.....Are these simply misguided attempts by well-meaning educators, or is it a Machiavellian attempt to create a class of people totally dependent upon the government for their total subsistence?
-Mychal Massie
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=249677
A few years ago some writers tried to sanitize the Bible in order to make it more acceptable to feminists. How silly and it obviously did not succeed. Huck Finn should not be sanitized. It is the first step to many revisions for all sorts of purposes.
I know it's just an itty bitty little book, but then should Little Black Sambo be returned to it's original state ? He wasn't a black Afro-American boy with kinky hair as first written, he was a dark skinned Indian Caste boy and the "butter" was Ghee. I never understood why it was changed here. Leave the books alone.There are plenty of teaching opportunities just as written. Shall we rewrite "The Miller's Tale and The Handmaiden's Tale too?" How about the rest of Shakespeare? A lot of very old literature was written specifically for social redeeming qualities just as "A Christmas Carol" was. As were Aesop's Fables and many other bits were clever stories but were meant to teach too.
I do agree Diane. If we sanitize everything to suit someone we have no history or culture for a reference. This is what happened in Orwell's novel, 1984. History was changed to suit the powers in control.
When I was in 6th grade, in 1955-56, our teacher read to us each day at 1:00 PM. He read both Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. I recall how we all looked forward to that time and I don't recall any feeling of racism that came from the reading of the books. It was colorful, fun and interesting. I was sitting in a classroom that was full of Mexicans and a few Indians. Whites were in the minority. This was in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
My teachers always read to us too, as did I when I took over the desk later. It helps develops listening and auditory comprehension and evaluation skills. We also had Tom and Huck read to us. Our mix of students then was some Mexican, many new immigrant Italian, Puerto Rican, some Latvian, Lithuanian and Polish refugees and some "negros" as well as us Wasps.
I love New Mexico by the way.
Quote from: redcliffsw on January 11, 2011, 06:29:30 AM
.....Are these simply misguided attempts by well-meaning educators, or is it a Machiavellian attempt to create a class of people totally dependent upon the government for their total subsistence?
-Mychal Massie
Since non-local government has significant control of 'public' education, and this politically correct sanitization fits perfectly with the progressive agenda... I think it may well be a cog in a larger, top down social engineering experiment.