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01-15-2017 | #1 |
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Exposing Students to Controversial Writings
Controversial short story gets Sarasota substitute teacher banned - News - Sarasota Herald-Tribune - Sarasota, FL
Thoughts? I agree with her ideas about literature, but also feel that she was pretty irresponsible for deviating from the lesson plan. I suppose this thread could be about controversial writings in a school setting in general. |
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01-15-2017 | #2 | |||||||||||
Grimscribe
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Re: Exposing Students to Controversial Writings
There were times when I could mention something regarding Machen or Hawthorne (for instance), but that was after the students finished their assignments. | |||||||||||
"In a less scientific age, he would have been a devil-worshipper, a partaker in the abominations of the Black Mass; or would have given himself to the study and practice of sorcery. His was a religious soul that had failed to find good in the scheme of things; and lacking it, was impelled to make of evil itself an object of secret reverence."
~ Clark Ashton Smith, "The Devotee of Evil" |
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4 Thanks From: | DarkView (01-15-2017), miguel1984 (01-15-2017), Nirvana In Karma (01-15-2017), ToALonelyPeace (01-19-2017) |
01-15-2017 | #3 | |||||||||||
Mystic
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Re: Exposing Students to Controversial Writings
The punishment was overly harsh in my opinion and a warning would have sufficed. With that said, it seems she has a politicized idea of what constitutes "real" literature and was wrong to disregard the lesson plan in favor of it.
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“Evolution cannot avoid bringing intelligent life ultimately to an awareness of one thing above all else and that one thing is futility.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Sunset Limited |
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01-15-2017 | #4 | |||||||||||
Mystic
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Re: Exposing Students to Controversial Writings
What others said: I fully sympathise with her sentiments, but putting one's personal politics above education is unwelcome and irresponsible.
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01-15-2017 | #5 |
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Re: Exposing Students to Controversial Writings
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01-19-2017 | #6 | |||||||||||
Grimscribe
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Re: Exposing Students to Controversial Writings
I thought the ban was excessive, and it seemed to be about sending a message to teachers who step out of line.
I read the story "Alma" itself, and this is no Beloved. If you do a literary analysis (which is what the students are supposed to do), the story has no theme, the use of foreign words is interesting but you can find that from The House on Mango Street. This book has little literary value, and I don't know how the substitute can dig anything other than controversy out of it. For the proposal, in theory I disagree with it, but in practice it doesn't matter because most students don't read. The students who do read will find out these books on their own. | |||||||||||
"Tell me how you want to die, and I'll tell you who you are. In other words, how do you fill out an empty life? With women, books, or worldly ambitions? No matter what you do, the starting point is boredom, and the end self-destruction. The emblem of our fate: the sky teeming with worms. Baudelaire taught me that life is the ecstasy of worms in the sun, and happiness the dance of worms."
---Tears and Saints, E. M. Cioran
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01-19-2017 | #7 | |||||||||||
Grimscribe
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Re: Exposing Students to Controversial Writings
Diaz has won the Pulitzer, hasn't he? Please tell me 'Alma' is not representative. | |||||||||||
“Absolutely candid, carefree, but straightforward speech becomes possible for the first time when one speaks of the highest." - Friedrich Schlegel
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7 Thanks From: | DarkView (01-21-2017), Justin Isis (01-22-2017), miguel1984 (01-19-2017), Mr. Veech (01-19-2017), Nirvana In Karma (01-19-2017), Raul Urraca (01-19-2017), ToALonelyPeace (01-21-2017) |
01-19-2017 | #8 | |||||||||||
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Re: Exposing Students to Controversial Writings
The collection "Alma" belongs to is This Is How You Lose Her, which wiki describes as "The majority of the stories in the collection deal with men's infidelity in romantic relationships." and how "[By the end of the book,] he finally begins to see the women in his life as fully human...Something that for the average guy is very difficult to obtain, considering that most of us are socialized to never imagine women as fully human."
Looking at the awards this book won, I am at a loss for words. | |||||||||||
"Tell me how you want to die, and I'll tell you who you are. In other words, how do you fill out an empty life? With women, books, or worldly ambitions? No matter what you do, the starting point is boredom, and the end self-destruction. The emblem of our fate: the sky teeming with worms. Baudelaire taught me that life is the ecstasy of worms in the sun, and happiness the dance of worms."
---Tears and Saints, E. M. Cioran
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01-20-2017 | #9 | |||||||||||
Grimscribe
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Re: Exposing Students to Controversial Writings
Well, this is much better than the space spaces and trigger warnings bull#### that is going on as we speak.
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Your fall should be like the fall of mountains. But I was before mountains. I was in the beginning, and shall be forever. The first and the last. The world come full circle. I am not the wheel. I am the hand that turns the wheel. I am Time, the Destroyer. I was the wind and the stars before this. Before planets. Before heaven and hell. And when all is done, I will be wind again, to blow this world as dust back into endless space. To me the coming and going of Man is as nothing.
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01-20-2017 | #10 | |||||||||||
Acolyte
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Re: Exposing Students to Controversial Writings
I'm all for exposing the youth to obscene, pornographic, and offensive writing, but this piece seems particularly bad. Very glib and slangy, the sort of trash you'd expect the NYT to publish.
I don't think it was prudent of the substitute to teach the story; she was obviously just trying to be provocative. If you're going to teach children obscene writing, at least teach them good obscene writing. Georges Bataille's "A Story of the Eye," for instance. I'm sure an optimistic tale of two teenagers falling in love would be much appreciated. | |||||||||||
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