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I read this in a 300-level college course specific to English majors.
This teacher sounds like she should be working for a social justice org. She sounds like a nutter.
She should not be anywhere near kids or teaching kids.
Eh. I read "The Things They Carried" as a high school senior. Given that a fair number of my classmates' parents and several of my teachers had done tours of duty in Vietnam, the Vietnam War era was a hot topic in popular culture, and that my classmates and I had recently watch a war play out in real time (with heavy editing/censoring by the U.S. government that didn't extend to European new outlets, so we saw a lot of what was going on in French periodicals in my mother's classroom) on national television (the first Gulf War), it was a very relevant read for the mature reader. What we had that the O.P.'s daughter doesn't seem to have from her teacher was proper and useful guidance with little stated agenda than exposing students to interesting and challenging reading material; to let us form our own, supported opinions. (By the way, this was in the mid-nineties in a small, rural, rather conservative town--not in some bastion of liberal, progressive thought.)
Was it an easy book to read? Nope. It was gut-wrenching at times; horrifying at others. We also read some other books that discussed war and its inherent futility including works by Vonnegut. I was later re-exposed to this and other books in college. Having read it as a younger person, then later as a still young person with some life experience under her belt was quite valuable. For high school students such as the O.P.'s child who were born into a country that had, until recently, been at war for the entirety of their young lives, it's not an absurd book for them to have read, granted if I had been their teacher, I'd have had them read select excerpts from the book as it's a collection of short stories with some being less graphic/grueling reads than others.
I don't believe the teacher should be in trouble for having such books on her assigned reading list, but such books should be tempered with other, more classic works if for no other reason that to give better depth and breadth to what books, short stories, and other literary works to which the students are exposed.
Last edited by Formerly Known As Twenty; 11-11-2022 at 11:11 AM..
I completely agree with this. I know now that the entire curriculum for 10th Honors is controversial books. I vaguely remember an email about “challenging texts” at the start of school, but my father had just passed away and my daughter read just diagnosed with a major medical condition, so I didn’t pay close enough attention. That’s on me.
(The medical condition is another reason why I’m concerned. She is not supposed to be under any emotional stress).
Of course there is a whole history of controversial literature that would now be considered classics, but that is not the approach the school/district has taken.
The teacher is not interested in hearing parents’ opinions either.
ETA: I just asked my daughter how she felt reading “The Things They Carried.” She said her teacher warned the class that the book contained “mature content” but that they just “had to get over it.”
Firstly, I'm sorry for your loss and that your daughter is dealing with a medical condition. That's a lot to process and handle in a short period of time.
That a teacher is permitted to have a course with such a limited, narrow scope and call it "Honors English" is patently wrong, in my opinion. The students have been done a huge disservice if for no other reason than they're not being exposed to a variety of reading materials and view points and learning to write creatively, constructively, and critically. Also, a teacher who is so myopic is just as narrow-minded as those who she likely believes that she's counteracting by designing her curriculum as she has might want to rethink connecting with the parents of her students (you know, the other important "leg" besides students and teachers that make up the three-legged stool that forms a quality education).
The way that teacher handled assigning The Things They Carried was immature on her part, to say the least. What constitutes "mature content" for one student might not be for another; she should have been cognizant of that fact. She also could have handled it more constructively. It makes me wonder how class discussions of the book went down or even if there were class discussions at all.
Of course, I have a hunch when her own, personal notions are challenged and she's told to "get over it," she goes in with guns ablaze.
Last edited by Formerly Known As Twenty; 11-11-2022 at 12:32 PM..
So I found out there were two additional choices. “There, There” by Tommy Orange, which also describes rape, suicide, drug use, and gun violence. The other one is “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou, which arguably is a modern classic, but is known for its graphic description of her being raped as an 8 year old.
I did some more digging. The “curriculum specialist” who approves all the books for the e district is a teacher at another school in the district. Based on her Twitter, she is extremely politically liberal and an activist for certain liberal factions. It makes a lot more sense now.
She may be a fine person and a good teacher, but she has a political agenda that is not in sync with our values or opinions.
Eh. I read "The Things They Carried" as a high school senior. Given that a fair number of my classmates' parents and several of my teachers had done tours of duty in Vietnam, the Vietnam War era was a hot topic in popular culture, and that my classmates and I had recently watch a war play out in real time (with heavy editing/censoring by the U.S. government that didn't extend to European new outlets, so we saw a lot of what was going on in French periodicals in my mother's classroom) on national television (the first Gulf War), it was a very relevant read for the mature reader. What we had that the O.P.'s daughter doesn't seem to have from her teacher was proper and useful guidance with little stated agenda than exposing students to interesting and challenging reading material; to let us form our own, supported opinions. (By the way, this was in the mid-nineties in a small, rural, rather conservative town--not in some bastion of liberal, progressive thought.)
Was it an easy book to read? Nope. It was gut-wrenching at times; horrifying at others.
I'm going to add this to my list of must reads. I've read a lot of actual accounts of grunts in Vietnam. Many are now of the age where they want their families to know their stories. Many never mentioned any of it to those closest to them. I reached out to a few of the authors and thanked them for having to courage to share their military experience with the rest of us.
While I served in uniform, the closest I got to combat was being in Bahrain & Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War. I was far from the action. In a way I'm thankful for that. But I did the job that they gave me. ANd I'm the dad of a son with 1 combat deployment under his belt. Hopefully we take less of a military role and more of a diplomatic stance in future global conflicts.
Eh. I read "The Things They Carried" as a high school senior. Given that a fair number of my classmates' parents and several of my teachers had done tours of duty in Vietnam, the Vietnam War era was a hot topic in popular culture, and that my classmates and I had recently watch a war play out in real time (with heavy editing/censoring by the U.S. government that didn't extend to European new outlets, so we saw a lot of what was going on in French periodicals in my mother's classroom) on national television (the first Gulf War), it was a very relevant read for the mature reader. What we had that the O.P.'s daughter doesn't seem to have from her teacher was proper and useful guidance with little stated agenda than exposing students to interesting and challenging reading material; to let us form our own, supported opinions. (By the way, this was in the mid-nineties in a small, rural, rather conservative town--not in some bastion of liberal, progressive thought.)
Was it an easy book to read? Nope. It was gut-wrenching at times; horrifying at others. We also read some other books that discussed war and its inherent futility including works by Vonnegut. I was later re-exposed to this and other books in college. Having read it as a younger person, then later as a still young person with some life experience under her belt was quite valuable. For high school students such as the O.P.'s child who were born into a country that had, until recently, been at war for the entirety of their young lives, it's not an absurd book for them to have read, granted if I had been their teacher, I'd have had them read select excerpts from the book as it's a collection of short stories with some being less graphic/grueling reads than others.
I don't believe the teacher should be in trouble for having such books on her assigned reading list, but such books should be tempered with other, more classic works if for no other reason that to give better depth and breadth to what books, short stories, and other literary works to which the students are exposed.
I’m sure you’ll agree that there is a significant difference between high school sophomores and seniors. There is a reason why 18 year olds vote and can enlist, but 16 year olds can’t.
In any case, my daughter tells me that she hates English class because all of the reading is dark, depressing and traumatic.
So far in 10th grade English - Edgar Allen Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher, William Shakespeare Macbeth. She starting Edith Wharton and onto James Joyce and Hemingway. I don't know about Fitzgerald - but The Great Gatsby is (was) pretty standard across the US.
I don't know what the "f" is going on with public schools!
No only do your school's books contain graphic sex and foul language (bad enough!) but the language is dumbed down. No multisyllabic words! No SAT words!
My daughter can't believe her students have such a limited vocabulary. The words she (& her peers) knew in 10th grade, only a little more than a decade ago, are a mystery to 10th graders now. The decline has been steep.
In business, it will become a serious problem. This dumbed down language will hurt Americans competing worldwide. Even when English is a second language, foreigners will still have a better vocabulary than Americans. Sure, the US businessmen will get the preferred pronouns down, but won't be able to follow a complex discussion.
I was going to say the same thing. Go to any of the websites for the more exclusive private schools and you will see that they are teaching classic literature. But when you see the reading lists for some (not all) of the public school systems it is appalling how dumbed down the reading levels are and how mature, and if not downright x-rated, the subject matter is.
I can see integrating some well written contemporary literature in with the classics to give a more well rounded education, but in some cases the classics are being outright replaced by porn novels which is crazy.
I'm liberal but not the far left progressive type and I agree with the OP 100%. Literature should be not be used as a means to promote someone's agenda. The students should also be able to get some degree of enjoyment from reading. If the book isn't particularily enjoyable, then the teacher should make sure there's a lot of classroom discussion to keep the kids motivated and to settle any upsetting or confusing messages.
I went to school a long time ago but our readings were age appropriate and when I look back, I can understand why the teachers chose the books they did. Mostly they chose books we could relate to. Our 8th grade English teacher had the entire class in tears and unable to leave the room the day we finished the last part of the epic Longfellow poem, Evangeline, complete with solemn music that he brought into class. Most of us were at the age when we were somewhat newly obsessed with romance and this historic and heartbreaking love story held us in its grip. For the last part, he read it out loud to us with the soft, sad music playing in the background. What a teacher. What a poem! We, as a class, sad as it was, and guided by our teacher, loved it.
High school was Shakespeare, Chaucer, and much more literature from England. We learned how the language developed and we learned to appreciate many types of writing. We read many American authors the next year and the raciest was probably The Scarlet Letter. But no one tried to push one way of thinking onto us. We discussed the book and formed our own conclusions--or maybe we came to no conclusion at all. Maybe it was just some food for thought.
Every summer we were given long reading lists from which we could choose a few or even all of the books to read on our own. I don't think we had anything about murders and sex and crime. People can read about that when they're older if they want to. We learned to read for the fun of it and still, the books were exciting and interesting. You don't push an agenda or force extremely dark emotion upon impressionable kids. There's a whole world of books out there that kids can choose and love without getting into dark, possibly dangerous themes.
Teachers can guide kids and cultivate thinking without pushing sex or crime or other needless types of books.
It's unfortunate if schools have lost sight of what they're supposed to be doing and aren't encouraging kids to read a wide range of excellent books. So many wonderful books to choose from.
She had a choice of 3 books for her latest reading assignment:
“Where the Crawdads Sing”
“Bear Town”
And a book about gender fluidity/identity (I don’t know the title).
She already saw the “Crawdads” movie and was not interested in the gender book. “Bear Town” was described as being about small town hockey. She thought that was the least bad choice.
I skimmed “Bear Town” this afternoon, and it is only superficially about hockey. It’s really about rape. And suicide, and drugs, and being in the closet, etc. The book is littered with words that I cannot type here. At one point a character asks his dad, “How do you know if you have a good looking c*%^?” The purported theme of the book is “toxic masculinity.”
“Crawdads” isn’t much better as there is an attempted rape.
My daughter hasn’t even had her first kiss yet and here she is having to read about rape in English class.
I know that the world she is growing up in is not the same as the 1980s and 1990s. But is it too much to ask for some Shakespeare? Austen? Dickens? Fitzgerald? Edgar Allen Poe? Mark Twain?
If we can’t have our kids read the classics, is it too much to ask to have assigned books that don’t contain graphic sex and foul language?
The way you're clutching your pearls over this makes me think it's good for your daughter to not be so sheltered and read about things that happen in real life.
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