye’?? Don’t tell me, let me guess.........the evilest person is a White guy??
I remember my son had to read “The Bridge to Terabitha” in middle school. I read it and I thought it was pretty grim with the the kid’s best ever day also being the day his only friend tries to cross the swollen river to their island, slipping her hands from the rope and drowning.
I still am sorry I didn’t tell his teacher what a crappy, depressing book that was.
I thought common core was a generic standard. Standards are not supposed to deal with specific instances. What part of “standard” don’t they get.
My daughter was required to read that, so I read it, as well. One of the more disturbing books she had to read that year. Yellow Raft on Blue Water wasn’t any better. Just different abuse of children in the two books.
It’s OK ‘cause toni Morrison is a black author-—totally oprah and obama approved. It would be torally racist if she wasn’t allowed into the slime named Common Core.
I'm sure the commies at the American Library Assoc include this title in it's “banned book week” list.
No. The book primarily focuses on a black community. There’s an evil father who rapes his young daughter. THe daughter thinks if she had blue eyes, like Shirley Temple, that she would be loved and well treated. There’s a mother, who works as a maid for a white family, who treats her employer’s daughter kindly and with motherly affection, while rejecting her own child. THere are hookers, a predatory homosexual man, etc. With the exception of a passing mention of the white wealthy woman who employs the maid, and of a teacher or two, whites are scarcely mentioned. TM paints a picture of a community of black people, set in about the 40s, each of whom has some serious weakness, or evil. There is one family of what I would consider normal people in the whole community. But that’s just my opinion of the book. I cried for all of the children in that imaginary community. Only about 2 of them experienced normal parental love and guidance. The rest were abused and unloved.
I just read the wiki article. Yeesh, it sounds like the exact opposite of the kind of thing I would have liked to read in high school or any time. Why would anyone voluntarily subject themselves to that kind of book is a mystery to me. Forcing someone to do so just seems cruel.
FReegards
I did not know about that book and started reading it to my child when he was younger. I had to stop in the middle after reading ahead. It was just too dark. He then pleaded with me to see the movie afterwards. I warned him that it did not have a 'happy ending' and was very sad. He still wanted to see it, so I let him see it with his adult sister.
He was sort of prepared for the ending and took it fairly well. We had to talk about it after though.
Yup...
I was pretty much allowed to read what I wanted myself.
In high school, I carried copies of James Burke’s books “ Connections” and “The Day The Universe Changed” to annoy the dingbat history teacher.
If I had really known Ayn Rand and her works (I like a lot but not all her ideas), I would have brought then too. Both comrade economics and comrade government indoctrinators would have lost their minds.
I thought Jerzy Kosinsky’s books were dark. Sheesh.
If you wouldn’t happily read it to your elderly priest, you wont be getting anything of value from it.
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