Posted on 08/15/2007 11:16:07 PM PDT by napscoordinator
Ender’s Game is great. Although I wouldn’t advise carrying on in the series (especially the Ender’s Shadow series), as it gets a tad more violent from there on in.
Admittedly, there’s one rather violent scene in the book where Ender ends up hurting rather badly (and killing) a bully who was attempting to do the same thing to him, but I don’t think self-defense is in any way a bad thing to see, even in a book.
Now, to the main body of this thing. The problem with reading in schools is that, primarily, around 75% of students in high schools (at least in Australia) are in Standard classes. They have no choice as to whether or not they do English, and many don’t enjoy it in the slightest.
Forcing people who dislike reading fiction to do so, and then, on top of that, forcing them to read century-old fiction that no longer has any direct meaning to them so far as they can see (and without the drive to attempt to understand it) will inevitably result in teenagers like myself not reading it, and failing.
Sure, I enjoy classics. I read Dickens, Shakespeare, and, although I didn’t think it was the most brilliant thing I’d ever read, I thought Beowulf was a good tale all the same.
You can say “Well, just force the kids to read it all anyway.”. The problem here is that not all teachers are equipped to teach these things in an interesting manner.
Let me illustrate this with a personal anecdote. In Year 8, we were taught Macbeth. We were sat down, and told to watch a video with people talking in near-indecipherable accents in Ye Olde Englishe. In the end, most people were asleep, and our class, as a whole, failed miserably on Macbeth. Sure, we were TOLD what we needed to know, but we weren’t taught it well.
By constrast, this year, Year 11, we were doing Othello. We acted it out. We did scenes from the play, and we went over it in a timeframe of weeks, slowly deconstructing the play, learning the terminology, putting forward different ideas and theories as to why certain things were as they were - even when you’re older, and supposedly a bit more mature than other teenagers, mock swordfighting is still a cracking way to get into something.
I can tell you the plot of Othello. I can tell you about the characters, about the social issues that framed the play, and I can even give you a bit about the history at the time.
The message to be drawn from this, though, is that, when something is made interesting, we teenagers are much more likely to learn.
And texts that are written in and about present-day issues and dilemmas are much more likely to be interesting.
That looks fun - I’ll have to try the library and used book store. My 13-year-old son is on a spy-fiction kick, all sci-fi gadgetry stuff. Not my cup of tea, but it makes for interesting dinner conversations.
Tolkien has such exquisite sentences. Reading LOTR is like being in a beautiful cathedral.
I think I might re-read both just for a new perspective.
Because the classics were written by white males.
Modern literature doesn’t even need to be grammatically correct. After all, grammar is “linguistic oppression”.
Do you believe that a school, in exercising selectivity in student assigned reading, and in choosing the good over the bad, is "banning books"?
Thanks for calling me on this Jim, and sorry I couldn't respond sooner. I read your response yeterday, but wasn't in a position to respond then.
IMO, it is the duty of schools to educate children with the goal of forming a sound foundation so that they can continue to learn and make their own choices as they enter adulthood. It isn't the school's duty to expose kids to things that are way over their heads.
Those tasked with approving/disapproving of what our kids should be exposed to, should limit the materials to things that are age appropriate. There's just no need to expose kids to certain issues at the K-12 level. When kids are exposed to these issues, it's just an attempt by an elitist cadre of people determined to social engineer our kids into a mirror image of themselves.
I'll get off topic a bit here, but when I hear of high-school students skipping school to participate in political protests, it is clear evidence of an activist teacher. Have you ever heard a child espousing a view on some subject at an early age and thought, this kid is just echoing the views of an adult they've been exposed to. You can generally tell, when they voice firm opinions on life issues that they couldn't have possibly formed at such an early age. My thoughts on subject matter presented by teachers or books, is about the same. Age appropriate...
Now, if those given charge to approve/disapprove of materials and subject matter can't handle the position properly, someone else should step in individually or as part of a group. And while I agree with the ultimate last step, I would like to avoid it if at all possible.
When we go down that path, the idiotic is too easily attached to the reasonable. I don't think homosexuality is a topic that kids need to have demystified by the schools. If kids were exposed to a frank book on that topic, I'd have a problem with it. I don't like it covered in sex education either. To me it would make sense to band with other parents to stop this. What would probably happen though, is that some leftist agent would jump in and demand any reference to Jesus be removed from reading materials, just to put the brakes on the whole effort. It's sortof like opening a Constitutional Convention, while good things could come of it, bad things would probably also come of it.
In theory, I'm not a big fan of opening up pandora's box. I am in favor of school boards making reasoned decisions that let our kids be kids. If a rogue board can't, then I would probably approve of a parental group stepping in. I'd just rather things not get that far.
The next election, I'd do my best to make sure the offending board members were retired to the nearest local commune, where they could live out their fantacies out of eyesight of the children they had been tasked to educate and protect.
I hope this dad sticks to his guns and gets like-minded parents to back him up.
The public schools have gone way too far in their mission to corrupt children’s minds and souls, and to dumb them down in the process.
Serious as can be. Read the books:
Murder - Harry's Parents for starters; Many more along the way.
Kidnapping - Ginny Weasley kidnapped by Tom Riddle in Book 2. More later.
Torture - Cruciatus Curse used many times, including by Harry himself.
Slavery - House elves enslaved by wizards.
Child Abuse - Harry's treatment at the hands of the Dursleys
Theft - The Marauder's Map was stolen from Filch.Harry, Hermione, and Ron rob the Wizard Bank, Gringotts.
Animal Cruelty - Harry's Owl Hedwig was injured by Umbridge
Voyeurism - Moaning Myrtle watches Harry bathing in Book 4.
Interspecies lust - Several of the girls swoon over the centaur Firenze. Aberforth Dumbledore imprisoned for improper conduct with goats.
Underage Drinking - Consumption of Butterbeer and firewhiskey by teenagers common and condoned by parents.
Interracial dating - Harry and Cho, Ginny and Dean Thomas, Cedric and Cho, and on and on.
Ah I see, the part I had trouble believing was that you put interracial dating in with interspecies lust, voyeurism, child abuse, etc.
If you aren’t being facetious, then I have to say your white robe is showing FRiend.
I also left out bad table manners, but there’s plenty of that, too.
Bleak House is a snore fest? It might be his best!
What Dickens and Tolstoy did you read? It really doesn’t get any better than War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Unless you just don’t like long novels.
I am sure Chaucer would interest them quick enough.
>>> the translation by Seamus Heany <<<
I like Heaney’s translation, too.
Unfortunately, I read his introductory essay, too. What a pompous, self-serving *ss.
I like the Heaney version too.
LOL Who is reviving all these old threads today?
>>> Ender’s Game is great. Although I wouldn’t advise carrying on in the series (especially the Ender’s Shadow series), as it gets a tad more violent from there on in. <<<
I dunno. Card does a good job with the plot — E.E. “Doc” Smith and Robert Sheckley would be proud — but completely misunderstands (or wussifies) Heinlein’s _Starship Troopers_.
_Xenocide_ was OK for the unusual aliens; not OK for the extreme wussiness. I found the rest to be unreadable.
In this day and age, you expect them to find sex talk in Middle English titillating?
I remember this thread. After the discussion, I checked out the recorded book of “My Antonia” and actually liked it (as did my 12-year-old, or I guess he was 11 back then, maybe 10). Since then, I’ve read another 5 or 6 of Willa Cather’s novels, and I think I’ve found all but one of Edith Wharton’s at the library.
I have read Dickens - something about a worker in a mill with a sick wife he hated; I think it ended happily with both of them dead. Boring AND depressing.
Anna Karina (which I admit I haven't read) is described “four hundred pages where nothing happens, then somebody's aunt dies.”
If I'm going to read classic, I'm going to read Ivanhoe, or The Scottish Chiefs, or something like that.
There’s plenty of prurience in literature, if you look at it the right (wrong) way: I’m sure there’s plenty to carp about in “Titus Andronicus” as well as in a plethora of operas.
Difference is many of the classics are redemptive (i.e., triumph of good vs. evil), whereas I find a lot of the current crop celebrates victimhood.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.