Teacher who read from Ender’s Game won’t face criminal charges

[pokerfan]

Sanity appears to have prevailed in the case of an Aiken, SC teacher who read to his students from three books, including Orson Scott Card's award-winning Ender's Game. A student and his/her mother complained to the school and to the cops that this novel was "pornographic," and the teacher was suspended — and even faced criminal charges.

<...>

The unnamed teacher still faces the school's own investigation into his failure to follow school protocols and run the books past school officials before using them in class. But at least school officials told the Standard they hope the matter "will be resolved quickly."

http://io9.com/5895254/teacher-who-read-from-pornographic-enders-game-wont-face-criminal-charges

[center][/center]

Critics have generally received Ender's Game well. The novel won the Nebula Award for best novel in 1985,[9] and the Hugo Award for best novel in 1986,[10] considered the two most prestigious awards in science fiction.[11][12] Ender's Game was also nominated for a Locus Award in 1986.[7] In 1999, it placed #59 on the reader's list of Modern Library 100 Best Novels. It was also honored with a spot on American Library Association's "100 Best Books for Teens." In 2008, the novel, along with Ender's Shadow, won the Margaret A. Edwards Award, which honors an author and specific works by that author for lifetime contribution to young adult literature.[13]

[Robeysays]

1. you know what my friend told me the other day.

that nevada and utah are the only states not to have a contemporary book burning?


not really anything to do with this particularly other that slippery slopes and shit.

[The Straight Story]

2. If the teacher had read from another book, say the bible, then what?

Say for example, a poem from Psalms while studying poetry?

"According to the Standard, Ender's Game "became the focus of the probe when a 14-year-old student's mother complained about the subject matter of the book." There were two other books that the teacher read to class, one of which also contained swear words or upsetting content."

Someone found the content offensive, perhaps the teachers should have to send home a reading list first each year that they will be using in case parents don't want their kids sitting in on that class....

[Jester Messiah]

5. How about Ezekiel 23:18 - 21?

18 So she discovered her whoredoms, and discovered her nakedness: then my mind was alienated from her, like as my mind was alienated from her sister.
19 Yet she multiplied her whoredoms, in calling to remembrance the days of her youth, wherein she had played the harlot in the land of Egypt.
20 For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses.
21 Thus thou calledst to remembrance the lewdness of thy youth, in bruising thy teats by the Egyptians for the paps of thy youth.

[pokerfan]

9. I was going to post that

Now that would be even more ironic than getting the boot for reading Orson Scott Card. Safer to stick with the Good Book. They can't run you for that, can they?

Leviticus 20:09 If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death.

Deuteronomy 22:20 If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the girl’s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death.

Exodus 35:02 For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it must be put to death.

[cthulu2016]

3. In case anyone doesn't get the full irony of this...

Orson Scott Card is the most RW popular author of fiction in America, and Mitt Romey;'s favorite author.

If I was asked to name the book with the least sexual content Ender's Game would be a candidate. Human sexuality is absent from that book. Almost eeriely so.

Maybe I'm forgetting something.

So I guess this is about somebody using a bad word?

[pokerfan]

6. Haven't been able to find the specific objection

It's generally listed as acceptable for ages 12 and up but I guess all it takes is one offended party to get a teacher suspended and facing criminal charges. I wouldn't want that profession.

From the link: According to the Standard, Ender's Game "became the focus of the probe when a 14-year-old student's mother complained about the subject matter of the book." There were two other books that the teacher read to class, one of which also contained swear words or upsetting content.

[gratuitous]

8. Maybe the complainant wasn't a right wing nutjob?

I suppose I should go read the story, but maybe the student and the parent knew full well Mr. Card's political leanings, and submitted the complaint as a way to get back at the usual bluenoses who complain about such things? In which case (while I'm not crazed about any teacher possibly facing criminal charges for his or her curriculum), it would be rather risible that the nutjobs had their own tactics used against them for a change.

[pokerfan]

12. Maybe the teacher wasn't either

Isn't it more likely he was just trying to encourage the students to take up reading? He also read from ‘Devil’s Paintbox’ (Victoria McKearnan) and Poirot’s Last Case (Agatha Christie). A science fiction story about a gifted kid who has adventures in space, an adventure story about the Oregon Trail and an Agatha Christie mystery.

[villager]

4. Don't they realize Card is one of their fellow conservatives!?

Rhetorical question. They eat their own.

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. Irony alert given how RW card is

Sex, enders game, really?

They don't go together. Now drones, on the other hand, prescient in a way.

[Drale]

10. When I was in 7th grade

we read the first Harry Potter book as a class. Some mother got all up in arms and threatened to sue, the principal told her basicly fuck off and sue us. I never heard anything else about it, so I'm guessing she dropped it. I do believe that people have lost the ability to go with the flow on small stuff that really doesn't matter and have gained the ability to go with the flow on imporant stuff.

[MuseRider]

11. It has been a long time since I read it

and most of Card's books (not anymore after he worked actively against same sex marriage among other things). I read this book to my own children. I don't remember anything even close to sexual in it. Could be, it was so long ago but I doubt I would have read it to my kids if that were included, not at the ages they were when I read it to them.

Card does not strike me as anyone who would even come close to pornography. His church would have something to say about that.

[TlalocW]

13. Ender's Game is a classic. I recently re-read it and am now 3 books in

Of the four Ender books that they suggest you read in order - Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind. I find the right-wing themes are pretty muted in them, but maybe I don't read that deep politically into sci-fi. The only thing I can think of that could be considered sexual is Ender has a fight with a fellow student while he's in the shower so he's technically naked. Ender's Shadow, which tells part of the same story as Ender's Game from the viewpoint of another student would probably cause whoever complained to explode.

The only negative thing I have to say about the series is that once Card found his meal ticket, he didn't let go. Once he gets some prequels written, there will be 24 books in the Ender series.

TlalocW