https://www.insider.com/banned-book...-nature-of-the-book-completely-unnecessary-12 I wouldn't be surprised if the children who have had their well written literature sanitised, go home and play video games in which the characters include half dressed hefty women murdering people with machine guns, watch TV in which in a split second, a kiss becomes a couple coming downstairs in bathrobes and where dancing and skating couples writhe around each other in erotic display. Just how far do these parents and schools go to keep children protected and blind to the reality of life? Do they blindfold their children when a picture of Rodin's The Kiss appears? Sure, literature has to be age appropriate but that is what teachers are for...to allow discussion of why and what impact such material has on the reader. ie Why did the author use such vocabulary? Does it tell the reader more about the character and his/her environment? How does that make you relate to the character. You have adults who have no idea about how literature works, censoring important material because of the use of a swear word? and that headteacher who thought Harry Potter's spells actually worked?? He should be fired for gross stupidity. IMO the stuff in modern video games needs censoring far more closely. Most of the plots are repetitive and shallow, and the characters are only as deep as the clothes someone decided they should wear. But kids spend hours, for example, looking at men lifting nearly nude women over their shoulders, and shooting and killing hundreds of bad guys with no sentiment. In fact empathy is hardly expressed. I would be the first to feel regret that most modern literature is shallow, characters are merely robots who just do things and have no personality and plots are simplistic, but these books are literary classics for the reason that they are NOT just those things. and if teachers can't highlight those things they shouldn't be teaching Literature. and ultimately are dumbing down your culture. Sorry for the rant, but this is an issue close to my heart.
I do not agree in the sense that are no laws that can teach anyone "critical thinking". It is just a non-starter. The reality of our society, irrespective of where we live, what we believe or what we hope for our children and future descendants, can **only** be what we are willing to accept for ourselves. Yes, it's painful to know that we live among people that have no desire to move off their their feet cemented wherever they are. We can't change that. The ONLY change we have impact upon is with ourselves. P.S. Please don't apologize for ranting. Unless you violate the terms of agreement to register and post on this forum, you have the right to be who you are, where you are and what you believe.
But there can be. and there is in the UK with which I am most familiar in terms of education . It is called the National Curriculum and it outlines what texts, what to make understood in it, (character, plot, motive etc) and how to explain what the students know. (and no it is not emphasising any political or moral imperative. All opinions are welcome as long as they are justified by a student's personal interpretation of the text). There the teaching of English language and literature is exactly that...the teaching of critical thinking. It is the recognition of the use of language and/or textual structure (novel, poem, play etc) (and how it has been used in the past) to better understand humans and the human condition, if for no other reason that it still exists and has not changed much, no matter how the material environment has changed. What seems to have been stripped out in the examples given in the article is that fundamental element which makes the subject so vital to an understanding of culture. All those with power to censor can see is "the story" and "the words". Example...imagine if you go to a museum and see a portrait of a historical Queen who is hardly covering her bosom because that was the fashion of the day, and someone has overpainted the naked part because they didn't want it to be public. The whole portrait would be destroyed. Those who are "burning books" don't know what the true value of "the books" is. and frankly I am a bit disturbed that those who teach "the books" don't howl down the censorship in defense of that value of cultural expression. Meanwhile the damaging stuff still goes on inside shallow, pointless and addictive amusement? I really do wonder what these parents and schools DO allow their children to see. Even Minnie Mouse has come in for some criticism!
OK. Are you willing to do an a little exercise? If so, can you tell me what percentage of people that you've encouraged that is willing and open to the idea that anything contrary to their fundamental belief about <whatever topic> is considered? Yes, we **can** share alternate viewpoints and philosophies but, at the end of the day, human beings almost always choose the familiar. The reason behind this is that not choosing the familiar is very hard and comes with ridicule, shunning or even rejection of every single thing they have ever believed. We are hard-wired to seek and want and conform to the edicts we are expected to accept.
You are being unfair to yourself. I taught English language and literature to junior and senior high school students for nearly 40 years. Bless them, they were open to most new ideas. and I took them all as long as they could substantiate them with the text as the starting point. Out of that list of books mentioned I know them all but two. The rest appeared on the National Curriculum reading list and are considered as basic to a well rounded person's experience .Tell me...are parents and schools in the USA now going to take Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Lawrence and Milton off the shelves? They wrote things that makes your toes curl, if you ae so sensitively disposed. But oh they did contribute hugely to influencing, questioning, creating and enjoying the culture we have today.
Parents should be the ones doing the censoring not teachers. A teachers job is math, reading skills, history, etc… not what a kid should be subject to on a societal level. So I disagree that a teacher even needs to censor anything just do their job. As far as video games there are some pretty graphic ones like grand theft auto where you can beat people, pick up hookers, commit mass murder, and much more. But again that should be a parents job, not the gaming industry. I wouldn’t let my kids play GTA. The hard thing now is how do parents know what their kids are playing with the virtual headsets you can’t even see? That’s a hard one.
It surely is. But it begs the question...I would say there aren't many parents who do understand the value of literature (in any language) well enough to know whether it is worth censoring it. You can senpot a swear word but not why a character might use it. and you won't know that until you know the context in which it occurs in the book. That sort of evaluation is only done properly by the teacher (and if they don't know they shouldn't be teaching). But it is true in many cases...parents should be aware of what their children are exposed to and at least try to find out its worth, even if there is some swearing in it.
Don't ignore my reply. Your answer would answer your silly question. That is advanced rational discourse.
Neither observation has anything to do with logic, where indisputable facts are vital to deduction. Giving an order is not an element of logic. Nor is your assertion that a question cannot canswer a question when your answer is the answer to YOUR question. As I explained. Additionally, "what makes you think that" was clearly answered. Logically. In conclusion. it is logical to say that literature has for many years been a minority subject of study. Therefore it is logical to propose that most parents don't appreciate literature. Innit?
Good points. I've been thinking the same things lately. We live in a society that craves violence, profanity, sex, and so forth, yet we want to ban books with literary value for the same reason. The hypocrisy saturates. But that's how politics works. I was always big on getting students to use those critical thinking skills. Of course, to do that in literature, they need to have a command of basic literary skills. That seemed to wane as standardized testing became the focus of Education in the US. Where I relied heavily on student essays that required students to look into the text and follow the thematic currents, standardized testing only required guessing A,B,C.orD. The texts lost meaning and students lost interest. I was told not to assign novels because the novels were not on the test. I was told to limit reading passages to 10 minutes because students couldn't focus any longer than that (which meant that novels could not be assigned). I'm a believer in the idea of more control being at the local level, and I'm not totally against testing (in the STEM areas). However, I'm well aware of the local level's lack of understanding about the role of literature in society.
Literature us the ancient and eternal record of human beings' experience on earth, either literally, figuratively, with comedy or spirituality to deeply tragic forms of relaying that, and discusses everything any person can experience and reflect on from the viewpoint of as many people as you want. Literature IS human experience across time and space and TBH, we don't change much. Lit is being a human being. All told using exquisite language, one of mankind's greatest achievements. The best of those moments when I come across them makes my heart jump. You can't appreciate it in ten minute chunks. What a shame schools have come to see it as just a bunch of stories.
Critical thinking is still developed. Students still read novels. Standardized tests do not prevent this, and they are not the entirety of the school year. If you want to blame something for the waning attention span of young people (and everyone else), look to technology and social media.
