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So by the same token, we shouldn't allow 'The Bluest Eye', right?
This quote from the article says a lot.
The best way to teach about an atrocity is to show that it was an atrocity, not "soften" it. It should horrify.
Yes, that is exactly right. Its not that hard to figure out why these people want to 'soften up' certain parts of history, they have a specific reason for doing this and it has nothing to do with protecting children.
I haven't read either of these and it was mentioned earlier one is a "graphic novel" (I read that as comic book) ? Only adult oriented like the Japanese Manga series but along different context of course. I can't imagine teachers using "graphic novels () in curriculum but I am old of course. The Diary of Anne Franke was literature my 8th grade teacher used for the Holocaust subject matter and then we discussed and studied the subject in actual historical perspective from the viewpoint of Allied soldiers who liberated the camps and footage and pictures of those events.
In high school we delved more into life in the camps from the perspective of prisoners and we did watch a movie who's title escapes me at the moment but the content of which I remember well. It followed a particular woman and the events surrounding her internment.
Practically speaking with the subject matter and content available to most kids from grammar school age up on TV these days whatever the content of these books (or graphic novels) I'm sure it won't be so shocking as to scar them for life but the teachable moment here is that the Holocaust actually did happen. It's not Hollyweird fiction. WereI a teacher what the Nazis did would hardly be all I'd cover.
Stalin, Tojo, Hirohito, and Mao would get plenty of coverage as well along genocidal lines. Communism and Imperial Japanese fascism saw more people brutalized and wholesale murdered than Nazism. The Nazis just get more coverage. I often wonder at that. That was something I found out on my own when in school. Only through my love of history and a study of the Pacific theater in WW2 because that's where my kin fought. WW2 only had the European theater from my teachers points of view.
Places like Ofuna camp and Nanking didn't exist nor was the Russian influence discussed much beyond places like Stalingrad. That the Russians started out allied with Hitler sure didn't come up. WW1-2 Korea and Viet Nam are almost totally missing from what I've seen of school curriculum these days so that the school at issue here is teaching ANYTHING about the Holocaust and the Nazis I applaud. I'll have to examine these books and "graphic novels" for myself but honestly I don't see anything at this point for which I would omit them from curriculum for but what the school board i choosing to use instead does interest me. Maybe what they ARE going to use is better? Could be.
Being as most school age kids these days up to seniors in HS can't tell you who Hitler, Stalin, Tojo, Hirohito or Mao were any reference to that period I find welcome.
My daughter just revealed that she was bullied by a boy at her school when she was in 4th grade. He told her she had a Jew nose, looked like Anne Frank, and that she and her whole family should have been gassed in Auschwitz. This same boy is now in his Junior year in HS. She has classmates who lift their arms in siege heel fashion, and talk to her about making swastikas for their art project.
I can only imagine what kind of parents these children have. They obviously didn't benefit from reading Maus or Night. People live in their little gated communities and insulate themselves from the realities around them. It's sickening.
Lots of garbage gets said in school just to get a rise out of people with the kids in the older case perhaps just being jerks trying to get a rise out of someone.
A bully will go after whatever they can, weight, religion, looks, clothes, awkwardness....anything.
Would be interesting to hear the demographics of your kids HS and hear which of those are making those comments.
I don't believe it was banned from schools. It was just removed from the teaching curriculum in one school district. Is that your understanding too, OP? Or have you not researched the matter?
Yes, that is exactly right. Its not that hard to figure out why these people want to 'soften up' certain parts of history, they have a specific reason for doing this and it has nothing to do with protecting children.
And the big giant problem with MAUS....
it includes the phrase “God damn” and that it has drawn depictions of naked mice.
I personally don't think Night should be read by anyone younger than upper high school kids.
Here, it's taught in 8th grade.
It's too much. The truth is important, but this truth is too much.
The fact that Weisel's own father was tortured to death by his own bunk mates, while the boy was sneaking into the men's dorm daily to offer him his own food because his father was too ill to get up, is something an 8th grader isn't prepared to digest.
It's a truth, but it's a nuance that kids shouldn't have to fathom.
I've seen studies that show the average age of exposure to hardcore pornography is 11. You can thank easy access provided by smartphones for that, and parents giving their children unrestricted access to them so young.
I think it's fine for 14 year old people to read. Between porn and violent video games, they are usually visually exposed to such dark topics already.
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) in curriculum but I am old of course. The Diary of Anne Franke was literature my 8th grade teacher used for the Holocaust subject matter and then we discussed and studied the subject in actual historical perspective from the viewpoint of Allied soldiers who liberated the camps and footage and pictures of those events. 
That was something I found out on my own when in school. Only through my love of history and a study of the Pacific theater in WW2 because that's where my kin fought. WW2 only had the European theater from my teachers points of view. 
