Today’s tidbit is from our own lovely state (specifically the Escambia School District), where our good friend Huck Finn is being removed from the middle school curriculum. Of course, there are two perfectly logical reasons for this:
- One student complained, because it made them “uncomfortable.”
(There’s that “N” word in it.) - It’s too hard for seventh graders.
One student (and, I suppose, the parents of said student) in one middle school caused an entire district to redesign the reading curriculum? How come I didn’t think of that when they were making me read Steinbeck’s boring Red Pony?
[ via Flablog ]
Head… hurting… [insert screed about people continuing to miss the point of Twain’s novel]
Florida. What DO people see in it.
Well, I was going to answer “Disney World” to Jason’s comment…but then I remembered his DW experience…so, I’m guessing he doesn’t see much in that 😉
that’s FANTASTIC! now nobody will have to be offended by that offensive N word, and those poor 7th graders won’t have to strain to understand them big fancy words in that there Twain novel! Honestly, what was Mark thinking? He should’ve stuck to journalism.
Never mind that the main guy who had the “N” word used on him was cool as hell. Naw, we also want the Uncle Remus tales scrapped, too. Never mind that they were originally told by slaves. They were published by a white man. This has rendered them racist and evil.
:: rolls eyes ::
And, “too hard for seventh graders”? Man, how dumb do you have to be to not be able to read Mark Twain? Can you read Judy Blume? How about Dick and Jane? Good God, these idiots are not far from driving age and they can’t even read Huck Finn & Tom Sawyer? Instead of griping, how about…I don’t know…studying? Learning to read.
Naw, peoples gots a right to be idjits, doncha know?
This big, bad, war-mongering country of ours doesn’t have a right to expect people to be able to read, even when “we the people” are paying to provide that education for said people. Hell, we don’t even have a right to expect them to speak English (or what passes for it). Pathetic, we are, pathetic. And people wonder about the downfall of civilization, and where our morals and values have disappeared to…..
Maybe it’s a good thing I never became an English teacher — I don’t think I’d be able to contain myself from throwing a giant hissy fit if middle school students complained that Huck Finn is too hard, and then the the administration agreed with them. And people wonder why U.S. students do so much worse than other countries….argh!!!!!!
Sigh… sadly the word was a part of those times.
I guess people *have* to re-write history, so we have to repeat it and learn it over again.
*Hope they don’t do that to “Lord of the Flies”, I’d hate to have to re-explain why I like to call people “Pig Fuckers”.*
Next word to be expunged from the little ones’ hearing: gun. That’s right, junior prince and little miss princess should not have to hear to awful word “gun” because it’s “violent.” I see in my crystal ball a future scenario: grown up junior prince or little miss princess on a city street, confronting a hostile guy pointing a strange thing made out of some dark metal at them. “Hey, mister, what’s that for?” BLAMBLAMBLAM.