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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I listened to this audiobook with my 12 year old daughter at bedtime for about a week this year.  I read this in class when I was ... in middle school? ... but I don't think APS will teach it and wanted my kid to know the story and the book.

I wonder if some of the upset over this is because the DMV is filled with lawyers and the book inspired so many people to become lawyers.  To tell all those people that the book no longer applies, that the lesson it was teaching was a bit white saviorish and wrongheaded, is a little hard for some of those lawyers to hear imho.  (I am one of those lawyers but I agree the book is white saviorish.  Lots of other books where black characters are the heroes of their own stories.)

My daughter liked the audiobook fwiw.  Even with discussing some of the deeper themes together.  It was a nice mom/daughter experience.  She wants to listen to more audiobooks now.[/quote]

I taught it to a white, private school 8th grader this year and had a very positive experience.  I don't really see how Lee could have explored all the internal texture and thinking that went into white racism then by telling the story from the black characters' perspective. That was the whole point - so she chose Scout, an innocent girl confronting a system that would teach her racism if she didn't learn better.

Learning not to absorb racist messages or take them for granted as "the way things are" is a powerful lesson.  It applies to other kinds of prejudice as well.[/quote]

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