
Free food and $100 prizes: Alaskans rally to get challenged classics to students - hhs
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/apr/30/free-food-and-100-prizes-alaskans-rally-to-get-challenged-classics-to-students
======
LyndsySimon
Huh.

I was a voracious reader as a child, though I somewhat fell out of the habit
once I reached adulthood - other pursuits, chiefly tech, took precedence for
me once I was able to afford them on my own. I still read far more than the
average; apparently around one in four Americans haven't picked up a book in
any form in the past year[0]!

I've read all of these books except "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings". I have
a vague memory of feeling like the Maya Angelou's poetry was somewhat forced
on me in school, and as a result wasn't particularly interested in any of her
works. This article lead me to do a bit of reading about who she was and the
experiences in her life that were included in her "Caged Bird."

I had no idea she spent much of her childhood in Stamps, Arkansas. That's
especially surprising to me because I grew up and went to school in Arkansas -
K-1 in Plainview (in central AR) and 2-12 in Lead Hill (in northern AR). I
don't know that I've ever been to Stamps but I do know that several of my
ancestors lived in that area in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

This is the second time I've felt that the government schools that I attended
have done me a significant disservice w/r/t literature: the first was when I
discovered "Summer of My German Soldier[1]," another book centered around
significant historical events in my home state.

I just bought "Caged Bird" on Kobo, and plan to read it in the next couple of
weeks. Afterward, I'll likely add it to my list of books I'd like my daughters
to read.

0: [https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/09/26/who-
doesnt-...](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/09/26/who-doesnt-read-
books-in-america/)

1:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_of_My_German_Soldier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_of_My_German_Soldier)

~~~
LyndsySimon
I have some more thinking to do on this subject, but I'm struck by how much my
impression of a great deal of literature (and likely other subjects) was
colored by how it was presented to me in school.

I wasn't interested in Angelou because I sensed that it was included in the
curriculum by "the authorities" to advance a specific agenda. The lesson
wasn't about her works; it was about what the people who set up the lesson
wanted me to take away from it. The works themselves were merely a means to
that end.

This is obviously only my opinion, but I think literature should be approached
with an open mind, filtered through the biases and experiences of the reader,
and perhaps discussed with others. There is the perspective the author wanted
to convey, sure - but there is no "correct" interpretation of a work, and to
base classwork around a single interpretation seems equivalent to judging the
effectiveness of a scientific experiment by whether it confirms the desired
hypothesis.

None of the above is really revelatory for me. I'm the father of two
unschooled daughters, and the approach that my wife and I share toward
education is one of motivation and encouragement instead of the imposed
structure and conformance that we experienced. It just feels good to examine
the bases of my beliefs and to share them with others. :)

------
msla
> A school board in Alaska has got more than it bargained for after pulling
> classics including The Great Gatsby and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings from
> the school curriculum, with members of the local community offering
> incentives to students to read the books anyway – including $100 (£80)
> prizes and free mac’n’cheese.

[snip]

> The books remain in school libraries, but will no longer be taught.

> According to a flier from the district’s Office of Instruction, Angelou’s
> memoir had been challenged over its “sexually explicit material, such as the
> sexual abuse the author suffered as a child, and its ‘anti-white’
> messaging”, while Fitzgerald’s classic novel was pulled for “language and
> sexual references”. Invisible Man was marked for containing “language, rape
> and incest”, while Catch-22 was included for its violence, “a handful of
> racial slurs” and the fact the characters “speak with typical ‘military men’
> misogyny and racist attitudes of the time”.

Here's the full flier as a PDF:

[https://go.boarddocs.com/ak/matsu/Board.nsf/files/BNQSWL743B...](https://go.boarddocs.com/ak/matsu/Board.nsf/files/BNQSWL743B16/$file/English%20Electives%20Round%201%20Controversial%20Book%20Descriptions.pdf)

~~~
LyndsySimon
The justification for removing "The Things They Carried" seems particularly
weak: "Profanity and sexual references"

Removing "profanity and sexual references" from high school curricula does not
eliminate them; it only ensures that they will be learned through interactions
within the prevailing culture - and likely never examined in detail by most.

Placing context around things that are "socially unacceptable" is one of the
most important parts of the transition between childhood and adulthood. Why
would anyone think it's a good thing to allow that to happen incidentally?

~~~
msla
> Placing context around things that are "socially unacceptable" is one of the
> most important parts of the transition between childhood and adulthood. Why
> would anyone think it's a good thing to allow that to happen incidentally?

Because if you ask children to think about misogyny, homophobia, and racism in
their fiction, they might apply those lessons to their parents, and We Can't
Have That.

~~~
LyndsySimon
Of course. It would be uncomfortable. What's more, it would be the sort of
"forced lesson" that I referenced elsewhere.

That's exactly the problem that I've identified with my education: the goal
shouldn't be "show children that their parents have flaws," but "expose
children to material where people challenge the views of authority." The
former caused me to approach things in terms of defending my own view of the
world, while the latter would have had me examining it.

Framing the conversation is important. If you go too far with it, you breed
resistance to learning. If you don't go far enough, all you're really risking
is that someone might take the "wrong" lesson away from it.

Personally, I'd rather have someone who has more fully absorbed the material
take away the wrong lesson than someone say the right things about it while
never truly examining the work. In that case, at least they will have a
broader base of knowledge and experiences to draw from later in life if and
when their worldview changes.

------
gowld
[https://bannedbooksweek.org/](https://bannedbooksweek.org/)

