F'fax County Schools Won't Ban Book with Bestiality

[tlcya]

I understand that AP students need to be pushed at higher levels and that this may include some pretty heavy topics. But there is such a wide variety of great literature to choose from - so why *require* that a child read about bestiality? Gang rape is violent - yes - but the sexual act is a natural one that is being horrifically forced upon someone. Bestiality is not a natural act (I guess those who practice it may disagree). There are plenty of other books out there that can be used to expose students to the complex and dire human situations and decisions that people face all around the world - or have faced in the past, even for AP students.

Also, she isn't asking for it to be banned - she is asking for it to be removed from the curriculum.

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this. I will never support the BANNING of books but I do think this particular book is not necessary to achieve the goals of the program and should not be required reading. As a parent, I would find it as objectionable as this mother.

 

[IzzyBlanche]

Does she think reading the Bible is appropriate for her high schoolers? For, you know, there are references to bestiality in that one too.

And Shakespeare. Don't forget Shakespeare.

 

[Sheromom]

Wowser.....can't wait to order Beloved and Invisible Man!!!

 

[AnaTeresa]

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this. I will never support the BANNING of books but I do think this particular book is not necessary to achieve the goals of the program and should not be required reading. As a parent, I would find it as objectionable as this mother.

I read Beloved for AP English in 2001/2002. And it is necessary to achieve the goals of the program. AP English is a college level course, and as such, it needs to have challenging materials. Beloved is dark, but so are many other books. However, Beloved is assigned not only for the student to be able to understand dark, hard, challenging books, but because of its style. The same reason a student reads Shakespeare, Vonnegut, and Austen is the same reason the student reads Morrison - exposure to a variety of literary styles, many of which are meant to challenge the student as a reader.

I would gently suggest that any person in this thread who believes the book is inappropriate for students first read the book before rendering judgment. It is dark, but moving. I learned the most in high school and college with books that I struggled with. Elie Wiesel's Night disturbed me when I read it at thirteen. Should it then be banned? Or should I instead have been taught how to process things that are hard because they happen in the course of real life? I'm glad my parents and teachers took the latter route. My education was richer and fuller for it.

 

[Nova]

Isn't Beloved covered on the AP test? AP courses have to prepared students to pass the course that will give them the college credit; there may be some leeway, but I don't think the curriculum is entirely up to each school.

(And for what it's worth, based on what my Midwest-dairy-farm-raised husband says about his neighbors, it wasn't just slaves who "resorted to calves".)

Sorry to answer my own post, but I looked up the official AP Test site and the requirements for AP English testing. If I'm reading correctly, no specific works of literature are required; rather students are expected to exhibit critical thinking, reading and writing skills. I guess students (and school districts) get to choose which works of literature they discuss.

As for whether 17 and 18-year-olds can handle a brief reference to bestiality (or a more extended description of incest by Ralph Ellison), how are they to develop college-level critical thinking if they must be protected from the facts of the world?

FWIW, in my day, those precise topics were covered in the family encyclopedia. Nowadays I'm sure any kid who can get into AP English can discover at least as much on the internet.

 

[Sheromom]

Sorry to answer my own post, but I looked up the official AP Test site and the requirements for AP English testing. If I'm reading correctly, no specific works of literature are required; rather students are expected to exhibit critical thinking, reading and writing skills. I guess students (and school districts) get to choose which works of literature they discuss.

As for whether 17 and 18-year-olds can handle a brief reference to bestiality (or a more extended description of incest by Ralph Ellison), how are they to develop college-level critical thinking if they must be protected from the facts of the world?

FWIW, in my day, those precise topics were covered in the family encyclopedia. Nowadays I'm sure any kid who can get into AP English can discover at least as much on the internet.

Excellent post!

 

[Tugela]

This stuff is senior level courses, at that age they are not children any more and it is fully appropriate that their course matter covers real world topics.

Any parent that has issue with this needs to look at themselves if they really believe their kids cannot handle this sort of thing, because if that is so they have been manifestly (and IMO criminally) negligent in rearing their children.

 

[IzzyBlanche]

One thing about this story that has baffled me from the beginning is, wasn't a course syllabus for this AP class available for student and parent review before the students signed up for it?

I attended high school back in the pre-Internet Mesozoic era when no one would have thought of such a thing, but in this day and age? I can't imagine that the reading list would not have been pre-posted.

And as for disturbing material, I wonder if the reading list included Grapes of Wrath or Lord of the Flies. GoW disturbed me for weeks after reading it (of course I was only 12 and precociously reading it on my own LOL) and I've never read LotF but I know it has been repeatedly challenged for content that doesn't seem to me too much different from that of Beloved, aside from the bestiality of course.

Come to think of it, GoW has a joking reference to bestiality.

OK, I'll stop, sorry for the ramble.

 

[Kat]

Laura Blake Murphy is right about one thing, she is not "some crazy book-burner", she is "a right of right, book burning zealot". IMO.

One can find her Letters to the Editors about her rapid support for such things as Virginia's HB1 (Personhood Bill) and HB462 (Law to require Transvaginal Ultrasounds prior to abortion). She is a helicopter parent to the extreme, she is chairman of the Lake Braddock PTSA Advanced kAcademic Committee, she describes herself as Homemaker/Self Employed/Lawyer when contributing sizeable amounts to Republican politicians, some of whom are also right of right such as Patrick Timothy McHenry.

So, I am trying to figure out how the very real legislated 'forced vaginal penetration by lawmakers' is okay, but the mere suggestion of the idea of 'beastiality' is somehow unfit for advanced placement students to encounter. If an advanced placement student can't handle the idea in high school, then maybe they shouldn't be in advanced placement classes.

I also think its interesting that the school and the area it serves has a Black Race population percentage, significantly below the State average. In other words, its almost lily white. I don't necessarily think she is racist but, I do think she wants to keep it that way.

I personally think there is something to the saying "Where there is smoke, there is fire."

Thanks nora.

 

[Nova]

One thing about this story that has baffled me from the beginning is, wasn't a course syllabus for this AP class available for student and parent review before the students signed up for it?

I attended high school back in the pre-Internet Mesozoic era when no one would have thought of such a thing, but in this day and age? I can't imagine that the reading list would not have been pre-posted.

And as for disturbing material, I wonder if the reading list included Grapes of Wrath or Lord of the Flies. GoW disturbed me for weeks after reading it (of course I was only 12 and precociously reading it on my own LOL) and I've never read LotF but I know it has been repeatedly challenged for content that doesn't seem to me too much different from that of Beloved, aside from the bestiality of course.

Come to think of it, GoW has a joking reference to bestiality.

OK, I'll stop, sorry for the ramble.

Grapes of Wrath indirectly had an enormous influence on me. When she was in high school, my mother tried to check out the novel from the school library in the small, Kansas town where she lived and was told she would need a permission slip from her mother. Said permission slip was given, but my mother was so incensed by the whole episode that she vowed never to restrict anything her children read.

I was allowed to read anything I chose to pick up at any age. I read GoW at 12 or so. Lucky me!

BTW, Lord of the Flies was required reading for ALL students when I was in 7th grade. I don't know when or why it became so controversial.

 

[txsvicki]

I saw The Grapes of Wrath film at church when I was in seventh grade. No offense, but some of the things mentioned in AP books are shocking to me. Incest and such being considered great literature. I only had one kid in AP or honor's classes, and had no idea because he never had to do homework at home or work on stuff at home.

 

[Donjeta]

Great literature is more about how than what imo. The subject matter may be shocking or mundane, it's more about how it's written and how the topic is handled than what the topic is. JMO.

 

[STEADFAST]

Sorry to answer my own post, but I looked up the official AP Test site and the requirements for AP English testing. If I'm reading correctly, no specific works of literature are required; rather students are expected to exhibit critical thinking, reading and writing skills. I guess students (and school districts) get to choose which works of literature they discuss.

As for whether 17 and 18-year-olds can handle a brief reference to bestiality (or a more extended description of incest by Ralph Ellison), how are they to develop college-level critical thinking if they must be protected from the facts of the world?

FWIW, in my day, those precise topics were covered in the family encyclopedia. Nowadays I'm sure any kid who can get into AP English can discover at least as much on the internet.

I doubt if any act in Beloved would shock or injure the psyche of today's high schoolers. They know, or have access to knowing, everything humans can think up to do. I think the book is strong stuff for them because understanding and discussing it in any meaningful way depends on a knowledge of history, literary tradition in multiple cultures, and literary theory that they have not had time to obtain.
Now that i.b.nora has introduced us to the woman behind the push for banning, though, I'm all for the book being taught in the high schools, just to spite her.

 

[Nova]

I saw The Grapes of Wrath film at church when I was in seventh grade. No offense, but some of the things mentioned in AP books are shocking to me. Incest and such being considered great literature. I only had one kid in AP or honor's classes, and had no idea because he never had to do homework at home or work on stuff at home.

The part that bothers most parents isn't in the film, vicki. At the end of the novel, after Rose of Sharon's baby has died, she saves a starving man's life by nursing him instead of her dead child. (In the film, of course, we get Jane Darwell's brilliant reading of the "We's the people. We jes' keep a'comin'!" speech.)

It's a stark and dramatic scene in the book, but I don't remember Steinbeck dwelling on the details. At 12 I was shocked by the poverty depicted, but not by the desperate solution (which did not strike me as remotely "sexy" in that context).

(Of course, that scene may just be an excuse to ban a book that is very sympathetic to socialist political impulses.)

As for Ralph Ellison's Innocent Man, it isn't a great book because it depicts incest. It's a great book because it is true, including that scene. Incest is NOT depicted as desirable, but as a result of poverty because an entire family of sharecroppers all share the one bed in their one-room shack. (And FWIW, the incest story (it is told as a story by one of the characters, putting the action safely in the "past") is one brief, if unforgettable, incident in the second or third chapter. It isn't the central subject of the novel. I don't want to discourage anyone from reading a great book by misrepresenting its subject matter.)

 

[belimom]

I read Beloved for AP English in 2001/2002. And it is necessary to achieve the goals of the program. AP English is a college level course, and as such, it needs to have challenging materials. Beloved is dark, but so are many other books. However, Beloved is assigned not only for the student to be able to understand dark, hard, challenging books, but because of its style. The same reason a student reads Shakespeare, Vonnegut, and Austen is the same reason the student reads Morrison - exposure to a variety of literary styles, many of which are meant to challenge the student as a reader.

I would gently suggest that any person in this thread who believes the book is inappropriate for students first read the book before rendering judgment. It is dark, but moving. I learned the most in high school and college with books that I struggled with. Elie Wiesel's Night disturbed me when I read it at thirteen. Should it then be banned? Or should I instead have been taught how to process things that are hard because they happen in the course of real life? I'm glad my parents and teachers took the latter route. My education was richer and fuller for it.

bbm

You talked me into it. As a parent to a child in the AAP program (elem/middle school) in this same district (F'fax County), I want to know what my child will be reading in the AP program in high school. I can handle it. And, then I'll post back.

FYI, I'm pretty conservative with my choice of reading materials, so I'm anxious to see exactly what's in this book.

 

[IzzyBlanche]

The part that bothers most parents isn't in the film, vicki. At the end of the novel, after Rose of Sharon's baby has died, she saves a starving man's life by nursing him instead of her dead child. (In the film, of course, we get Jane Darwell's brilliant reading of the "We's the people. We jes' keep a'comin'!" speech.)

It's a stark and dramatic scene in the book, but I don't remember Steinbeck dwelling on the details. At 12 I was shocked by the poverty depicted, but not by the desperate solution (which did not strike me as remotely "sexy" in that context).

(Of course, that scene may just be an excuse to ban a book that is very sympathetic to socialist political impulses.)

As for Ralph Ellison's Innocent Man, it isn't a great book because it depicts incest. It's a great book because it is true, including that scene. Incest is NOT depicted as desirable, but as a result of poverty because an entire family of sharecroppers all share the one bed in their one-room shack. (And FWIW, the incest story (it is told as a story by one of the characters, putting the action safely in the "past") is one brief, if unforgettable, incident in the second or third chapter. It isn't the central subject of the novel. I don't want to discourage anyone from reading a great book by misrepresenting its subject matter.)

Oh great, Nova, just post the GoW spoiler why dontcha! :floorlaugh:

To add to what you said, though, the scene is not gratuitous at all. The starving man initially resists as much as he can before finally accepting what he must realize is his last chance for survival.

Now as for the rest of your post: gentle reader, I must respond on a couple of points.

Ralph Ellison wrote Invisible Man, not Innocent Man. However, John Grisham's Innocent Man is a fascinating nonfiction read that I highly recommend.

And as a novel, Invisible Man is by definition not "true." Perhaps you meant true to life, or true to history?

 

[IzzyBlanche]

One last random thought tonight:

I too was fortunate to grow up with parents who never tried to restrict what I read, which is why I too read the Grapes of Wrath at age 12.

A couple of years before that, though, I was reading a book, purchased with my allowance, that shocked me with a--very tame by today's standards--sex scene. I knew the basic facts of life, of course, but at 9 years old not the subtleties. Specifically: what "erection" means.

I took the book to my mom and said, "I don't think I should be reading this." She read the scene in question and replied quite calmly, "Well Izzy, I think you are correct so why don't you give it to me and I'll give it back to you when we both agree you are ready for it."

That was the end of that and I did get the book back.

I think my mother was--and is--very wise.

 

[Nova]

Oh great, Nova, just post the GoW spoiler why dontcha! :floorlaugh:

To add to what you said, though, the scene is not gratuitous at all. The starving man initially resists as much as he can before finally accepting what he must realize is his last chance for survival.

Last I looked, GoW was over 1,000 pages long. I'm sure any reader will have forgotten my spoiler by the time he or she gets to the end.

No, not at all gratuitous. I think the scene is a symbolic representation of the interdependency of human beings, not a proposal to solve world hunger.

Now as for the rest of your post: gentle reader, I must respond on a couple of points.

Ralph Ellison wrote Invisible Man, not Innocent Man. However, John Grisham's Innocent Man is a fascinating nonfiction read that I highly recommend.

Thanks for the correction. I got the title right the first time I mentioned it in Post #18.

FTR, I have read both Men: Invisible and Innocent. John Grisham isn't really in Ellison's class, but his Innocent Man is a good work of non-fiction.

And as a novel, Invisible Man is by definition not "true." Perhaps you meant true to life, or true to history?

I meant "true" in the poetic sense meaning "universally true". In the sense Aristotle meant when he said poetry is more significant than history because while history shows us what one man did at a certain time, poetry shows us what a certain type of man will do when facing a certain set of circumstances.

 

[IzzyBlanche]

Last I looked, GoW was over 1,000 pages long.

You might want to look again. :biggrin:

 

[Nova]

You might want to look again. :biggrin:

If you have a copy in front of you, you could just tell us. It's a long book (and entirely worth it).