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This poor motherfucker.

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Thanks. I emailed Higgins company. I’ll see what I can do.

What gets me is 95% of these kids (or more) have phones and have probably all at least looked at a few things that would make these crazy parents faint. Nudity in Maus? JFC the things most of these kids have looked at already.

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It’s never their kids, it’s other kids forcing their perfect angels to look at and do things.

Spoiler: It’s usually their kids.

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As if I need more to dislike DJT, now when I read this, the rudimentary and awkward language just seems Trumpian. He’s even ruined artistic illiteracy.

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Ladies and gentlemen, the pro-life party!

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Well, they are still alive aren’t they?

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I guess it’s true. Elephants really are afraid of mice.

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This isn’t unique to Republicans. Washington state school district removing To Kill a Mockingbird from required reading.

The teachers’ objections to the book included criticism that Black characters are not fully realized and that the book romanticizes the idea of a “white savior.” The teachers also cited concerns that characters in the book frequently use the N-word while no character explains that the slur is derogatory, and that the word and the portrayal of Black characters cause harm to students of color.

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Oh my god! They removed “To Kill a Mockingbird” from the library!

The Mukilteo School District recently approved removing the text as a required assignment for ninth graders.

Oh.

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There’s a significant difference between removing something from required reading and removing something from the library. Teachers can still choose to teach Mockingbird. No one can check out a book that is no longer there.

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Yup.

The book will not be not banned, however, and teachers may still choose to assign the book in their classrooms.

False equivalence is false.

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Was Maus pulled from the library or from the curriculum? I’ve only seen curriculum.

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Meaning it cannot be used by teachers. It wasn’t just previously required then made optional.

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Though the coverage on Maus doesn’t seem to mention if it remains available in the library or not, there’s quite a selection of recent stories of books being pulled from the shelves.

This one is interesting given the ACLU’s involvement.

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I feel like this is a cop-out.

Choosing not to teach a book like “To Kill a Mockingbird” because of its language, is to demonstrate a fragility and mindlessness that is detrimental to the students. To deprive students of that experience, because such an experience may be shocking or disturbing, is lazy and weak. Mockingbird is supposed to be shocking and disturbing. It’s telling the story of how messed up the world is. Removing references to the real world from literature doesn’t make the real world better. If anything, it just makes it more likely the real world won’t get better.

Mockingbird is a Pulitzer prize winning novel that tackles tough, real world issues of racism. To shy away from exposing students to it, simply because it uses harsh language to depict real world events, is the same kind of thing as not exposing students to Maus because of its depictions of brutality during the holocaust.

It’s a small-minded, lazy way of dealing with the world. Society can do better.

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The book will not be not banned, however, and teachers may still choose to assign the book in their classrooms.

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Isn’t this the same situation as Maus? From what I’ve seen Maus was pulled from the required curriculum, I haven’t seen anything where they ban it as an optional resources, but I haven’t been following the minutia so let me know if I’m wrong.

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Yes, the Tennesee school board removed Maus from their 8th grade curriculum.

For the record, when I was a kid Maus was not part of my curriculum. It should have been though, as it was a very engaging depiction of the holocaust which I think is more impactful to most students than dry reading in a text book.

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Not “required curriculum” just “curriculum”. As in the set of books that can be used in class.

To sum up the situation:

To Kill a Mockingbird in that district where a few teachers asked the book not be required:
Book is not required but still a book that can be used by teachers if they want.

Maus in the TN district where it was voted off the curriculum.
Book cannot be used by teachers if they want.

(Not to mention all the other stories that do involve books not just being banned from the classroom but removed from the library.)

False equivalence remains false.

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Perhaps the idea is, if you want to teach about midcentury racism, you might be better served by reading literature that focuses on the experiences of Black people rather than on the experiences of virtuous white people who defend Black people: Invisible Man, Native Son, that sort of thing.

I agree however with your larger point that students should not be coddled and should be assumed to be able to handle difficult topics and concepts. I would welcome any English teacher teaching Mockingbird and then opening up for discussion the question of whether its ‘white savior’ narrative was meant to cater to sensibilities of white liberals of the era, rather than accurately reflecting the African-American experience, etc. By the same token, I would prefer students to read e.g. The Merchant Of Venice and then be encouraged to discuss its anti-Semitic elements (alongside the way Shakespeare puts one of the greatest refutations of racism into the villain’s mouth), rather than simply not reading it.

Regardless, the distinction between ‘forbidding to teach’ and ‘making optional to teach’ – if that accurately reflects the Maus/Mockingbird equivalency here – is not a trivial one.