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So, I agree with the OP that a good education includes being made uncomfortable or being prodded to think about something other than one's own small world.
In Jr. High (dating myself here, nowadays it's called "middle school"), we had a music teacher who took us through Wagner's entire Ring of the Nibelung, telling the story and listening to the music. I loved it, but at one point, Mr. P. said "God is a myth". I remember him.grinning and casting his eyes around the room for a reaction. He didn't get one there, but some of the kids went home and told their parents, and I think there may have been a bit of a kerfluffle over it. We were a small borough known in the area as "the town of churches".
But it did make some of us think about how at one time these stories were believed to be as real as we believed Christianity to be.
Yes, the things are said by teachers can cause a "kerfuffle".
I do always try to remember the situation with a history teacher on my staff, and also one of my best friends, who was always getting complaints from parents. Funny thing was, about half the complaints about her was that she was a flaming liberal, and the other half was that she was a flaming conservative. And there was a simple explanation. She taught gifted classes and, as a result, often had students debate topics (such as 'was America justified in dropping the atomic bombs on Japan'. And the way she worked the class, students could choose either side of the (an) argument. Sometimes no student took one side of a debate, and then she would take that side. Often she was taking 'the side' she didn't even agree with. But then, certain quotes would travel home and assumptions would be made.
But in many cases, how can teachers really educate without touching on these difficult topics. How do they teach Huckleberry Finn without discussing the issues of race and class? How can they teach World War II without bringing up race and religion?
I went to school in the 1980s and 90s, when we were really indoctrinated with the Cold War idea that America is the greatest country in the world and everything the US did was right and justified. It wasn't until I was an adult when I learned about Japanese internment camps, residential schools for indigenous children, sundown towns and the Tulsa massacre. There's this real push from conservative media that kids were being brainwashed by teachers, but I feel like I was being influenced by the particular narrative that was pushed by the choices that my school and teachers were making. And it wasn't the whole truth, either.
Do you realize that most of the items you listed were likely included in your history textbooks in the 1980s and 90s? The one item that was probably not in your textbooks was the Tulsa massacre. The problem is many social studies teachers don't cover the material they should in their classes for one reason or another.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wac_432
Your post is really all over the place. You're old enough to remember man-boy love in the gayest place on earth, yet you think that sex and violence are moving into children's books in North Dakota.
I live on Planet earth, have elementary-school-aged children, and regularly read the new release books in the children's and young adult sections of the library. My kids bring home a shopping bag full of books each week, and at least a few of them aren't graphic novels (the true scourge of modern childhood literature). Neither the regular print media, nor graphic novels, are more violent or sexually explicit than my books in the 80's and 90's. There's certainly no normalization of pedophilia going on in any broad sense in children's literature.
You might be able to find some edgy graphic novels with gays/lesbians discussing sexual topics and using swear words in the adult section--keep your kids out of those--but they are generally realistic depictions of actual cis and non-cis topics. They are certainly worlds better than the hyper-sexualized ultra-violent comic books (DC and Marvel and all the lesser evils) that were marketed to children and teens during my youth. Those still exist as well, by the way, but some have "mutated" into a more child-friendly Saturday-morning-cartoon versions. I wouldn't call that a good thing, but it's not this sky-is-falling pedeophillic waterfall.
What I have noticed is a trend toward tolerance and inclusivity in Children's books. There are more POC heroes, more meaningful characters who are disabled, and more protagonists coming from a background of adversity--refugees, single-parent, criminal parent, and other disadvantaged backgrounds than just an Oliver Twist orphan, or whatever trope tended to be overused in past fiction. I think this is a great thing. It helps develop empathy in children from stable nuclear-family households, and reassures those from disadvantaged backgrounds that they really can do anything they set their minds to; they don't have to be victims of circumstance but can be the hero of their story.
As for the NYT article; victimization of children will never be normalized. I suppose I shouldn't say so, since school mass shootings have become the accepted norm in America. Research into determining who is and who is not a pedophile seems like a worthwhile pursuit. I'd certainly prefer to know if our youth pastor or baseball coach was predisposed to pedophilia--and appropriate, better-targeted safeguards were maintained--as opposed to not knowing, and going back to the old days where two-person-integrity and other (possibly newer and better-informed) modern protections for children are no longer in place.
If they're assigned upsetting material, they're not going to get a good education anyway, because the upsetting material will be off-putting to them. They won't understand the material, and won't retain whatever they're supposed to be learning from it.
A school board recently removed "To kill a Mockingbird" from the curriculum because "It made people uncomfortable." Well, good. It's the point of the book.
Some school boards had the graphic novel "Maus" removed with much the same reasoning. And it's BS. Young adults should be allowed to feel upset and uncomfortable about this sort of subject.
A school board recently removed "To kill a Mockingbird" from the curriculum because "It made people uncomfortable." Well, good. It's the point of the book.
Some school boards had the graphic novel "Maus" removed with much the same reasoning. And it's BS. Young adults should be allowed to feel upset and uncomfortable about this sort of subject.
Florida removed a graphic novel version of "The Diary of Anne Frank"
Ok, so I read to our neighborhood kindergarten, and am a reading buddy to a 3rd grader. Today, I was leaving and the Principal and an office worker showed me a picture of a common bird and asked me what it was. I told them it was a bluebird, and I turned them on to Google Photo and Google Lens, which will identify whatever you take a picture of…bird, plant, bug, etc.
The school, Principal. I would have hoped she would be up on this sort of thing.
I don't see the issue with that teacher. Race is discussed in school, as part of subjects like history, civics, social studies. Today, gender is, too. Actually it was then, too, because I remember discussing gayness in one class, but I can't recall which one. The teacher sounds concerned that parents are going to interfere in that. What's the problem? The problem is people like you are convinced (by those in power) that simply discussing these subjects is an attempt to 1. make white people feel guilty, and 2. "Groom" students to be gay (such nonsense).
You realize most teachers lead rather conservative lives, married, kids, church? Even in blue states, imagine that!
Not all teachers "lead conservative lives", the way I think you are defining it. In the early 60s, my first grade teacher, who went to college with my dad, had dinner at my house with the school nurse. I learned later that they were lesbians.
My children had three Gay male teachers in elementary school. They were wonderful teachers.
One was actually very active in the church that they attended and adopted two children.
While they are not politically conservative, they live normal lives in suburban America. There is nothing strange about any of these folks.
Ok, so I read to our neighborhood kindergarten, and am a reading buddy to a 3rd grader. Today, I was leaving and the Principal and an office worker showed me a picture of a common bird and asked me what it was. I told them it was a bluebird, and I turned them on to Google Photo and Google Lens, which will identify whatever you take a picture of…bird, plant, bug, etc.
The school, Principal. I would have hoped she would be up on this sort of thing.
Why?
And what has that got to do with the topic of the thread?
Are we resilient? I wonder about that sometimes. A few days without internet or power and we'd see how resilient we are, lol.
After the recent storms here in Northern California, I was without power for 6 days - and no internet for most of that, too (I could get intermittent signals here & there). And I was one of the lucky ones, since many in our neck of the literal woods went 2-3 weeks without. We managed. Just as we did during the CZU fires, which knocked out my power and internet for 5 days, and the "safety shutoffs" in 2019 that lasted 9 days.
But I think, as someone else here said, it's about what you personally expect. Where I live this is a common occurrence, given the natural disasters and infrastructure of our region. If people in NYC or Atlanta had to go a week without power and/or internet? They'd probably go into full-on Zombie mode. lol
A school board recently removed "To kill a Mockingbird" from the curriculum because "It made people uncomfortable." Well, good. It's the point of the book.
Some school boards had the graphic novel "Maus" removed with much the same reasoning. And it's BS. Young adults should be allowed to feel upset and uncomfortable about this sort of subject.
I'm a public librarian, and every year we do a display for "Banned Books Week." One of the things I usually add is a bookmark and/or quiz, where you have to match the title with its reasons for being challenged. The top reason for Anne Frank's Diary is that it's "too depressing." Yeah. Because telling the story (in her own words) of a teenager who was killed in the holocaust is supposed to be....... upbeat and cheerful?
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