Book banned in Fort Cherry

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ^ | 11/29/03 | Jane Elizabeth

[Snidely Whiplash]

I know. I read the papers, too, Gary. There was something about that Generation X that seemed to send our culture into a nosedive.

I think you misspelled "Baby Boom Generation." What came after is the product of their misspent, navel-gazing youths and adulthoods.

Snidely

[Snidely Whiplash]

Heh. Remember way back when an unmarried couple living together was called 'shacking up'
and was discussed only in whispers because it was too shocking to say out loud?

You know, I was talking to my mom about this sorta thing a while back. She was raised in the 50s and 60s
in a working class background in the Upper Midwest. She (and my dad, as well as numberous others in their
age bracket) have told me that wife-beating, alcoholism, illiteracy, whoring around and general moral dissolution
was quite rampant then - it's just that no one talked about it. These days, it's all out in the open, as if the
entire society is one big Jerry Springer Show.

I'm not sure which I prefer more...I'd much rather that wife-beaters and child molesters be publicly exposed
and humiliated as the predators they are, and alcoholics and drug users shouldn't be afraid to ask for help,
but it seems that dragging one set of social ills out into the light has brought along with it a host of others
that I'd just as soon see shoved back under the carpet - stuff that doesn't necessarily need to be public
information.

Snidely

[Pedantic_Lady]

Many of them have parents who've been married several times, or "shacked up" with significant others. The kids watch cable TV, R-rated movies, and MTV. Some of the students are parents themselves, although these students generally aren't in the AP classes. I've taken up notes and "slam books" from students that would rival porn novels.

I don't doubt it. I take it you're a teacher? If so, bravo. Round of applause. Too few people appreciate teachers.

I'd say the average 6th grader is more worldly wise than I was as a senior.

Scary.

As was I. My mother figured that if it was too "mature" for me, I'd get bored and find something else to read.

Exactly. I checked out a copy of The Satanic Verses from the library when all that controversy was going on...I was pretty young, about 13. The woman at the library raised her eyebrows, but my library card permitted me to check out any damn thing I pleased, so she just stamped the book and gave it to me. I didn't get past the first chapter. I've since read the entire book and I still don't see what the fuss is about; it's one of the most boring things I've ever read.

For some reason, I don't remember parents fussing about anything we read in high school. I don't know if it was still long enough ago that parents trusted teachers, if I've forgotten about parents fussing, or if nothing we read was that controversial. I know that I learned enough to CLEP out college English, so it must have been adequate.

I took both AP English tests, scored 4s on both, and didn't have to take English in college either. These parents are just making things more difficult for their own children. AP English courses generally read books that are on the syllabus for the AP English test...most of the point of taking the course being earning a passing score on the AP test at the end of the year. Why else would a high school student put themselves through such a difficult course, possibly jeopardizing their GPA? College credit, baby. I started college with 35 hours of credit, having taken five AP tests and two SAT IIs, earning 19 hours with one AP score alone. It was one of the best things I ever did for myself.

[gcruse]

Yeah, maybe it was all going on and nobody talked about it around the kids. It wouldn't surprise me that we aren't going to hell in a handbasket any faster or more so we ever did. It sure won't be the first time that lament has been heard.

[ladylib]

No, they love it there, but it is getting built up.

[ladylib]

It's ashame when parents have to send kids to schools that don't reflect their moral values. I'm not a proponent of vouchers, but something should be done to give parents more choice. I guess if one can't afford a private school, then homeschooling is the only recourse.

My niece attends a private school because that school reflects her family's values. The public high school down the street from her is one of Newsweek's top 100 public high schools in the country, but it wasn't even considered.

[Darksheare]

OKers.
Some of the insanity of the local building boom I could do without.
(We have Herons, Northern Harriers, Owls, Whippoorwills and Kingfishers here.. but not for long if they keep building like they are.)

Said insanity consists of people moving out here and calling the cops to remove the vicious man eating deer from their yard.
*chuckle*

[ladylib]

Or newcomers or guys from Brooklyn coming up in deer season and wearing camaflage.

[Darksheare]

That's always wortha alugh.
Had some guy recently shoot someone's dog, tie it to tehir hood, and show their friends the deer they bagged.
You name it, it's been shot and 'mistaken' for a deer.
My personal favorite was the guy who was out hunting with his buddy, and as his friend rustled through some brush, took a load of double ought in the gut because the first guy thought it was 'a monster buck' coming to get him.

And teh one guy who topped off his tank with some bear whiz mislabeled as 'lite beer', and then stumbled through teh woods hunting.
He comes to a barbwire fence with a large sign nearby that says, "No Trespassing"
He sets his shotgun down, climbs over the fence, and then grabs teh barrel of teh shotgun with both hands.
He yanks it towards him.
It gets caught on something and goes off.
Ooops.

Hiking during hunting season around here is dangerous, regardless of whether or not one is wearing blaze orange.
*chuckle*
Gotta love the out of area types that have no idea what they're doing coming out this way.

[carpio]

Instead of this crap students should be reading Orwell's 1984, Hemmingway's A Movable Feast, Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn and Melville's classic Moby Dick.

Undoubtably much better choices on purely literary grounds. However I recently heard a somewhat female high school educator commenting on the political incorrectness of teaching only the writings of dead white men.

[Timmy]

Instead of this crap students should be reading Orwell's 1984, Hemmingway's A Movable Feast, Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn and Melville's classic Moby Dick.

Hah! No one should be forced to read the overrated, interminable, waste of paper that is Moby Dick. In fact, I have to question whether you have actually read it, as those who call it a great work usually have not themselves read it. The other two books you list are, indeed, classics.

[Pedantic_Lady]

It's ashame when parents have to send kids to schools that don't reflect their moral values. I'm not a proponent of vouchers, but something should be done to give parents more choice. I guess if one can't afford a private school, then homeschooling is the only recourse.

Well...schools aren't there to teach children morals. That's what parents are for. Schools are there to teach kids how to read, how to add and subtract, etc. Morality and the ability to apply knowledge doesn't usually even come into it until the university level...so I don't see what the fuss is about.

My niece attends a private school because that school reflects her family's values. The public high school down the street from her is one of Newsweek's top 100 public high schools in the country, but it wasn't even considered.

Not knowing what her family's values are, I can't really comment on that.

[ladylib]

Schools do teach morals, and not only that, they usurp the family's moral values. For example, when kids in a California high school are indoctrinated in the homosexual lifestyle during an assembly without the express written permission of their parents (and the school is legally required to opt out students if that's what their parents want), that school is teaching its own brand of morality and usurping parental authority. That's what the fuss is about, and it doesn't happen just in California.

As far as academic subjects are concerned, well what can I say? Perhaps if the schools teach sex education/homosexual indoctrination/transgender lifestyles as poorly as they do academic subjects, we won't have anything to worry about.

[3catsanadog]

I read "Catcher in the Rye" when I was in my late teens. What I remember most about the book was wondering what was the point?

Maybe if I read it now (in my early 50's) my opinion would change, but back then, I thought the book was stupid and boring.

[kitkat]

***Maybe if I read it now (in my early 50's) my opinion would change, but back then, I thought the book was stupid and boring.***

With an open mind like yours, I KNOW you'd see the book differently now. Many people condemned the book because they thought it was either boring or immoral when it was actually a look into the mind of a very moral young boy. Thanks for your polite reply.

[3catsanadog]

Hey, I might go down to the local library this week and borrow it! I'll get back to you then with my opinion.