I need your help. I am thinking of doing a project for one of my classes on the banning of literature in schools. If you could copy and paste these questions into a comment form (and everyone should be able to comment even if you''re not a member) I will owe you big time.
What was a favorite or memorable book you read in school during grades 4-12?
Do you recall any literature that negetively affected your behavior, thoughts, or opinions of other people? (racism, suicide, sexism, etc.)
Was there ever an incedent in which your parents or another student's parents did not wish for a student to read an assigned book? If so do you remember why?
Do you think there are books that should be banned from the educational system? Why or why not?
What is the answer to the debate of what is or is not appropriate for school literature?
Of the following books, please identify with an X the books you read in school.
1984 - George Orwell
A Light in the Attic- Shel Silverstein
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) - Mark Twain
Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain
Age of Reason - Thomas Paine
Andersonville (1955) - MacKinlay Kantor
Animal Farm - George Orwell
Arabian Nights
As I Lay Dying (1932) - William Faulkner
Bell Jar-Sylvia Plath
Beloved - Toni Morrison
Black Beauty - Anna Sewell
Bless Me, Ultima - Rudolfo A. Anaya
Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
Call of the Wild - Jack London
Can Such Things Be? - Ambrose Bierce
Candide - Voltaire
Canterbury Tales - Geoffrey Chaucer
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
Catcher in the Rye (1951) - J. D. Salinger
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
Civil Disobedience - Henry David Thoreau
Color Purple - Alice Walker
Confessions - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Death in Venice - Thomas Mann
Decameron - Boccaccio
Dubliners - James Joyce
Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
Fanny Hill - John Cleland
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
Grapes of Wrath (1939) - John Steinbeck
Hamlet - William Shakespeare
Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
Harry Potter- J.K. Rowling
House of Spirits - Isabel Allende
Howl - Allen Ginsberg
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou
James and the Giant Peach
Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
King Lear - William Shakespeare
Lady Chatterley's Lover - D.H. Lawrence
Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman
Lolita (1955) - Vladimir Nabokov
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Lysistrata - Aristophanes
Macbeth - William Shakespeare
Merchant of Venice - William Shakespeare
Moll Flanders - Daniel Defoe
Monk - Matthew Lewis
Native Son - Richard Wright
Nigger of the Narcissus - Joseph Conrad
Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
Origin of the Species - Charles Darwin
Portnoy's Complaint (1969) - Philip Roth
Rights of Man - Thomas Paine
Satanic Verses - Salman Rushdie
Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne
Separate Peace - John Knowles
Silas Marner - George Eliot
Song of Solomon - Toni Morrison
Sons & Lovers - D.H. Lawrence
The Bridge to Terrabithia
The Diary of Anne Frank
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Tropic of Capricorn - Henry Miller
Twelfth Night - William Shakespeare
Ulysses - James Joyce
Uncle Tom's Cabin - Harriet Beecher Stowe
Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle
What year did you graduate from highschool?
Thanks everyone!!! You're peachy!
Monday, October 22, 2007
Sunday, October 21, 2007
To Sieve or Not to Sieve?
Upon reading the article The Democratic Sieve in Teacher Education: Confronting Heterosexism for a graduate class on the social foundations of education, I came home rather fired-up. It seems my fellow graduate students and I differ on our interpretation of the article.
The article by John Petrovic discusses the idea that an educational college institution should have the right to sort possible future teachers into two categories: those who should teach and those who should not. Petrovic's main example discussed homosexuality among the student population.
Picture this, you are a undergraduate student in your freshman year of an educational program. You are assigned to write your response to a student who confidentially confides in you that he/she might be gay.Do you:A) Tell the student that he/she must ask God for forgiveness from their sin.B) Tell them you can't help them.C) Let them know that you are there to listen to them whenever he/she may need to talk.
If you chose A or B you may be "red flagged" and possibly asked not to pursue the teaching profession at that college.
Upon listening to side conversations from some of the students in my grad class tonight I quickly realized that my take on the article was in the minority. Most people were angered by the even thought of someone possibly being able to tell them that they cannot study to become a teacher based on what they believe. I argue, that it is not what you believe, but whether or not you are supportive of the beliefs and feelings of your students.
It is fine to say that I believe it is morally wrong to be a homosexual. It is equally fine to believe that homosexuallity is a person's right as an American citizen. But as a teacher, it is not okay to ever push those beliefs or even discuss them openly with your students.
That said, imagine that you are a teacher. We will say for the convenience of argument that a student in your class is struggling with homosexuality (if you think outside of the box it could be any student, at any age, with any problem be it homosexuality, sexual abuse, physical abuse, an eating disorder, suicidal thoughts, etc..). The student feels he has no where to turn to for advice or help. His friends would abandon him, his parents would shun him, and he certainly doesn't know the school counselors well enough to confide in with information. Would you want that student to look at you thinking "She would just judge me too", or would you want him to think "She may be understanding of what I have to say"?
Teachers do not only present information to students in order for them to pass a test. They are role models, they are parents, they are nurses, they are mediators, and refferees. Teachers should create an environment of support and understanding where students are free to think, to ask questions, and to come to their own conclusions. A classroom should be a non-threatening environment to all students, including blacks, homosexuals, muslims, and any other minority that is not a WASP, and yes, even WASPs should feel welcomed. If a student turns away from your doorway when seeking out help for a serious issue, then you as the teacher did something wrong.
Now, does not being able to be a supportive, non-judgmental adult make you unfit to become a teacher? I think so. No college should ever breed a future educator that would breathe the words "if you are going to be openly gay, you are going to have to expect this kind of treatment" (Petrovic) to a homosexual student who continually gets harassed both verbally and physically because of his sexuality.
Teachers who are narrow-minded and ignorant to diversity yield students who are equally ignorant and close-minded. Teachers who are not up for the task of molding all students into a free-thinkers, or who are ademently against provideing unbiased guidence for troubled youth are in the wrong profession and should be told so before they spend 90,000 and six years of their life on an education, or worse; push a student to suicide because that student felt that he/she had no one to turn to.
The article by John Petrovic discusses the idea that an educational college institution should have the right to sort possible future teachers into two categories: those who should teach and those who should not. Petrovic's main example discussed homosexuality among the student population.
Picture this, you are a undergraduate student in your freshman year of an educational program. You are assigned to write your response to a student who confidentially confides in you that he/she might be gay.Do you:A) Tell the student that he/she must ask God for forgiveness from their sin.B) Tell them you can't help them.C) Let them know that you are there to listen to them whenever he/she may need to talk.
If you chose A or B you may be "red flagged" and possibly asked not to pursue the teaching profession at that college.
Upon listening to side conversations from some of the students in my grad class tonight I quickly realized that my take on the article was in the minority. Most people were angered by the even thought of someone possibly being able to tell them that they cannot study to become a teacher based on what they believe. I argue, that it is not what you believe, but whether or not you are supportive of the beliefs and feelings of your students.
It is fine to say that I believe it is morally wrong to be a homosexual. It is equally fine to believe that homosexuallity is a person's right as an American citizen. But as a teacher, it is not okay to ever push those beliefs or even discuss them openly with your students.
That said, imagine that you are a teacher. We will say for the convenience of argument that a student in your class is struggling with homosexuality (if you think outside of the box it could be any student, at any age, with any problem be it homosexuality, sexual abuse, physical abuse, an eating disorder, suicidal thoughts, etc..). The student feels he has no where to turn to for advice or help. His friends would abandon him, his parents would shun him, and he certainly doesn't know the school counselors well enough to confide in with information. Would you want that student to look at you thinking "She would just judge me too", or would you want him to think "She may be understanding of what I have to say"?
Teachers do not only present information to students in order for them to pass a test. They are role models, they are parents, they are nurses, they are mediators, and refferees. Teachers should create an environment of support and understanding where students are free to think, to ask questions, and to come to their own conclusions. A classroom should be a non-threatening environment to all students, including blacks, homosexuals, muslims, and any other minority that is not a WASP, and yes, even WASPs should feel welcomed. If a student turns away from your doorway when seeking out help for a serious issue, then you as the teacher did something wrong.
Now, does not being able to be a supportive, non-judgmental adult make you unfit to become a teacher? I think so. No college should ever breed a future educator that would breathe the words "if you are going to be openly gay, you are going to have to expect this kind of treatment" (Petrovic) to a homosexual student who continually gets harassed both verbally and physically because of his sexuality.
Teachers who are narrow-minded and ignorant to diversity yield students who are equally ignorant and close-minded. Teachers who are not up for the task of molding all students into a free-thinkers, or who are ademently against provideing unbiased guidence for troubled youth are in the wrong profession and should be told so before they spend 90,000 and six years of their life on an education, or worse; push a student to suicide because that student felt that he/she had no one to turn to.
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