Posted on 12/07/2012 10:25:09 AM PST by grundle
American literature classics are to be replaced by insulation manuals and plant inventories in US classrooms by 2014.
A new school curriculum which will affect 46 out of 50 states will make it compulsory for at least 70 per cent of books studied to be non-fiction, in an effort to ready pupils for the workplace.
Books such as JD Salinger's Catcher in the Rye and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird will be replaced by "informational texts" approved by the Common Core State Standards.
Suggested non-fiction texts include Recommended Levels of Insulation by the the US Environmental Protection Agency, and the Invasive Plant Inventory, by California's Invasive Plant Council.
The new educational standards have the backing of the influential National Governors' Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, and are being part-funded by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Related Articles
Letters reveal the secret side of JD Salinger 27 Jan 2011
Why Harper Lee has remained silent 01 May 2011
JD Salinger 28 Jan 2010
Jamie Highfill, a teacher at Woodland Junior High School in Arkansas, told the Times that the directive was bad for a well-rounded education.
"I'm afraid we are taking out all imaginative reading and creativity in our English classes.
"In the end, education has to be about more than simply ensuring that kids can get a job. Isn't it supposed to be about making well-rounded citizens?"
Supporters of the directive argue that it will help pupils to develop the ability to write concisely and factually, which will be more useful in the workplace than a knowledge of Shakespeare.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Perhaps there will be a whole new generation of disturbed stalkers mumbling to themselves, but with copies of "Recommended Levels of Insulation" in their trenchcoat pockets instead of "The Catcher In The Rye."
It's Reason #8979458548 to Home School, no matter what the sacrifices.
You wouldn't trust these brain-deadeners with your car keys, your checkbook or your Online Banking password, would you? Why on God's green earth would you trust them with something imcomparably more precious: the mind of your child?
It's Reason #8979458548 to Home School, no matter what the sacrifices.
You wouldn't trust these brain-deadeners with your car keys, your checkbook or your Online Banking password, would you? Why on God's green earth would you trust them with something imcomparably more precious: the mind of your child?
One trashy, worthless book replaced with several worthless books...
With 3 out of 5 governors being Republican, there’s no excuse for their backing this drivel.
Rather, this is the sort of thing Romney could have run against!
Give me O'Henry. I think ALL his works should be read.
“Supporters of the directive argue that it will help pupils to develop the ability to write concisely and factually, which will be more useful in the workplace than a knowledge of Shakespeare.”
I’d argue that a knowledge of Shakespeare will help pupils develop the ability to THINK, which is a prerequisite to writing concisely and factually.
But O’Henry will not be read either. No more Great Works in Literature. Schoolchildren will learn all about Obama politics and will be taught it is all the truth. Pravda Media and now USSR teaching in our schools.
I won't go into details, but lets just say that, looking back at it now, I deserved the resulting detention. Had I wrote it today, I would probably be considered talented and witty.
Catcher in the Rye had its issues. To Kill remains one of my top favorite books.
But -
Catcher can be used to really reinforce sexual obsession and stalkiness. It is not about a mentally healthy person, but a snarky jerk. And To Kill can reinforce black on white hatred, although our hero is white, so is are our villains; the victim is black.
So if the teacher teaches the books in a politically correct way, I am not too enthusiastic. If the student is left to discover the author and his text on his own, well and good.
Always hated that book.
Too bad they are not replacing it with something decent.
Don't see why this notion, as such, is inherently bad.
There is a lot of great writing in histories, biographies, etc.
The problem, however, is likely to be not the fiction/nonfiction issue. It's the books they will approve in both categories. No dead white males need apply.
“Government is a parasite — a cancer that by nature tries to spread deeper into society. Those who want to run others’ lives won’t give up and start minding their own business.” -Harry Browne
“Schools have not necessarily much to do with education... they are mainly institutions of control, where basic habits must be inculcated in the young. Education is quite different and has little place in school.” -Winston Churchill
Education should aim at destroying free will so that after pupils are thus schooled they will be incapable throughout the rest of their lives of thinking or acting otherwise than as their school masters would have wished ... “ —Johann Gotlieb fitche
Was forced to read Catcher in high school.
Loathed it. I just thought the narrator was an utterly immature jerk.
But then I watched “The Breakfast Club” recently on Netflix and sympathized more with the mean vice-principal than with the snarky brat-pack. LOL
One of the most popular liberal bumper stickers is “Question Authority.” What they never seem to recognize is that this implies sometimes there is an answer. Sometimes the authority is right.
It has nothing to do with the status of the characters, or anything like that. It’s that “Rye” was always an anti-classic, so to speak. Adults don’t get it, man. It can only be “relevant” to one generation at a time. What did it mean to be a catcher in the rye, do you remember? Holden Caulfield wanted to save kids from losing their whateverness in the grownup world. Something like that can’t become a dusty, old library book that your grandparents enjoyed.
Classics are supposed to be perennially relevant. That “Catcher” doesn’t feel right being forced on subsequent generations is a good indication it was never destined to be a classic. It will remain primarily a baby boomer thing, I expect. No matter, there are more good entries in the bildungsroman genre than you could ever read in one lifetime, probably.
I am not crying over the removal of Catcher in the Rye (which I thought was pretentious tripe when I read as a teenager back in the day when dinosaurs roamed the Earth), but Recommended Levels of Insulation and the Invasive Plant Inventory as replacements?
Geeze, Louise. I think the objective must be to raise a generation of kids that hate reading. I cannot imagine anything less motivating than assigning bureacrateze to schoolkids.
*Another* reason to homeschool.
If only.
A real shame. I would recommend books like 1984, Animal Farm, Manchild in the Promised Land (contains vulgar language). For my 13 year old, some books mentioned should be on his reading list for next Summer. He is definitely is being brought up NOT to be politically correct.
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