Posted on 06/13/2013 5:15:06 PM PDT by Diago
I substitute taught in three different high school English classes during a unit in which Lord of the Flies was being taught. In each one, I asked the kids if their teacher had explained that the expression "lord of the flies" is a translation of Beelzebub, the Hebrew nickname for an ancient Semitic god that is also used as an alternative name for Satan. In none of the classes were the students told that.
They get plenty of that without the involvement of catholic schools, believe me.
A protestant friend of mine uses your argument all the time -- equally fallacious there. In fact, he used it to say his kids might as well go to a public school rather than a faith-oriented school. That's not a line of reasoning I'm going to engage in. Why not just go to a known Satanic school to prepare for the very worst?
You are correct. I have a friend who teaches 8th grade, and she says the only thing most of these kids can memorize are lines from Bachelor Part 2 or the latest vulgar rap song.
These kids are inundated with cultural trash on a daily basis. A shame that schools would waste a golden opportunity to expose kids to that which is true and good.
Whole Cloth arguments you have there...
Why not require the reading, to allow PRODUCTIVE discussions, and leadership from the School on the depravity-obsessed foolishness?
Oh...that's right, hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.....that's the ticket (pretend it doesn't exist).
Again, the exact words of my protestant friend.
Sorry, it is not necessary to experience evil to recognize it. A woman doesn't have to get an abortion, you don't have to get a subscription to Hustler, you can skip injecting heroin that one time. We all are confronted by evil every day without going out and looking for it.
Now, if it were their intention to discuss from a critical perspective -- to point out the flaws and the immorality (at an appropriate age group -- college), that would be one thing. But this is a Jesuit school. The intention is the opposite.
Looks like my daughters high school.
My daughter attended a Jesuit highschool for a couple of years. Aside from the fact that the principal was an all but out Jesuit priest, who minced around the campus in long scarves with a puppy in tow, she was forced to read book and short story, one after the other about the black experience. In every reading the black(s) were degraded, humiliated and criminal or preyed upon.
My poor middle class black daughter was embarrassed. She could not believe the limitations of the staff who saw blacks only as victims. We pulled her out after a couple of years, we could see the limited leftist mind in action.
One wonders if Greeley took advantage of his condition and the opportunity the Almighty gave him and repented.
We now live in a throwaway culture. Missals containing the Word of God, for example, are now tossed in the trash each season instead of being well-worn over the years and treasured. The pulp these young people are reading today will not survive the ages. They won't even survive the decade.
And to think people pay $11K per year to expose their kids to this. Expensive babysitting. But I guess it "preps" them for the apostasy of college.
This is my daughter’s 10th Grade summer reading list. There are a bunch of depressing ones.
Unearthly by Cynthia Hand
The Warrior Heir by Cinda Chima
Pathfinder by Orson Scott Card
The Good Earth by Pearl Buck
Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes by Chris Crutcher
The Maze Runner by James Dasher
Uglies by Scott Westerfield
I think the Sarah Byrnes book is about a pregnant teen.
Have you read any of these? How bad are they?
Anything’s possible on the deathbed but earlier I saw some quotes from past years that definitely didn’t suggest any sort of repentance.
Pathfinder is a great, challenging read. It’s quite the cerebral sci fi book. The Maze Runner and Uglies are typical teenage dystopian fiction. Lots of issues of the abuse of governmental power. The Good Earth is, obviously, a classic. The others I’m not sure about.
Sorry, it is not necessary to experience evil to recognize it.
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One does not “experience” evil in the reading of a book.
One experiences evil in the company of humans.
JMO.
yes. My reading list in high school was similar. Our teachers were lousy and that made it worse.
But the bad news is it made me hate classical books...
so it wasn’t until I retired that I got a chance to listen to decent teachers (some from free university podcasts, a few from the teaching company from the local library)for me to enjoy Home and Virgil...one of these days, I might actually try to get through Moby Dick...
If you can memorize a vulgar rap song, then you have the ability to memorize Rudyard Kipling's "Recessional" or Percy Shelley's "Ozymandias".
I live in Cleveland. Here is my post which I’ve written on the topic. It contains the email I sent to the President and Principal.
http://contrapauli.blogspot.com/2013/06/eternal-vigilance.html
I advise everyone to do what I did. I actually got a very cordial personal reply from Father Murphy, the President of Ignatius High School.
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