At Highland Park High School, parents must now give permission for their child to read the classics.

[babylonsister]

I find this disturbing and sad. What would kids get from books they don't get from tv or the internet?

Highland Park ISD board asks officials to review book policy
By MELISSA REPKO

Published: 12 November 2014 10:59 PM



At Highland Park High School, parents must now give permission for their child to read the classics.

Teachers recently sent home permission slips for The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway for 11th-grade Advanced Placement English students, who elect to take the college-level course.

“Please bear in mind that some literary selections possess mature content that some individuals may find objectionable,” the form says.

The permission slips are part of the response to an intense debate among parents over whether certain books are too mature for teens.

more...

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/park-cities/headlines/20141112-highland-park-isd-board-asks-officials-to-review-book-policy.ece?hootPostID=dab903424f470181bae0a8d38ced681a

[yeoman6987]

1. A very exclusive rich area of Dallas

I am sure the majority of nannies will sign off the papers.

[Orrex]

2. I hope that the bible is on that list

What with all the smiting and begetting. Scandalous!

[hobbit709]

3. That's not even counting the wanton killing, adultery and incest.

[Orrex]

4. Hey! Spoiler alert next time!

Some of us haven't finished it yet!

[backscatter712]

24. Most Christian fundies haven't read it either. n/t

[jwirr]

31. And rape and murder and poligamy.

[scarletlib]

5. I read all of those in High School 40+ years ago in regular classrooms.

Honestly, these kids aren't stupid or naive. I think they can handle it. Of course whenever anyone told me back then that i shouldn't read a particular book or article, i read it as soon as i could get my hands on it.

[babylonsister]

14. Me, too!

I was about 10 when given permission to ransack a neighbor's bookshelves. I selected 'Diary of Anne Frank' and the neighbor nixed my choice without prior permission from my mom, who gave it readily.

Thanks, Mom.

[Odin2005]

49. It seems like parents nowadays are in denial that their "babies" are growing up.

[Demit]

6. I remember reading Huck Finn in Freshman class. Now it's AP reading?

And so scary that it requires a permission slip? Same with The Scarlet Letter, we non-AP students read it. In Catholic school, no less.

Is this an example of reading lists getting dumbed down? Or of parents these days increasingly infantalizing their kids? Jesus, this is Advanced Placement! Parents have kids in Advanced Placement and they don't trust their ability to properly comprehend & evaluate what they're reading??

[WhiteAndNerdy]

8. I was gonna say . . .

I read Huckleberry Finn in the seventh grade and The Scarlet Letter in the tenth. Definitely not AP material.

[YarnAddict]

9. The obvious problem with Huck Finn

is the use of the vernacular, particularly in regard to African Americans.

In this day and age, it probably does require a level of maturity in the students to deal with that language. That's probably the reason for the parental permission also. No one can come back and complain that they didn't know that offensive material would be covered.

[Demit]

12. Why do you say in this day and age?

Why would kids' ability to understand be different now?

Also, what do you mean by 'dealing' with that language? I don't understand. Can you give me an example of a student unable to 'deal' with that language? Like, what would they do, what behavior would they exhibit, what would happen?

[deutsey]

17. I can't speak for the post you're replying to

but the dreaded "N" word is a big issue with Huck Finn and how African Americans are portrayed.

I'm actually an independent scholar in Twain studies and have been to academic conferences where this issue has been addressed. Years ago I attended a breakout session on how to approach teaching Huck Finn in high school (mainly how to help students understand where Twain is coming from in terms of race...he was actually pretty progressive, a sensibility that permeates the book but in his typically ironic way, which is lost on some contemporary readers).

A big name in Twain studies, Alan Gribben released a version of Huck Finn back in 2011 with the offending word completely removed from the text.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/07/books/07huck.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

He didn't do it out of some PC motivation, but out of a concern that this classic is being dropped by schools because of the word and could be lost to new generations as a result. I respect what he did, but I still think the original should be taught and placed in its proper context.

Interestingly, when Huck was first published, it was the rough, unrefined vernacular of an uneducated, poor white boy (not the racist word) that offended some literary types.

In the ensuing decades, it's managed to find a variety of groups to offend.

[Demit]

21. Yes I know that, I thought everybody knew that.

We even knew it in 1967, imagine that! And the teachers made it a topic to discuss in class, and we 14 year olds discussed it, without trauma I might add. I believe my teacher even knew how to 'help us understand where Twain was coming from in terms of race', even without having been to academic conferences to guide her!

Good grief. If teachers today don't know how to put works of literature into context—if they don't know that it's a necessary part of understanding works of literature—I despair of teaching today. Even in my very mediocre parochial school of forty-some years ago the teachers knew how to get us to ANALYZE the books we read. And administrators weren't afraid that analysis would be construed as approval.

[deutsey]

40. You'd be surprised

I took a Twain class (master's level) at Georgetown in the '90s and the the purpose of the course was to put Twain's body of work in context, and there was an African American student who said she couldn't read HF because it was racist.

[Demit]

44. That's kind of weird

—that she would take a class on Mark Twain either not knowing he wrote Huckleberry Finn, or not knowing it would be covered. Or knowing it would be covered but resisting the idea of putting it into context. So what happened to her in the course of the course, lol? Did she learn anything or did she drop out of the class?

[deutsey]

47. You probably won't be surprised to learn that she wasn't a fan of Pudd'nhead Wilson either

The main thing I remember from her was her long, angry tirade against Huck Finn. I'm guessing that the instructor (who was an American Studies/history instructor with a specialization in race relations in America) was probably able to talk her down outside of class

[deutsey]

43. And PS

Yippie for your teacher.

[Demit]

45. Thanks. They weren't all bad. Some of them did yeoman work :)

[deutsey]

48. I wanted to be a teacher when I was younger

I don't think I would like it now, based on what I see a lot of teacher friends dealing with today.

[cali]

26. I don't want Huck Finn rewritten- or any other classic. to me it's tantamount to

draping nude statues, or painting over "offending" bits in masterpieces. It's just wrong. And man, kids see and interact with so much more offensive shit every day.

[deutsey]

42. I agree

I know Alan Gribben and I know what good and passionate Twain scholar he is. I don't agree with "cleaning up" Huck and I think deep down, neither does Alan.

I think he was growing frustrated dealing with the pervasive PC mentality in schools and was looking for a way around it. I'm guessing there; he and I have never discussed the matter, but I saw at conference in the past couple years speaking on the topic. He didn't say it was the PC orthodoxy, but that was the sense I had.

[csziggy]

22. Historical context needs to be applied to Huck Finn

The "n-word" has a completely different meaning in how it's used in the book than in the way it is used by different groups today and many of the situations in the book are totally alien to people today.

Mark Twain himself did not intend for it to be read by children:

In 1905, New York's Brooklyn Public Library also banned the book due to bad word choice and Huck's having "not only itched but scratched" within the novel, which was considered obscene. When asked by a Brooklyn librarian about the situation, Twain replied:

I am greatly troubled by what you say. I wrote 'Tom Sawyer' & 'Huck Finn' for adults exclusively, & it always distressed me when I find that boys and girls have been allowed access to them. The mind that becomes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean. I know this by my own experience, & to this day I cherish an unappeased bitterness against the unfaithful guardians of my young life, who not only permitted but compelled me to read an unexpurgated Bible through before I was 15 years old. None can do that and ever draw a clean sweet breath again on this side of the grave.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn#Reception

I think that teenagers today are more capable of handling Huck Finn than those of 1884 when the book was published - and I think many of the lessons in the book are as relevant today as they were then. For one thing, the parallels between the treatment of Jim as a slave and Huck as a child of poverty are striking and are very appropriate to the increasing number of students living in poverty today.

I say all this with a lot of personal experience - I read Huck Finn at a fairly early age, about nine or ten. It was not part of our reading list in school and when I tried to compare the messages in Huck Finn to those of Uncle Tom's Cabin, my seventh grade American History teacher was distressed that I had read it. She was also distressed that I was complicating her simplistic lesson about the "War of Northern Aggression" with a more nuanced view of slavery.

[Demit]

33. Yes, see my reply #21. The book always had a historical context.

The situations in the book were alien to teenagers in the 1960s, too! That happens a lot with books that weren't written in the past year. Of course many of the lessons in the book are relevant today. That's the very definition of a classic. That's the reason we study the classics. And part of the study is to Compare and Contrast.

I just don't see how teenagers of today are different from teenagers in the 1960s. I refuse to believe they have somehow regressed. That they are 'unable to deal' with language contained in the books they study in school.

[Pacifist Patriot]

34. Was he being sincere in that quote or facetious?

Admittedly it can be hard to tell without broader context with Twain, but the close of the quote sounds somewhat flippant to me.

[Demit]

41. I think he was being totally deadpan.

He's pointing out that, in terms of word choice and obscenity, reading the Bible is just as corrupting but we have no problem letting kids do that. He was being droll.

[YarnAddict]

23. What Deutsy said. n/t

[Demit]

25. Yes but you didn't answer my direct question.

Which was: How would you know that a student wasn't dealing with that language? What behavior would they be evincing?

[YarnAddict]

27. Specifically--

--because young/immature students might feel that seeing those words in print make it acceptable to use them in their everyday language.

I was a college English major way back when (40 years ago) and we studied "Huck." I can remember one of my classmates loudly discussing "N- Jim" as she walked down the street. She apparently wasn't smart enough to feel any shame for the words coming out of her mouth, so I was ashamed for her.

[Demit]

35. Your college classmate sounds permanently immature. Immature for life.

I was going to say it was a failure of teaching, but you (and presumably others in your class) were able to learn the word wasn't acceptable. If it needed to be taught in school (college!). If it hadn't already been taught at home.

I simply can't conceive of an English class where it is not an immediate part of the teacher's presentation of Huck Finn that the N word is unacceptable today, even though it was common usage in the 19th century, even though it is used in this novel.

[exboyfil]

16. I read Huck Finn for enjoyment and a book report in 6th grade

Truly amazing how far the attention span of even good readers has slipped. I fought to get my elementary kids to read Tom Sawyer, and I told them to be ready for Huck Finn in 9th. 9th and 10th grade roll around and no Huck Finn.

My daughters were both power readers, but I have had a very difficult time getting them to read the classics. Neither has time for much leisure reading now though (both full time college students - one a college freshman and the other a high school junior).

[Javaman]

18. Hell I read it in junior high. nt

[progressoid]

19. My thoughts as well.

I remember reading Twain for fun in Jr. High.

WTF America

[treestar]

7. Wow

And what do they do if permission is denied?

[underpants]

32. It's Texas so they probably get a Ted Cruz coloring book

[ctaylors6]

10. This was a mistake

I believe by individual faculty members. The kids have since been told they do not have to turn in the permission slips. The only book that I think they want a permission slip for now is Art of Racing in the Rain which is the only book that's under a formal reconsideration process. The updated story is here:
http://keranews.org/post/no-permission-slip-required-classic-books-highland-park

My kids have had to turn in permission slips before for certain books in class before especially in middle school (e.g. the Hot Zone). But also in high school when they had a choice of books to read for a supplemental assignment. Although I think that was in part because it was for books not on the syllabus so the parents would know (1) what the kids were doing and (2) that the kid needed to actually get the book.

I live near that school district, and the vast majority of parents are up in arms about all this book banning. It's a very small vocal group of parents that started all these objections.

Edited to add: If the parents don't give permission, an alternate book is assigned. I don't think that's an uncommon procedure to have in place at a school.

[Lurks Often]

11. Not sure why anyone is really surprised

It's the school covering itself. Since we've become so skin thinned as a society, there is always going to be at least one parent screaming and yelling that one of the books assigned is "offensive". School bypasses that by requiring permission slips.

For that matter, I was required to get a permission slip in the 8th or 9th grade back in the 80's to watch Romeo & Juliet.

[ladjf]

15. School administrators are fully aware that they have little or no authority over the

curriculum. It's a terrible thing when ignorant parents have the political "juice" to dictate almost every detail of what material is "suitable". Children all over the Country are being taught non-sense in place of legitimate information about science.
That is truly child abuse.

[JCMach1]

20. they signed their kid up for an AP course... deal with the curriculum, or remove them

to a regular class!!!

AP curriculum is not negotiable as that will be the material tested...

[Pacifist Patriot]

36. I've never understood permission slips for course content.

As far as I'm concerned, the moment I enrolled my child in his high school, the act of registration provided the consent for him to be taught the course material for whichever courses he registered. If I wanted to exert my control over curriculum he'd be in a private school or, more likely, home educated.

[YarnAddict]

28. Triggers, maybe?

After all, what is The Scarlet Letter, if not page after page of slut-shaming.

[pipi_k]

29. Oh lord, if parents only knew...

what their kids might be reading away from school!

When we were in 7th or 8th grade, I and my two best friends shared a copy of the book "Candy" (a very dirty book) by Maxwell Kenton (a pseudonym).


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candy_%28Southern_and_Hoffenberg_novel%29

[Pacifist Patriot]

37. "Wifey" was the go-to illicit book when I was in 8th grade. We all read it!

[Demit]

39. LOL! My mother found my copy of Fanny Hill under my mattress.

She didn't say anything, god bless her, just left it out in the open. She had watched me go through the entire canon of Nancy Drew, and I was simultaneously plowing through every Agatha Christie, so I think she was smart enough to know I was just being a curious reader and I was just being a teenager. She also loved to read. She wasn't afraid that reading corrupted a person or led them astray.

[randys1]

30. Idiocracy is now

[Ykcutnek]

38. What a clever way to burn books without a pesky cloud of smoke. nt

[Odin2005]

46. Parents nowadays seem determined to infantilze their teenage kids.

They are 16, not 6!