PastorJon on December 9, 2008 at 1:03 PM

I never noticed any sex in The Scarlet Letter…

You might think you still live in the 1800s, but in modern times, by the time a person gets to high school, they are already plenty well versed in their sexuality and have seen pretty much any sexual act under the sun online. Reading about a sexual act isnt going to affect your child unless you have spent every waking moment to shield them from reality

Really? Didn’t have to spend every waking moment. My son understands the preciousness of his sexuality. He has no desire to read about or see sex acts, though he is crazy about girls. As a sophomore in high school he’s heard all the lingo and understands what it means, but he values waiting for marriage.

They have made The Scarlet Letter required reading for his English class and despite our assurances that he will survive it, he doesn’t want to read it because of the sex.

They should not, however, have torn those pages out. It not only is stupid because it shows they shouldn’t have assigned it in the first place, but it also brings it to the attention of the students to go seek it out at other sources.

This particular book was about the author’s experiences and should be read in that context. Nothing more. I think High School students can be intelligent and mature enough to understand that. It isn’t lewd for lewdness sake.

Actually, banning (or cutting pages out) simply is the fastest way to make sure almost every teen will go hunt the thing up and read it.

kybowexar on December 8, 2008 at 5:20 PM

I think so, too.
Lazy, robotic administrators. The educators should be educated.

New Rochelle,huh? All these comments and not one Rob and Laura Petrie reference. Guess I’m showing my age.

Big John on December 8, 2008 at 7:58 PM

Ritchie would never have been allowed to read the book.
I’m old too.

I think they got a good deal on some clothes, too…

I agree with Ed Morrissey on this. The book should not have been required reading, in the first place. Materials with sexually explicit content do not belong, in our public schools.

The so-called educator who approved the book for the New Rochelle High School library and the teacher who required students to use the book, “Girl, Interrupted” for the assignment, ought to be suspended. Surely these buffoons can secure suitable and age-appropriate reading materials for students.

Those who mentor and teach our children when we’re not present must be monitored more closely and it’s up to parents to do so.

sinsing on December 9, 2008 at 7:28 AM

This is why I am so glad we homeschool.

You just posted this so you could use the word bowdlerizing!
For those, like me, who don’t know the exact definition, here it is: (according to dictionary.com)
“to expurgate (a written work) by removing or modifying passages considered vulgar or objectionable.”

Scranton on December 8, 2008 at 5:25 PM

Hah! I thought Ed was criticizing the Reader’s Digest Condensed Books series when he said that bowdlerizing has gone out of fashion.

The so-called educator who approved the book for the New Rochelle High School library and the teacher who required students to use the book, “Girl, Interrupted” for the assignment, ought to be suspended. Surely these buffoons can secure suitable and age-appropriate reading materials for students.

Those who mentor and teach our children when we’re not present must be monitored more closely and it’s up to parents to do so.

I agree with Ed’s point that they should have picked another book.

I always thought the idea of school was to provide children/adults with what they do not get within the first minute of their first bus ride.

The problem is most schools have stopped providing a reasonable education. I will leave what is reasonable up to the rest of you.

PS:

I know a few teachers who swear that the NCLB testing has destroyed their ability to teach. The problem is, good teachers that they are, they were unable to get some kids to learn before NCLB came along.

First, don’t jump to the “slippery slope” argument too quickly. More than a few parents (and students, if I’m any indication) would far rather that a few “marginal” books be skipped over instead of opening the floodgates. I’d gladly trade not getting to read Anne Frank for not being exposed to Beloved or Grapes of Wrath. Parents who don’t like the guidelines can give their kids the books they like. But, there is plenty of good material without these poor excuses for literature. Best book I read in high school was Jane Eyre, and I only got that assigned when I objected strenuously to Beloved.

The first question I’d ask you is who gets to decide which literature stays and goes?? If one parent complains, does the book get pulled from the reading list?? Is it just sexual situations or do books with violence and bad words come off the list?? Do parents with religious objections to books get a say??

Secondly, I think the slippery slope is valid. Huck Finn, Of Mice and Men, and Catcher in the Rye always make the top 10 challenged book lists, and I believe that To Kill a Mockingbird gets challenged quite frequently as well. All are mainstays of HS English classes and for good reason. Frankly, if you start banning books for sexual content, then you could probably make a case of ditching a good majority of classical literature.

Second, why shouldn’t morally objectionable books be left out of high-school and under classrooms? The students are minors, and we have laws and guidelines in place regarding what forms of entertainment minors can and cannot participate in. Why should books be excused from those guidelines? If the student isn’t allowed to talk about it or use those same words and phrases in the classroom, then it shouldn’t show up in their textbooks either. Parents with less strict views are welcome to provide their children with what they consider to be acceptable material, but don’t shove the trash down the throat of every school age kid.

jbsaff on December 8, 2008 at 6:29 PM

Each parent has their own guidelines for raising their children. For instance, what if a parent thinks reading about a character’s death would be too upsetting for their young elementary school student? Does that mean that the school needs to pull Charlotte’s Web out of the library?

Illinidiva

It is not necessary to start with Joyce and Faulkner. But both of them have writings that are accessible to high school kids and also show the human spirit and the English language in good light. I first read Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man while in high school and enjoyed much of it.

snaggletoothie on December 8, 2008 at 6:51 PM

I was just pointing out that both authors aren’t known for their clear, straightforward use of the English language. I don’t think that one would want students to start modeling term papers off of either of those writers though. Which proves my point that high school literature is more about thinking critically than learning to write clearly.

In my public h.s. Lit classes, we were assigned things like The Grapes of Wrath, Wuthering Heights, The Old Man and the Sea and Frankenstein. And this was just a little over 20 years ago. Why assign insta-”classic” contemporary stuff?

ddrintn on December 8, 2008 at 6:11 PM

I read contemporary books and stories when I was in high school eight years ago: Amy Tan, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Toni Morrison, etc. Most schools want to update their curriculums to offer a wider variety of literature and get students interested in reading, which is a good thing.

(As well as memorizing the Prologue in Middle English. C’mon, all together now! “Whan hath Aprille in his shoore soote, and the drougt of Marche hath pierc’ed to the roote, and bath’ed ever vein’e in switch liqueur, of which Vertue engendered is the fleur…”)

But then, Carter was in the White House…

New Rochelle High went too far in this case. Bowdlerizing books is a practice that went out of fashion decades ago, and for good reasons. It’s a poor substitute for proper consideration and preparation of reading and teaching material.

Typical behavior of non-thinkers.

smellthecoffee on December 8, 2008 at 10:32 PM

Hear, hear.

@ Andy in Agoura Hills on December 8, 2008 at 5:19 PM

You might think you still live in the 1800s, but in modern times, by the time a person gets to high school, they are already plenty well versed in their sexuality and have seen pretty much any sexual act under the sun online. Reading about a sexual act isnt going to affect your child unless you have spent every waking moment to shield them from reality.

muyoso on December 8, 2008 at 5:23 PM

I’ve gotta say the frame of reference here is really sad. The assumptions are that all these kids are going on line with out any sense of limits from within or without so they’ve all consumed plenty of pornography. They’ve been groping in the back seats of cars for years, so there are no sexual experiences that they haven’t been exposed to, or practiced. The picture here is one where basically parents have given up by consensus, and then what follows is seen as inevitable–this becomes the school culture. Things are framed in terms of “rights” for the students, and I think this is a big mistake. Students don’t have or need “rights,” they should be thinking about trying to live up to what’s being expected of them, and they won’t have time to wonder about whether or not they are being deprived of some perverse garbage somehow.

There are schools out there where students adhere to a dress code, and don’t spend have their energy trying to evade it, where they stand up when their teachers, or any adult enters the room. They understand that the educational process is a cooperative project, they know the teacher can’t teach them well if they are trying to sabotage him/her at every turn, and since they are primarily interested in getting a good education, they don’t screw around. They also understand how detrimental it is to their future relationships to screw around sexually, because it has been explained to them from early on, so they don’t do that either–out their own self-interest.

It isn’t written in stone that adolescents are anomic, but the enculturation that takes them there begins way before adolescence. Parents give in to the siren song of “but Bobby gets to ____” and chip by chip, whatever higher intentions they had for their child are already undermined by the time the kid is ten. It takes work, and it takes perseverance, and networking with other parents who have the same approach. This “It’s inevitable” schtick is just a rationalization for the failure of the parents. I’m not saying that the failure is shameful, shocking, or surprising, even. But let’s not kid ourselves, either.

The aforementioned school is now–not the 1800’s. Why a school like I’ve described, or the values spoken of by Andy in Agoura Hills should be sneered at is beyond me. Read the book “The Death of the Grown-Up: How America’s Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization,” by Diana West, because she shows exactly where the wheels fell off.