Homey don't teach that!
Today I heard a story about a teacher in the Midwest who got in trouble for an assignment he gave his students. He asked the students to write a paper on who they would kill and how. There was major outrage over this assignment because of the topic, but I have to support the teacher. To me, the main purpose of a teacher is to challenge the students intellectually and to make them ponder questions of morality and philosophy. School is supposed to socialize kids, to expose them to the diversity of the society in which they live. If we didn't want to expose kids to anything offensive, we might as well eliminate public schools and home-school everyone. That way if you are some close-minded hick from Missouri, you can raise a perfect little Neo-Con baby with the exact same views as you. Any teacher who doesn't challenge their students to think about uncomfortable subjects is just not doing his job.
This anti-intellectualism (I believe the outrage to this assignment is that) is nothing new, as every nation has faced anti-intellectualism at some point. But it's more dangerous because we are allowing these people to bully us into taking them seriously. How on earth was the Dover School Board allowed to add "Intelligent Design" to the curriculum? Isn't time supposed to bring progress and not devolution? We allow close-minded parents who were "C" students in public school to tell us how we should teach, but we don't listen to scientists and progressive teachers who are trying to bring progress. This teacher was trying to bring his students to think about a difficult topic as a way to create an interesting writing assignment. Writing about a murder may not be "Christian" or whatever, but who would want to read a fictional story about a character who doesn't kill, doesn't have sex, doesn't do drugs, doesn't believe in science and has no conflicts over sexuality? When I think of my favorite books, they are all ones that have been opposed by the same groups that got this teacher in trouble.
Let's ban Romeo & Juliet, Catcher in the Rye, Brave New World, On The Road and Macbeth, it's not like those are important in the development of Western Culture. I think we should just eliminate all books except for the Bible and just read it over and over again until we believe that all of its stories are literal. Isn't that what the Red States are doing? Sure, the Bible is a fantastic book filled with some of the all-time classic stories, but it's simply a collection of stories. And it's not exactly a bastian of morality. Some of the stories promote murdering children to appease God, killing people who hold different beliefs and promoting retaliation/revenge. It also contradicts itself at times, saying one thing in one story, and then saying the opposite in another one.
To me the scariest thing about this is the generation that is growing up in this era of closing minds and increasing censorship. When this generation get older, they will be completely void of that other point of view, only being allowed to read books approved by their Church's minister or local conservative group. I've read some great novels about murder, heroin use and I've never found myself falling prey to their appeal. The more I read, the less it influences me, as I am diluting its impact by perpetually reading and learning. But if I concentrate on a few inoffensive books I will eventually find myself lacking the creativity needed to really succeed in this world. Not only that, but I am being robbed of the sheer brilliance of Kerouac, Huxley, Verne, Wells and even Shakespeare.
Teachers should make students feel uncomfortable, not by being preachy or by molesting the students, but by challenging their beliefs and pre-conceived notions. It's the duty of a teacher to help the student grow academically as well as personally. I applaud a teacher that strikes controversy in his classroom, even if it is offensive to some. This is a world where dialogue is slowly going extinct, people don't discuss things, they just get outraged when their opinion isn't aggreed with. We need to teach our children how to think about things that they've never thought of before, how to put themselves in the shoes of others. Instead of forcing your child to hear only what you want them to hear, let them hear everything and develop their own opinion. Otherwise that child might find themselves overwhelmed when they hit the real world and see all the things they've been sheltered from their whole life. Or do we just want to give up on free speech, expression and religion and become just like Iran?
This anti-intellectualism (I believe the outrage to this assignment is that) is nothing new, as every nation has faced anti-intellectualism at some point. But it's more dangerous because we are allowing these people to bully us into taking them seriously. How on earth was the Dover School Board allowed to add "Intelligent Design" to the curriculum? Isn't time supposed to bring progress and not devolution? We allow close-minded parents who were "C" students in public school to tell us how we should teach, but we don't listen to scientists and progressive teachers who are trying to bring progress. This teacher was trying to bring his students to think about a difficult topic as a way to create an interesting writing assignment. Writing about a murder may not be "Christian" or whatever, but who would want to read a fictional story about a character who doesn't kill, doesn't have sex, doesn't do drugs, doesn't believe in science and has no conflicts over sexuality? When I think of my favorite books, they are all ones that have been opposed by the same groups that got this teacher in trouble.
Let's ban Romeo & Juliet, Catcher in the Rye, Brave New World, On The Road and Macbeth, it's not like those are important in the development of Western Culture. I think we should just eliminate all books except for the Bible and just read it over and over again until we believe that all of its stories are literal. Isn't that what the Red States are doing? Sure, the Bible is a fantastic book filled with some of the all-time classic stories, but it's simply a collection of stories. And it's not exactly a bastian of morality. Some of the stories promote murdering children to appease God, killing people who hold different beliefs and promoting retaliation/revenge. It also contradicts itself at times, saying one thing in one story, and then saying the opposite in another one.
To me the scariest thing about this is the generation that is growing up in this era of closing minds and increasing censorship. When this generation get older, they will be completely void of that other point of view, only being allowed to read books approved by their Church's minister or local conservative group. I've read some great novels about murder, heroin use and I've never found myself falling prey to their appeal. The more I read, the less it influences me, as I am diluting its impact by perpetually reading and learning. But if I concentrate on a few inoffensive books I will eventually find myself lacking the creativity needed to really succeed in this world. Not only that, but I am being robbed of the sheer brilliance of Kerouac, Huxley, Verne, Wells and even Shakespeare.
Teachers should make students feel uncomfortable, not by being preachy or by molesting the students, but by challenging their beliefs and pre-conceived notions. It's the duty of a teacher to help the student grow academically as well as personally. I applaud a teacher that strikes controversy in his classroom, even if it is offensive to some. This is a world where dialogue is slowly going extinct, people don't discuss things, they just get outraged when their opinion isn't aggreed with. We need to teach our children how to think about things that they've never thought of before, how to put themselves in the shoes of others. Instead of forcing your child to hear only what you want them to hear, let them hear everything and develop their own opinion. Otherwise that child might find themselves overwhelmed when they hit the real world and see all the things they've been sheltered from their whole life. Or do we just want to give up on free speech, expression and religion and become just like Iran?
posted by Dan Pasternack at 1:14 PM
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