Posted on 08/12/2010 9:28:36 AM PDT by AccuracyAcademia
What used to come in the mail in a brown paper wrapper now pales in comparison to what might show up on a high school student’s assigned reading list.
The former usually contained magazines, one in particular springs to mind, that gave adult readers the opportunity to see up-an-coming starlets like Marilyn Monroe naked, whether their loved ones appreciated it or not. The latter gives young adults, sometimes really young youngsters, crash courses in subjects that they probably may never want to master.
“As school was ending last year, Sue Ann Johnson came across a copy of a short story that was assigned reading for her son’s Advanced Placement English class,” Dale Buss writes in the August/September issue of Citizen magazine, which is published by Focus on the Family. “‘I Like Guys’ is a homosexual coming of age tale set in a summer camp.”
Mom found a trio of other similar short stories in her son’s book bag. Some assigned books that Buss examined telegraph their point in the title while others do not.
In the former category are tomes such as Queer 13: Lesbian and Gay Writers Recall Seventh Grade. In the latter category are books such as Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, of which one reviewer on amazon remembered, “I was assigned this book nine years ago during a women’s literature class.”
As Buss notes, The Bluest Eye “depicts in disquieting detail a father’s rape of his 11-year-old daughter.” Stories with a multicultural bent are particularly problematic, especially for the culture represented.
“The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a novel about a boy who copes with his abject situation on a reservation through pornography and masturbation,” Buss reports. The School Library Journal claims it is appropriate for Grades 7-10.
(Excerpt) Read more at academia.org ...
Stay classy, academia.
I teach 7th grade English, and I really don’t think kids that age need to read heavily sexual stuff. It may titillate them, but it makes them uncomfortable too. I find that the books that go over best with my kids leave that stuff out. They like BUD, NOT BUDDY, a saga about a black boy in 1930s Michigan trying to find his father, and JADE GREEN, about a girl living in a haunted house. THE OUTSIDERS still works. THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE does okay (although they like the movie better.) Kids are so saturated in sex these days, yet when I do bring movies into class, they are most attentive to the ones that are aimed toward kids. ICE AGE, NANNY MCPHEE... I wish people would let kids be kids just a little longer.
If you have children in public schools, you MUST examine what is going on in those schools. Check ALL reading material, including the textbooks...and ask about all writing assignments. Join parents groups and respectfully make your influence felt. If the high school level has no parent group...form one.
No more Hardy Boys books I wager?
Catcher in the Rye finally allowed in Jr. High? /s
Those were the days my FRiend.
No, but I do get them through some books I remember from my childhood. BOXCAR CHILDREN works for ESL kids because the language is so simple. I also start off every year with THE WITCH OF BLACKBIRD POND. I also had a couple reading groups that I coaxed through THE LITTLE PRINCESS. It’s hard, though. Kids today just don’t like to read at all. I mean, nothing. A lot of them can’t even focus on a movie unless it’s all action, action, action. They’re so hooked on gaming that they can barely focus on anything else. Well, the kids I work with, anyway. Mostly innercity Hispanic kids.
Thank you. It’s rare to get a kind word around here. A lot of Freepers hate all teachers, even conservative ones.
Thank you. It’s rare to get a kind word around here. A lot of Freepers hate all teachers, even conservative ones.
oops.
Amen.
For the life of me, I can’t see why conservatives aren’t trying every which way possible to get their kids out of government schools.
I know. I read The Bluest Eye as a senior in college, and I still found it inappropriate and disturbing; it gave me nightmares for weeks. Why do easily influenced young minds need this kind of stuff? Stick with To Kill a Mockingbird if you want to deal with race/class/rape issues. Children don’t need to read The Bluest Eye, especially with not only the graphic rape scene but an entire chapter from the prospective of a pedophile as he obsesses about the newly developing breasts of little girls. It is absolutely gratuitous and disgusting.
Just this morning, our "Ronin" vetting committee, a group of interested conservatives, set up questions we are going to be asking all the candidates for School Boards in the Borough. We are really blessed. We have a retired college professor, two homeschooling moms (one with a Master's degree in education), three nurses, and a smart grandma in the group. We are all disgusted with the results of government education. We want to encourage good teachers and weed out the school board members who are sold out to the unions and to the liberal establishment. Pray for our success.
Yeah. I avoid the whole rape issue when I can because 12 year old boys are disturbingly lascivious about it. The very word “rape” makes their eyes light up like Christmas. They aren’t all like this, but 7 out of 10 find the topic pleasurably fascinating. It makes the little girls in my class very uncomfortable, not surprisingly. The only time we really encounter it is when we read the book SPEAK, which deals with a girl trying to cope with the aftermath. The event itself is not described in detail. In fact, you don’t know that’s what she’s dealing with till about 2/3 of the way through the book.
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