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Status:
"I don't understand. But I don't care, so it works out."
(set 8 days ago)
35,634 posts, read 17,975,706 times
Reputation: 50663
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Quote:
Originally Posted by InformedConsent
You claim having students read TKAM is "like giving the students a book about a gruesome murder to read, and then making the point that the book sends a law and order message." Nothing could be further from the truth. You, yourself, have exposed the fact that you did not comprehend TKAM.
If you've got a school with 1.5% white students and everyone else black, teaching KKK atrocities will make those students feel extremely uncomfortable and isolated.
Can you NOT empathize with that truth?
I can empathize with a student feeling uncomfortable - - I can't defend taking a work out of the curriculum.
In my middle school class of 250, we had fewer than 10 Jewish students - -we still talked about the Holocaust, still read Anne Frank.
From a 2018 study:
66% of Millenials don't know about the death camps in Auschwitz.
41% of Millenials believe there were 2 million or fewer Jews killed in the Holocaust.
22% of Millenials say they've never heard about the Holocaust.
You don't teach these topics in grade school, you lose the opportunity to ever teach it.
Both books have been banned on and off over the years in fact one district in Virginia banned TKAM in 1966 as "immoral". The language of Mark Twain as written always raises the ire and when allowed it is usually at the higher grades where a constructive conversation over those times can be held with the students.
So with the current climate I am not really surprised, schools walk a tight rope between exposing kids to new thoughts and ideas and those that only want what passes their filter test. There is normally a formal procedures in place for vetting books for approval but to also to review and remove books when a formal complaint is filed and its found to be justified.
There are groups that glean the Online Library Catalogs for both schools and public libraries looking for books they don't approve of and then issue challenges to them being in the collections. You should have seen all the complaints against the Harry Potter series in the schools...
I think its the wrong thing to do. These are two of the greatest classics of American literature. Both books have anti-racist themes. They also provide a great opportunity for teachers to explain to students the racist context of the times, and why certain words that were used then are now considered extremely offensive.
I completely agree about teaching the holocaust to all - so we're not damned to repeat it.
And I do agree with teaching our racist history to high schoolers. In this one case, this story is about one school district that has 1.5% of the students who are black, and the student's parents said their kids were uncomfortable with the N word in the two books chosen.
I can empathize with them. And can understand why the admin of that district might want to replace those books with ones where the language wasn't so cutting, while leaving those books in the library or perhaps on an suggested list for book reports.
(An aside, I don't see how any Millenial could have gotten out of the schools in my district without knowledge of the Holocaust. In middle school they read Night by Ellie Wiesel, and in high school read Anne Franke and watched Schindler's list in the classroom. I would be very interested in the exact study that came up with those numbers of ignorant people - just doesn't seem possible.)
Ok. Here is my perspective on a similar situation:
I am of Vietnamese descent. I went to a MN high school where I was the only Vietnamese as far as I know, and the total East Asian population of said high school was probably close to 1.5%, with the rest majority White.
During my high school American history class, we studied the Vietnam War, from the American perspective naturally. I was not only the only Asian in the class, but as everyone knew, the only Vietnamese. And to top off the uncomfortableness of the whole situation, my teacher was a Vietnam Vet. All this occurring less than 15 years after the traumatic (for everyone involved) end of the war.
How did I feel? Similar to the complaints of those mentioned in OP. Should I have demanded the school district remove this part of American history from the curriculum?
No. I’m glad I was exposed to the American perspective in the historical context of American society leading up to it, and the fallout from it.
Hopefully your teacher told the students about the US lies regarding Bay of Tonkin to justify bombing, about the My Lai massacre and about "destroy the village in order to save it".
I completely agree about teaching the holocaust to all - so we're not damned to repeat it.
And I do agree with teaching our racist history to high schoolers. In this one case, this story is about one school district that has 1.5% of the students who are black, and the student's parents said their kids were uncomfortable with the N word in the two books chosen.
I can empathize with them. And can understand why the admin of that district might want to replace those books with ones where the language wasn't so cutting, while leaving those books in the library or perhaps on an suggested list for book reports.
(An aside, I don't see how any Millenial could have gotten out of the schools in my district without knowledge of the Holocaust. In middle school they read Night by Ellie Wiesel, and in high school read Anne Franke and watched Schindler's list in the classroom. I would be very interested in the exact study that came up with those numbers of ignorant people - just doesn't seem possible.)
I did too - - but I'm a Gen Xer.
I think it speaks to the passive suppression of literature. Many teachers just don't want the hassle of dealing with parents complaining about what's on the reading list. The school need not officially remove it from the reading list; the teachers do it themselves.
If this is happening at college, it is certainly happening in grade school. (disclaimer: I'm an English/rhetoric professor, I'm liberal, and I'm teaching Huck Finn in the fall to my freshman students based on the general controversy of the 219 "n-word" references in the novel):
I think that's a great idea. This would be a great book to read with peers. Lots of good discussions.
It's not the same for the one black student in the class in this particular school system. Do you agree with that? What would your experience reading this book (if you remember the content clearly) if you were the only black student? Would that have changed your experience?
In this situation, it comes down to the teacher. How they conduct and lead the discussion in the classroom and lead the students to a thoughtful discussion is pivotal. It's also a good exercise for students to learn how to discuss uncomfortable and polarizing topics in a civil manner.
Not all blacks at that time were slaves. And not all white men were free. Do you teach that also?
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