Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1. Our school dumped Macbeth for The Bluest Eye. Just silly.

Have you ever read The Bluest Eye? It's a really good book.

Great. So read it at your ladies’ book club. You don’t dump the centerpiece author of the English language for the last 500 years for a trendy title, if you are trying to educate young students.

LOL at the idea that a novel from 1970, by a Nobel Prize-winning author widely recognized as one of the great American writers, is "a trendy title."

Or that Harper Lee is "the centerpiece author of the English language for the last 500 years"

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1. Our school dumped Macbeth for The Bluest Eye. Just silly.

Have you ever read The Bluest Eye? It's a really good book.

Great. So read it at your ladies’ book club. You don’t dump the centerpiece author of the English language for the last 500 years for a trendy title, if you are trying to educate young students.

LOL at the idea that a novel from 1970, by a Nobel Prize-winning author widely recognized as one of the great American writers, is "a trendy title."

Are you mad that they don't read all the other classics? There are hundreds of great books for MS/HS students to read. You can't possibly put them all in the curriculum. Are you just mad that they are changing the curriculum? No one is banning the book! You can buy it or borrow it from the library, which probably has dozens of copies in circulation, and read it with your kid.

I had an excellent education many years ago, and we did not read TKAM in class (or Huck Finn, FWIW). We read some of the many other great books that exist for kids and young adults instead.

Your quaint nostalgia for the book doesn't mean schools should continue to teach it, especially when there are many other texts that deal with the same issues and themes more effectively.

Can't a book like To Kill a Mockingbird be used to teach all of the issues being brought up against it? Seems like a very good platform to approach all these issues.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1. Our school dumped Macbeth for The Bluest Eye. Just silly.

Have you ever read The Bluest Eye? It's a really good book.

Great. So read it at your ladies’ book club. You don’t dump the centerpiece author of the English language for the last 500 years for a trendy title, if you are trying to educate young students.

Anonymous wrote:I am white and never thought that it would offend non-whites.

Hopefully now you can see why it would, and try to consider things from others’ perspectives.

I loved that book and still do. I support the decision not to teach it any longer. I may read it with my kids one day, but they don't need to teach it in schools.

Anonymous wrote:+1. Our school dumped Macbeth for The Bluest Eye. Just silly.

Now this I support

Anonymous wrote:Oh, my. My favorite book ever. So well written, and teaches timeless lessons about good and evil, love and loss, racism and differences, and all from the point of view of a child, with a good bit of humor thrown in. I am white and never thought that it would offend non-whites. Live and learn. I did read it to my kids because I don’t think it was in the curriculum at their boys’ school.

It is a great book. For me, though, if you’re talking about a curriculum, it’s also about understanding the book in the context of the other books on the syllabus. As a kid, when I first read the book, I was excited about the perspective of the child — particularly an observant young girl — as well. As I got older, I was able to re-read it asking questions about how having the point of view of a young white girl impacted my perception of the other characters — and move on to other books with different perspectives and values. OTH, if the reading list only includes a small number of Black characters and the point of view only includes white narrators, then, for me, that’s a problem on multiple levels.

Othello, Huckleberry Finn, Mocking Bird — are great works with a great teacher in the context of reading other great books with different points of view. Without those things, the “lessons” learned could also be quite noxious.

Anonymous wrote:+1. Our school dumped Macbeth for The Bluest Eye. Just silly.

“Silly”? You’re the first person I’ve heard to use that word about the Bluest Eye, or any of Toni Morrison’s books. Have you actually read it?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1. Our school dumped Macbeth for The Bluest Eye. Just silly.

Have you ever read The Bluest Eye? It's a really good book.

Of course she hasn’t

Anonymous wrote:+1. Our school dumped Macbeth for The Bluest Eye. Just silly.

Have you ever read The Bluest Eye? It's a really good book.

In all fairness TKAMB is taught in DCPS middle schools. That said, there is quite a range of literature being taught. The schools should be making sure the books covered are written from various point of views and are not a white wash of history or perspective. I remember my daughter reading a book that described slavery as a well intentioned institution that granted Africans subsequent citizenship. History can not be told from one side.

Oh, my. My favorite book ever. So well written, and teaches timeless lessons about good and evil, love and loss, racism and differences, and all from the point of view of a child, with a good bit of humor thrown in. I am white and never thought that it would offend non-whites. Live and learn. I did read it to my kids because I don’t think it was in the curriculum at their boys’ school.