A few links on a loosely-connected theme

[conuly]

1. The US government is inviting comments on civics education. A quick glance at the negative comments should suggest what sort of response is necessary.

2. We Found the Textbooks of Senators Who Oppose The 1619 Project and Suddenly Everything Makes Sense.

3. Homeroom: I’m Concerned About Wokeness at My Child’s School

I've actually seen a few articles of this sort lately. Most of them are in the third-person, enlivened with quotes, but this one's first person. I barely even glanced at the columnist's response because I didn't care.

I don't know if these people just don't know how to write, which doesn't speak well of their own educations with "the classics", or if they're deliberately mendacious, but they all bring up that "books have been removed from the booklist" without once mentioning what those books were replaced with. It's almost like if we knew, we might have a different opinion about the removal of To Kill a Mockingbird or Huck Finn (neither of which is really suited for mandatory reading in a 5th grade class, but I digress) if we knew that they were replaced with equally "classic" books.

I'm reminded of an article I read at least a decade ago now. I posted about it at the time. It was about some high school English teachers who had looked around, realized that their students were not capable of going through the curriculum, and did a lot more independent reading on their students' levels, tailored to the kids' interests. Which is a lot harder to do than having everybody to all the same reading and all the same writing and all the same quizzes, pass or fail.

And one of the students was mentioned as having started with like Twilight and had now moved on to I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

And in the comments somebody pointed at that specific student who started with Twilight, and with apparently no sense of irony whatsoever asked how we expect kids to understand the realities of the Jim Crow South if they're not all dragged through To Kill a Mockingbird in lockstep.

...yeah.

Anyway, back to the letter, quite aside from being weirdly vague about the booklist, they also give blah blah "taught to feel bad for being white" nonsense, so I'm voting that they're actually lying.

Comments

[mme_n_b]

Huck Finn? In fifth grade? Sounds like evil machinations of the APA lobby.

[oursin]

I'm just guessing here from across the pond, but it would not at all surprise me to hear that back in the day, parents were absolutely horrified that their little darlings were being exposed to To Kill A Mockingbird, which has now been sanitised by time and social change into 'classic'.

[sabotabby]

The one thing that makes me excited to teach English next year (most things fill me with dread about this) is exposing my students to new, exciting books rather than the bullshit I had to read in high school. Welcome to Grade 11 English where the number of "classic" books written by white dudes is fuckin' zero.

[hudebnik]

On the "We Found the Textbooks" article... I think Mitch McConnell attended the same high school as my father, overlapping by two years.

[thewayne]

We so desperately need to get Civics back into school!

[greghousesgf]

If someone had asked 10 year old me what my background was I wouldn't have even understood the question.

[potofsoup]

I left a comment! Thank you for the links!

[silveradept]

I wouldn't be surprised if they were actually lying, but having seen the various eruptions around the change of name to the Astounding Award for the Hugo ceremonies, the change of name to the Children's Literature Lifetime Achievement award from the American Library Association, and the general uproar about the removal of Seuss books (or other racist materials) from classrooms and libraries, if they are being genuine, the argument seems to be mostly "I was super comfortable in my not having to think about the colonial and enslaving history of the United States, and by doing this, you're making me think and have to answer uncomfortable questions. Stop that."

Which, hah, you have a child, foole. Uncomfortable questions and rethinking the way you were raised are part of the package.

[swingandswirl]

It is so bizarre to me that the US doesn't have civics education as standard, but then again I'm coming to realise that the US does not have a lot of shit I take for granted that a civilised country should have or aspire to, so.

Re: books, I'm so glad more and more schools are pushing to replace classics with more relevant books, especially ones not by dead white dudes. I was lucky, I had a really cool selection of books in high school - Pride and Prejudice and an Indian novel called Paraja, among others, but if I wasn't already a reader? It wouldn't have done much to make me like the concept, since they were mostly dead white dude classics I needed more life experience than I had at 16 to appreciate.