Posted on 06/10/2007 4:52:45 PM PDT by Alien Syndrome
LONDON, June 9 A British teaching assistant is suing an elementary school in London after being disciplined for refusing to listen to a child read a "Harry Potter" book. Sariya Allen told a tribunal she resigned from her post at Durand Primary School after being suspended for "her obstructive conduct over time," the Daily Mail reported Saturday. Allen claims she was "harassed, humiliated and discriminated" against because of her religious beliefs. Her last alleged act of "obstructive conduct" before resigning in 2006 was refusing to listen to a 7-year-old girl read a "Harry Potter" book because she said it was against her Christian faith. Her employers disciplined her after she told the girl "I don't do witchcraft in any form" and said she would be "cursed" by hearing the novel. She is seeking about $100,000 in damages from her former school for religious discrimination.
"I admit I said to the child that I don't do witchcraft in any form," she said. "I was put in the position that listening to the child reading this book would compromise my religious beliefs."
Sorry. I have now read that post. There remain many others who embrace the view you stated earlier, though, so perhaps it would be relevant to them. One of my kids brought a Harry Potter book with him to church several years ago, and one of our members was all over his mother and me about letting him read that stuff. I told him to lighten up, it’s fiction. He didn’t accept that, of course.
Different strokes for different folks. All my classmates loved “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”, but I couldn’t get past the first chapter. Same thing with the Lord of the Rings. I know they are popular, but I just couldn’t get into them.
I totally agree.
I choose not to live in paranoia.
Is that one of those new countries formed from the breakup of Yugoslavia?
There are some things that should be absolutely banned from public school. For example, the reading of pornography. One of my fellow education students said he had a teacher bring in Playboy because the articles were well-written and the teacher thought they would interest students in reading. The argument that allowing students to read anything as long as they are reading has its obvious logical limits. The problem simply becomes where to draw that line.
But when you’re teaching in a public school, there is a need to be consistent with accepted standards. While I don’t believe that Harry Potter should be included in “accepted public standcards,” I don’t control that. They are partly responsible for the growth of interest in witchcraft and I personally believe that that’s a problem. I frankly have a problem with a lot of what is taught and introduced in the public schools today, but I think I can have a much greater influence by trying to be a force of reason in the midst of the insanity than by always complaining about it. Teach kids how to think calmly and rationally. Some things clearly deserve a public “rant,” but you can’t do that often and I want to preserve that for the worst of the worst. Otherwise, you destroy your credibility.
Plus, I’m also aware of how my Heavenly Father has dealt with me over the years. I haven’t always been the most obedient or loving of children, but He has always been patient, never hateful, forceful or raving. He speaks and moves gently in my life because he wants my mind and soul, given by my choice. I think I have a responsibility to do the same to the young charges who come my way.
There was a thread by PJ Comix yesterday on this topic, he said that when he visits a home, he always looks at the books of the homeowners. Mr. X and I mix our books together(mainly because he never puts any books back on the shelves) but there are also books that belonged to my kids.
So, on one shelf there are books by Karl Marx, a book on the lives of Catholic saints, The Indian in the Cupboard, and Bernie Goldberg’s latest. Right now, I am reading the short stories of Willa Cather. Mr. X wouldn’t read it if you put a gun to his head!
I guess my point is that reading is one of the most intensely personal things that someone does...and there is no “one right way”.
You said: I guess my point is that reading is one of the most intensely personal things that someone does...and there is no “one right way”.
***
I could not agree with you more.
Were that there were a million teachers like you.
The current mal-education goal is to teach innocent children to feeeeeeeeeel not to think, NEVER to think.
One boils a frog a degree at a time...
There is some good that comes out of these kinds of threads. Whenever I read one of the “Harry Potter is evil” posts I have more incentive to write my own fantasy story in hopes that some day I can see the naysayers on a thread about my book.
Don’t forget! We should never teach children about the Greeks either. That mythology could make them think they might run into Hercules or something.
One of the cutest conversations I ever heard in church was while waiting for a class to start. Two old ladies were talking about when one of them was taking her grandchild to see the new Harry Potter movie. She seemed to have read the books, too.
DO IT!
There is aways a shortage of good literature!
I totally agree.
I love fantasy. And myth. And I don’t lack imagination. But witchcraft is itself inherently evil, so when it is supposedly the force of good, I have a problem with it. It confuses good and evil. I love stories with elements of the supernatural in it; the supernatural makes great fantasy. But it needs to be clear about the forces of good and evil. Witchcraft itself is not good.
The good thing is I have had to educate myself more on religions, history, and mythology.
Being who I am, and near the front of the line, I said "Hey buddy! The line starts way back there!"
He glared at me, looked down his nose and snottily said, "I'm not here for that Harry Potter book, I'M here for HILLARY's Book."
I looked back into his eyes with the most sympathetic expression possible on my face and calmly replied, "You poor delusional creature. At least we know we are buying a work of fiction"...
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