Reply to WaPo Columnist: Why Montgomery County should listen to its parents

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[quote=Anonymous]I just read it, it's a very wishy-washy article.

Personally, with kids in secondary school, I was not aware that elementary schools were making kids read that stuff. I understand why some families might not want their kids exposed to that so early, but if my kids had been in elementary school and read those things, I wouldn't mind very much.

My larger bone of contention with MCPS is that the English curriculum is TERRIBLE. AWFUL. Kids are reading more excerpts, fewer full-length novels, and the literary canon on which all western cultural references is based has all but disappeared except in high school, mostly at the AP level. In order to appreciate contemporary and minority authors, the canon needs to be taught. It's how my literature teachers exposed racism, misogyny, theocracy and classism. You can't appreciate other works without delving into the canon.

LBGTQ+ works are valuable additions to English class, but the problem is that MCPS, in a bid to look progressive, spends way too much time on modern works and not enough time on the classics. My 9th grader at BCC spent a portion of the school year on a graphic novel, that had been assigned because of its LGBTQ+ theme. We like graphic novels in the house, but they do not have their place in a 9th grade English curriculum, where students should be trained to read longer and more complex works, with extended vocabulary, complex grammar and all the swells and eddies of language.

English writing is also greatly lacking. My oldest, who earned As in AP Lang and AP Lit, struggled a bit in college with his essay writing. MCPS does not teach it to a high enough standard. They need to start earlier, instead of distributing those silly worksheets, and practice more.

MCPS is better than all the area privates at STEM, but it's worse than some of the better privates in English classics and writing.[/quote]

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