Why did Biloxi pull ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ from the 8th grade lesson plan?

SunHerald ^ | October 12, 2017 | Karen Nelson

[PIF]

‘Tale of My Two Mommies’ could be the replacement; if not the companion book, ‘Stories My Two Dads Told Me’ will be used, depending on the gender makeup of the classes.

[Bratch]

There is some language in the book that makes people uncomfortable...

Umm, that was the whole point of Truman Capote's Harper Lee's story.

[Lexington Green]

Mental midgets

[Colinsky]

depending on the gender makeup of the classes.

How dare you suggest that students would have non-fluid genders!!!

[workerbee]

I'm tempted to think that it's "adult" enough and disturbing enough that it might only be suited for college and beyond.

My daughter read it in 7th grade with no problems. "Adult and disturbing" would be the garbage peddled on TV that too many kids that age (and younger) watch all the time!

[Klaatu Barada Nikto]

I didn’t know that government schools still taught kids how to read. Most kids today struggle to read what’s printed on an M&M.

[Bodleian_Girl]

I do think 8th grade is too early for the subject matter.

[miss marmelstein]

I read it in 8th grade over the summer. I thought it was the most enchanting book I had ever read although I was fairly unsure of what rape was. There was only one chapter that confused me - the one excerpted by Reader's Digest: the tea party among the women of Maycomb where Miss Maudie takes them on. It was too subtle for me.

[gnarledmaw]

Good for them. It was SJW mule fritters foisted on kids who had no say as a form of programming. Novels, especially socially conscious ones, are a waste of time and memory. I dont send my kids to school to read nonsense someone else made up. Id rather have them studying textbooks and then making up their own nonsense stories to tell to kids too dumb to study.

Now how do we go about having all Dickens books removed?

[hal ogen]

More “educator” uber-nitwits abusing children’s minds. Of course, these losers hide under the rubric “for the children”.

[xrmusn]

‘Tale of My Two Mommies’ could be the replacement; if not the companion book, ‘Stories My Two Dads Told Me’ will be used, depending on the gender makeup of the classes.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

If YOU were to ‘complain’ about either YOU would be subject to reeducational camps to cleanse your mind and your children would be ‘taken away’.

I guess it is fairly safe to say that “Blazing Saddles” (the original UNCUT version) is not on the ‘required reading list’.

Can’t put “Catch 22” on the list as most of the students - well Teachers - would NEVER understand the gist of the story..

[Gay State Conservative]

It's been 50+ years since my one,and only,contact the book.I was young,naieve and clueless but still understood the power of the work although I didn't understand a lot of the "minutia".

The film,OTOH,is one of my top ten favorites which I watch,on average,once a year along with a number of other favorites.

I certainly could be wrong regarding my "college age and up" remark.But my viewpoint is partially based on the fact (or the assumption on my part) that the book might not have the same impact it might have had 50 (or more) years ago because of how different things are today.

Case in point...me,1969,reporting to Fort Knox,KY for Basic Training.A boy from the suburbs of Boston finds himself in a Company made up mostly of guys from Tennessee,Mississippi and Texas...most of them white but a few black.When I realized that I said to myself "My God...this could get ugly".Turns out there wasn't a *lick* of trouble from anyone...black *or* white.

[donna]

How do we know that “To Kill A Mockingbird” isn’t just full of lies? Perhaps the book is just early leftists attacking the “Trump supporters” of that time.

[bgill]

Scout wasn’t a transgender.

[gnarledmaw]

It is/was. Thats the problem with these socially conscious novels. Write a novel, a fiction, a lie, so you can say anything you want. Construct a problem and lay it out in the manner most effective in teaching your intended propaganda. Present it as a truth. Frame it so it deceptively teaches one lesson while covering for that lesson with a rally for the masses to get behind and bleat. Present it to those too immature to have a framework to judge, question, or be suspicious of the lesson. Programming complete.

This garbage has done nothing more than spread the racism it claims to combat while training the intended victims to fight for their own defeat. I cant believe so many fall for this crap. The posturing makes me want to puke and signalling makes me want to smack some sense into every one of them.

[miss marmelstein]

You remind me of my father - he was a Bk’lyn boy during the 2nd World War and was sent to join the Dixie Division. They kidded him mercilessly and told him tall tales of being married to their sisters. But when he was stuck in the jungles of the Japan theater of war, it was those boys who taught him to survive in the open!

Also, maybe kids today don’t have the reading skills we did.

[Verginius Rufus]

Yes, 8th grade is too young for kids to have to grapple with the concept of the chifferobe.

[Bodleian_Girl]

It’s the rape and incest I think they should avoid until older.

[Verginius Rufus]

I see your point. It has been a very long time since I read the novel (when I was in high school—not as an assignment). Of course the young black man who is accused of rape is innocent but I guess it is hinted that the man who accused him (and later tried to kill Atticus’ children) was guilty of incest...I don’t know if that is clear enough for an 8th-grader to pick up on it.

[Oztrich Boy]

Perhaps it gave too detailed instructions