Kansas - land of the repressed, home of the idiots

[daBaroness]

Well - Kansas (my next-door neighbor) has done it again. Not only are there raging debates continuing across the state (or is that the buckle of the Bible belt) over teaching the theory of evolution in public schools (they teach creationism - in PUBLIC SCHOOLS), now one of the wealthiest (and one would think most educated and enlightened) suburbs' school district (Blue Valley) has a huge bruhaha going on about required reading for honors-level communications classes (English). They had a huge public meeting the other evening covered by all the TV stations and I couldn't believe what I was seeing in 2005!

So-called well-educated, well-to-do adults pissing and moaning about the vulgar nature of the literature being assigned. They've even set up a Web site www.kcclass.org trying to gain support for their witch hunt. Check out the reading list these folks thinks is so horrible http://classkc.org/badwords.php . (I've read many, many of these books both as part of literature classes in high school and college, as well as for personal enjoyment. Many of them have been featured on Oprah's book club and the New York Times bestseller lists. And many others, like Catcher in the Rye are considered classics.

Meanwhile - they have a list of "good" books the kids will "miss out on" while reading the trash listed above. http://www.classkc.org/goodbooks.php

Yes, there are some excellent pieces of literature in the "good" books list. There are also some abjectly Pollyanna, out-of-date and irrelevant titles too, that most kids today would find boring, stupid and completely out of sync with what they experience. I personally believe literature ought challenge and grow our knowledge our beliefs, etc. I have the same "moral" objection to people who homeschool their children to protect them from the evils of the world. What happens when those kids have to make a life in the evil (real) world? What kind of values do they have about people and ideas different or contrary to their own? How do they handle the workplace where there is a vast diversity of people?

My other belief, having a 20-year-old who went thru the public schools and a 13-year-old currently attending is that none of the words in these books are foreign to kids. Even kids who attend private, religiously-affiliated schools hear and often liberally use curse words of all types. Even dropping the "F-bomb." Indeed, standing in the average high school hallway during passing time would probably challenge even my liberal sensibilities.

I guess the reason I hate this kind of thing so much is that I fear it creates generations of narrow minds. I also find myself somewhat embarrassed (as a person who loves words and literature) that this kind of protest by supposedly intelligent people just reinforces the country's view of Kansas City as some backwater, one-horse town full of ignorant boobs. Certainly I respect the rights of individual parents to have a say in their child's education. However, it scares me when I see people jump on the bandwagon of some misguided effort by a few to shame educators, their children and the parents of other children by making pronouncements on what is proper for every child.

And finally - my guess is that in this particular suburb, most parents are college educated. They should know that for high school students who are college-bound, exposure to literature and subject matter of this level (honors classes) will help prepare them for higher education. They themselves probably read many of these books - and if they didn't, my sympathies go out to them. I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings was an amazingly enlightening and empowering book to me - and I read it just for pleasure during a summer break when I was in college.

The Blue Valley school board won't ban the books during the school year. Instead they will decide during the summer. And as a final FYI - even kids who are alumni of the school and now in college or recent college grads testified how much exposure to these books and the classroom discussions helped them immeasurably in college.

So - what do you think? Burn 'em, ban 'em or read 'em?

[Bonnie]

What I find interesting is that a lot of the objectionable words and phrasing are taken out of context and without knowledge of the themes of the book. To say that orgasm and suicide are major themes of The Awakening is pure ignorance. The Awakening is actually a powerful novel about a woman struggling against patriarchal society, and attempting to find her own identity, and all the blocks our social order puts in her way.

The "goodbooks" list IS full of good books. Chock full. Honestly? those books should be taught as well. You can't appreciate the place you are without knowing from whence you came. You know?

but I think you're right, in the main. It would all depend on how the books are taught, what the thematic unit presents as the core knowledge to be extracted from each book, but I see nothing wrong with the books I recognized.

[cyd]

My husband has for YEARS gotten pissed off about Kansas and Creationism... He is a VERY firm believer in evolution, and their way of limiting access to education in any way pisses him off royally.

THIS pisses ME off royally (not to say that I wasn't annoyed enough about the whole creationism thing)... While I may not have been thrilled with much of the subject matter of books I was given to read as a child, I still firmly believe that they needed to be read. And how can we learn about the tough things in life unless we are given exposure to them?

I have always believed that knowledge is power. Give as much knowledge as humanly possible to your children, and you arm them for their futures that they will be fighting for.

I don't believe in banning something that can give my (eventual) child the tools s/he needs to survive in the world.

My husband just made a good point to me tho. He's against requiring a kid to read anything that wouldn't pass a movie's R or NC-17 rating. He's not into actively discouraging kids to read anything, but if it's above what a movie would term "rated R", then he'd rather the kid wait until s/he's in college and can choose for her/himself.

more specifically, i'm against requiring any kid to read that stuff (I personally wouldn't, given the choice), but at the same time, i'm not going to tell a kid they can't (except maybe my own).

for example, if in a "choose a book to do a book report on" assignment, those books should not be banned from a kid's choices.

but requiring any kid to read about man-boy sexuality should be limited to latin classes (gotta love them romans) and (when discussing religion in politics) the current catholic church's scandals. :)

[as an aside, i don't consider my support of evolution "belief" aside from the interpretation that I *believe* science to be the correct process for interpreting facts and weeding out incorrect knowledge, and that the evidence for evolution supports extremely well the theories of Darwin, as modified and clarified by successors including Gould and Dawkins.

as a matter of my faith, I believe that evolution and christianity are entirely compatible in every way (except extreme literalism), but there's nothing scientific about that. ]

[Nevada]

I can see parents wanting to "protect" their children...however, what will happen when they are thrust into the real world without being exposed to situations at all....at least in literature they get controlled exposure and have parents or teachers to discuss any disturbing issues written....once they are out of the house the will unfortunately experience these things live and in person without any previous discussion or knowledge

[aspen]

Kansas doesn't currently require teaching creationism (they never did, just tried to make it an option for the local school boards) but the new conservative majority in the state school board is talking about encouraging teaching "intelligent design". Will somebody please smack that camel on the nose before he tracks sand in the tent?

As far as protecting the kyds goes, I have made the acquaintance of a couple of sheltered homeschooled young men who may come out to our local Faire next season. I can just see them now, eyes big and round. "Aspen, there are pagans out here!" "Yes, dear, and the secret to everybody getting along is that nobody makes a big deal about it." [0] It will certainly be an educational experience for them.

Aspen

[0] Needless to say, we haven't had a conversation about the meaning of my pretty little pendant; the one I refer to as my "sneaky pentacle".

[Adriana Rose]

Ok this is just a whole bunch of people thinking that they are right. Let them take their little time machines back to the 50's and just stop grumping at the classics that thier parents thought were good and so on.

If they don't like the way that the public schools are teaching I'm sure that there is a nice Cristian school out there for thier kiddies.

Also the schools here in Colorado are kinda sketchy about teaching evolution. It's herd not to step on toes. In my Biology class I got in a debate about all of the theolgy stuff with one of the kids in the class. It's hard to make sure every one is happy with stuff like that.

Oh and tell those folks who want to can the classics to say Hi to June Cleaver for me.

Just my 2 cents

(please don't eat me)

[I'Cin]

I certainly think kids should be exposed real world situations, but as was pointed out, why should "print" be different from "moving pictures" or even "still pictures"? If the things that make a movie "R" rated (17 and over) (or worse), why should a book with the same language and situations be okay? If kids should be REQUIRED to read books with these themes and language, why not require Penthouse and the movie Caligula (sp?)? Why bother with movie ratings? And while the kids certainly know and use those words (perhaps even more so in the Catholic schools :D ), and know about those situations, that doesn't necessarily mean that those books are acceptable as required reading. And it isn't always about "foul" language. I didn't find "Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde" to be an appropriate book for 6th graders when it was assigned to my daughter last year (by the same teacher that assigned "Beloved" to the 8th grade class - ). My daughter no longer goes to that school (for that and other reasons).

I have a daughter who's a sophomore in college (and attended an all girl catholic high school), a son who is a sophomore in an all boy catholic high school, and a daughter in 7th grade in a parish school. I read voraciously, always have, always will. I encourage my kids to read. I seldom tell (or told) them, "you are not allowed to read this particular book," but I may suggest that I don't feel its appropriate to their age level just as I would certain movies. My son this year has read "Cold Mountain," "Beloved," and "Tom Sawyer". I have no real problem with them - I know my son. But . ...

I have a friend whose son is 16, in honors and AP classes, is an Eagle Scout. My friend is a former Sci-Fi con / ren fest person and she is by no means a prude. While she doesn't swear too intensly, she certainly does swear. Her son reprimands her everytime he hears it, and when talking about having gone to dinner theater told me they saw "Darn Yankees." His mother said, the name of the show is Damn Yankees. He replied that he doesn't use that word. Some of the books on that list that he was required to read made him very uncomfortable.

As an aside, I find it somewhat ironic that language and situations (no where near the content of some of the books listed) were considered too far over the line on these boards for not being PG-13 enough is considered great literature when put into a book and offered in a class for junior high and high school students.

My .02.

I'Cin

i think the biggest part of the problem is the contradiction at play -- here you are having to read books with these words in them, and yet you can't actually discuss the words or their use in class except at an extremely abstract level (and thus, inapplicable to future discussions / applications).

the main focus of english classes isn't "exposure" to these materials. its to learn to write by examples. most people forget that. all the other cultural aspects that one gets out of english classes are merely examples of how references, strong descriptions, first-person prose, metaphorical speech, etc etc; they're merely tools that are to be used to enhance your own compositions.

your final grade in an English class is a matter of how well you express yourself, whether its original composition or essay-response on a test requiring some degree of analytical skills. can you read through the vocabulary, grammar, plot, and attitude to get to the real meaning behind an author's work (and express that in an essay), and can you use vocabulary, grammar, plot, and attitude in (sometimes strictly "creative") composition to appropriately express a point.

in that context, excessive profanity and sexual descriptions really have no place. you can't use them in your own compositions (at those grade levels) without getting in trouble, so what was the damned point?

primarily exposing kids to "shock-value" art isn't something the schools need to do. there's plenty of it already in our real media and "culture" (if you can call the crap out there that).

i don't "value" art as some call it today. I value craft. i would much rather start the revolution back to true craftsmanship in writing, just as i would in music, rather than pushing for sales and attention due to intentional controversy.

somethings are remembered for their controversy. the better things are remembered far longer for their quality.

better to intentionally teach our kids quality; they'll find out about the rest regardless of what we do.

[daBaroness]

What great, thought-provoking responses - especially about the movie rating aspect. This got me to thinking about just what constitutes cursing or swearing. So I did some research and found the following analysis:

3rd Commandment; Verse 7: "Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain."

This is another commandment where religious liberals believe that only the first 13 word phrase was in the original text. This verse originally meant that one is not to use the name of God for "any frivolous or malicious purpose or in magic."

Until recently, the phrase "taking God's name in vain" related to contracts. They were sworn "in the name of the Lord". If the terms of a contract were broken, the offending party was said to have taken "the Lord's name in vain." Again, the Westminster Larger Catechism interprets this Commandment broadly to include believing in false doctrines or opposing God's truth.

Today, it is often mistakenly interpreted as prohibiting swearing. This has nothing to do with its original meaning.

Conveniently, I guess, this is the interpretation I've long held - that shits, craps, asses, hells and even our "beloved" f-bomb don't really violate any tenants of most of the major religions - including the big three - Christianity, Judiasm and Islam. Perhaps I've used this interpretation as justification for my own use of words popularly considered cursing or swearing. There have been times I've cussed like a longshoreman. These words don't have any particular sting to them for me - no shock value - except the F-bomb.

Of late, I've done my best to clean up language indiscretions - mostly because after hearing the F-bomb used as a verb, a noun, and an adjective all in the same sentence - especially in a lot of popular culture (music, films, tv) I just think we ought not limit our vocabulary to about 12 overused words. Simply put, it makes people look stupid and most people I know are anything but.

I've also come to believe that taking the Lord's name in vain includes invoking the word G-d in our everyday language in a non-reverent, non-worshipping way ... like, "Oh my G-d, did you see what SHE was wearing?" I've begun using "gosh" or "goodness" in place of that because of my personal spiritual beliefs. And I don't use other "socially-objectionable" words as much as I once did because I want to keep a professional demeanor at work - well, as much as I can ... LOL

But I don't think it's hypocritical of me to not want books with "vulgar words" banned from schools when they're age-appropriate (and I believe juniors and seniors in high school are generally of appropriate age), while at the same time not wanting the threads on this board to dissolve into mindless banter for the sake of upping post counts - or at the price of flaming and insulting posters. It's not the words that bother me - it's the context and spirit in which they're used.

At the risk of sounding snobbish - I just think just about everyone who posts here (whether I agree with their opinions or not) are intelligent people, capable of thoughtful, thought-provoking dialogue and debate. What I personally objected to before The Snipe (webmistress/goddess) made all these wonderful changes and upgrades - was the threadjacking of topics the original poster meant for intelligent, thoughtful exchange and turning them into sophomoric gigglefests. I also objected to personal attacks on posters who expressed opinions that were apparently contrary to a select few people; followed by more flames induced by some pack mentality that once someone was attacked - they were fair game for the rest of the pack. But that's done and put to rest - I merely resurrected the issue to explain my view.

I guess the subject of words - verbal or written - for me is the context in which they are used. Are so-called cuss words absolutely necessary in some pieces of literature or theatre? I'm not qualified to make that call for anyone but myself - and even then my answer will vary - gratuitous (or excessive) vulgar language - I don't want to read it or hear it ... but some writers, actors, and artists contend it's crucial because it's reality - or at least their reality. By the same token - I don't want great pieces of literature and art sanitized to the point they've lost their meaning and significance. Sometimes those words are necessary to convey an emotion or make a point.

I guess what it boils down to for me is personal choice. My solution would be to offer students a choice of reading material without penalty. But I would hate to prohibit students from the experiencing the joys of literature because of a few words dubbed vulgar by people who probably haven't even read the books in question. In my opinion - true obscenities are not the words people speak - they are the hideous actions and misdeeds people won't dare speak about.