Brave New Wordl Pulled from Library Shelves
rsn...@swbellnospam.net
Dan Clore wrote:
> "Brave New World" pulled from library
>
> Sept. 21, 2000 | FOLEY, Ala. (AP) -- A complaint from a
> parent has prompted school officials to pull Aldous
> Huxley's novel "Brave New World" from library shelves in
> Foley High School.
<snip>
> Kathleen Stone of Elberta filed the complaint in letters to
> the school and Gov. Don Siegelman. She said
> Wednesday the novel's references to orgies,
> self-flogging, suicide and the characters' contempt for
> religion, marriage and family do not make it a good
> choice for high school students.
>
> "When you're a college student, it's one thing, but I
> don't think too much of assigning this to high school
> students," Stone said.
'It's a dystopia, you twit!' - S.M. Stirling
--
Nathan Raye
Dan Clore
Sept. 21, 2000 | FOLEY, Ala. (AP) -- A complaint from a
parent has prompted school officials to pull Aldous
Huxley's novel "Brave New World" from library shelves in
Foley High School.
School officials said the book has not been banned, but
is being reviewed after educators received a complaint
about the novel being placed on a required reading list
for 11th-grade English students.
"Brave New World," first published in
1931, is set in a totalitarian dystopia in
which the population is controlled by
drugs, genetic engineering and
conditioning from birth.
The book was ranked No. 5 on the
Modern Library Top 100 best English
language novels of the 20th century.
The novel is on both the county and
national reading list for advanced
placement high school students, said
Randy Davis, Baldwin school system
spokesman.
Kathleen Stone of Elberta filed the complaint in letters to
the school and Gov. Don Siegelman. She said
Wednesday the novel's references to orgies,
self-flogging, suicide and the characters' contempt for
religion, marriage and family do not make it a good
choice for high school students.
"When you're a college student, it's one thing, but I
don't think too much of assigning this to high school
students," Stone said.
The book was removed from Foley High just before the
American Library Association's annual "Banned Book
Week," which begins Saturday
Beverley Becker, ALA associate director of the Office on
Intellectual Freedom said "Brave New World" ranks 54th
on the ALA's list of the top 100 books drawing
complaints during the 1990s.
"It's important to keep books available and accessible
and for people to have the freedom to read them,"
Becker said.
Foley School system policy calls for a book under review
to be removed from the school library until the
examination is completed.
Under the review process, a committee of parents,
teachers and administrators will read the book and hear
comments, then decide whether it should remain on the
reading list, according to Nancy Danley, the system's
secondary coordinator.
Associated Press | Sept. 21, 2000
--
---------------------------------------------------
Dan Clore
The Website of Lord We˙rdgliffe:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/index.html
The Dan Clore Necronomicon Page:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/necpage.htm
"Tho-ag in Zhi-gyu slept seven Khorlo. Zodmanas
zhiba. All Nyug bosom. Konch-hog not; Thyan-Kam
not; Lha-Chohan not; Tenbrel Chugnyi not;
Dharmakaya ceased; Tgenchang not become; Barnang
and Ssa in Ngovonyidj; alone Tho-og Yinsin in
night of Sun-chan and Yong-grub (Parinishpanna),
&c., &c.,"
-- The Book of Dzyan.
death...@my-deja.com
living the damned thing.
In article <39CD8FC5...@swbell.net>,
rsn...@swbellnospam.net wrote:
>
>
> Dan Clore wrote:
>
> > "Brave New World" pulled from library
> >
> > Sept. 21, 2000 | FOLEY, Ala. (AP) -- A complaint from a
> > parent has prompted school officials to pull Aldous
> > Huxley's novel "Brave New World" from library shelves in
> > Foley High School.
>
> <snip>
>
> > Kathleen Stone of Elberta filed the complaint in letters to
> > the school and Gov. Don Siegelman. She said
> > Wednesday the novel's references to orgies,
> > self-flogging, suicide and the characters' contempt for
> > religion, marriage and family do not make it a good
> > choice for high school students.
> >
> > "When you're a college student, it's one thing, but I
> > don't think too much of assigning this to high school
> > students," Stone said.
>
> 'It's a dystopia, you twit!' - S.M. Stirling
>
> --
> Nathan Raye
>
>
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
The Atheist
news:39CD8E...@columbia-center.org...
Geez aren't those the same things Prime Time TV talks about now a days?
> "When you're a college student, it's one thing, but I
> don't think too much of assigning this to high school
> students," Stone said.
>
I read the book in high school and enjoyed it I didn't find anything out of
line, nor did I find anything that should rise concern in parents, since
these are high school students heading towards adulthood. But then again
that's just my opinion.
Atheist
Jerry Brown
<cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote:
>"Brave New World" pulled from library
>
>Sept. 21, 2000 | FOLEY, Ala. (AP) -- A complaint from a
>parent has prompted school officials to pull Aldous
>Huxley's novel "Brave New World" from library shelves in
>Foley High School.
May Ford forgive them.
Jerry Brown
--
A cat may look at a king
(but probably won't bother)
Malcolm
>
> School officials said the book has not been banned, but
> is being reviewed after educators received a complaint
> about the novel being placed on a required reading list
> for 11th-grade English students.
>
almost as authoritarian as forbidding them from doing so. Schools are not
free environments, and if the work is studied then the pupils will not be
allowed to make any comments they wish about it, but only those sanctioned
by the teacher.
(Eg a pupil would not be allowed to say that the book was written shortly
before the rise of Hitler, shows what he was fighting, and is a great work).
On the other hand, someone has to set the curriculum, and _Brave New World_
is an excellent choice of book.
>
> Under the review process, a committee of parents,
> teachers and administrators will read the book and hear
> comments, then decide whether it should remain on the
> reading list, according to Nancy Danley, the system's
> secondary coordinator.
>
our school." hardly inspires confidence in the system. Anyone qualified to
have an opinion would have already read the book.
The school's problem is that reading lists are being set by committees. If
each teacher was at liberty to teach the books he felt were most appropriate
for his pupils and his own teaching abilities, the system would work much
better.
Robert Lee
death...@my-deja.com wrote:
>Heck, who needs to read about Huxley's Brave New World when we're
>living the damned thing.
Amen to that.
--Robert
Don D'Ammassa
Malcolm wrote:
>
> >
> I've got mixed feelings about this. Requiring someone to read a book is
> almost as authoritarian as forbidding them from doing so. Schools are not
> free environments, and if the work is studied then the pupils will not be
> allowed to make any comments they wish about it, but only those sanctioned
> by the teacher.
> (
> >
Nonsense. By that reasoning, you couldn't assign any required reading to any
student in any class. The object of education is to expose you to different
viewpoints, not to eliminate uncomfortable ones.
Anatoly Vorobey
Robert Lee <rober...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>On Sun, 24 Sep 2000 06:17:18 GMT, in rec.arts.horror.written,
>death...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
>>living the damned thing.
>
And enjoying it, too!
ObBook: _How to Grow Old Disgracefully_
--
Anatoly Vorobey,
mel...@pobox.com http://pobox.com/~mellon/
"Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly" - G.K.Chesterton
OFurorHortensis
eliminate uncomfortable ones.>
I recall being deliberately exposed to quite uncomfortable ones my first
semester as an undergraduate.
One bright morning without warning the camera rolled and "Night and Fog"
flickered into one's life. Later, in another course, Hubert Selby's "Last Exit
to Brooklyn" was required reading. Both are with me still, of course.
I thought at the time and think now that selection of those works, both
classics of their kind of course, was rather loaded. One sensed there was a
presumption that vestigial innocence had to be eradicated before we could get
down to the serious business of being educated.
Since our peers were being drafted out of their chairs and sent to Nam this was
all rather insulting, really.
FurorHortensis
Phil Fraering
> On Sun, 24 Sep 2000 05:10:19 GMT, Dan Clore
> <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote:
>
> >"Brave New World" pulled from library
> >
> >Sept. 21, 2000 | FOLEY, Ala. (AP) -- A complaint from a
> >parent has prompted school officials to pull Aldous
> >Huxley's novel "Brave New World" from library shelves in
> >Foley High School.
>
> May Ford forgive them.
Who needs _Brave New World_ when we have the Jerry Springer Show?
"That's not a dystopia... THIS is a dystopia!"
--
Phil Fraering "One day, Pinky, A MOUSE shall rule, and it is the
p...@globalreach.net humans who will be forced to endure these humiliating
/Will work for tape/ diversions!"
"You mean like Orlando, Brain?"
jimC
That last part is news to me. A II-S student deferment was granted automatically
to any fulltime undergraduate who could breathe, a policy which obviously discriminated heavily against blacks and Latinos. Although I had an academic scholarship, I still had to work part time, and this reduced my class load. But
I had no trouble renewing deferments.
Nevertheless, I still had plans to dance on Lewis Hershey's grave. (He's buried in Arlington.) The bitterness went out of me on that score after the draft was ended.
ObSong: Haydn Wood, "Roses of Picardy"
jimC
OFurorHortensis
>automatically to any fulltime undergraduate who could breathe, a policy which
obviously discriminated heavily against blacks and Latinos. >>
They drafted two guys right out of my high
school. As in ... right out of class. Rather a scandal it was; the educators
were appalled. I don't know the legalities. I recall that both the fellows were
overage....19 or so... and dumb as they come. At least one of them was
Caucasian.
FurorHortensis
Robert Lee
<damm...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> The object of education is to expose you to different
>viewpoints, not to eliminate uncomfortable ones.
No, actually, the object of education is precisely what the word says,
"education." I have to agree with the poster you're objecting to, only in that
one of the ways education has gone awry is that educators feel it's their
primary duty to offer alternative propagandizing to what kids are getting at
home.
Uh, no, I have kids, their mom's a big fundie Christian, and while I'll
appreciate it if you counter that on your own time, your primary function,
Teach, is making sure they know where Switzerland is and how to recognize prime
numbers. I'll take care of the rest, thanks.
--Robert
Joe "Nuke Me Xemu" Foster
PRIME NUMBERS?!!! Get the behind me, Satan! I guess my point is, it may
not be possible to teach kids anything useful without running the risk
of offending *somebody*. Even something as apparently innocuous as
optics, for example, can quickly lead the unwary to that utterly false
"germ theory of disease", when any right-thinking person knows disease
is caused by insufficient prayer, faith, and/or checks to TV preachers.
--
Joe Foster <mailto:jfo...@ricochet.net> Space Cooties! <http://www.xenu.net/>
WARNING: I cannot be held responsible for the above They're coming to
because my cats have apparently learned to type. take me away, ha ha!
-Mammel,L.H.
>Dan Clore <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote in message
>news:39CD8E...@columbia-center.org...
>
>line, nor did I find anything that should rise concern in parents, since
>these are high school students heading towards adulthood. But then again
>that's just my opinion.
>
How about the epsilons? Remember them?
Lew Mammel, Jr.
Chris Krolczyk
>Who needs _Brave New World_ when we have the Jerry Springer Show?
>"That's not a dystopia... THIS is a dystopia!"
Orwell had it wrong. We don't require a 15-minute hate; merely a 60-minute
revelling in the detritus of our collective gene-pool.
ObHypotheticalSpringerEpisode: "My Momma said she was doin' my husband _and_
our family dawg for the sake of the Stupidity Meme!"
--
Chris Krolczyk
krol...@mcs.com http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Towers/3048
UCE: just another way of saying that you're greedy *and* stupid.
ted samsel
>
> Don D'Ammassa wrote:
>
> > Nonsense. By that reasoning, you couldn't assign any required reading to any
> > student in any class.
>
Dang, I was going to say something like that.
--
TBSa...@infi.net
http://home.infi.net/~tbsamsel/
'Do the boogie woogie in the South American way'
Hank Snow (1914-1999)
THE RHUMBA BOOGIE
phil hunt
>the school and Gov. Don Siegelman. She said
>Wednesday the novel's references to orgies,
>self-flogging, suicide and the characters' contempt for
>religion, marriage and family do not make it a good
>choice for high school students.
Moral standards have been going downhill ever since the masses learnt to
read.
Ban literacy! Down with books!
--
*****[ Phil Hunt ]*****
"An unforseen issue has arisen with your computer. Don't worry your silly
little head about what has gone wrong; here's a pretty animation of a
paperclip to look at instead."
-- Windows2007 error message
phil hunt
>"Dan Clore" <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote in message
>>
>> School officials said the book has not been banned, but
>> is being reviewed after educators received a complaint
>> about the novel being placed on a required reading list
>> for 11th-grade English students.
>>
>almost as authoritarian as forbidding them from doing so.
As is requireing kids to learn maths, etc.
> Schools are not
>free environments, and if the work is studied then the pupils will not be
>allowed to make any comments they wish about it, but only those sanctioned
>by the teacher.
Why not?
>(Eg a pupil would not be allowed to say that the book was written shortly
>before the rise of Hitler, shows what he was fighting, and is a great work).
Why not?
The Atheist
-Mammel,L.H. <l...@ihgp160h200.ih.lucent.com> wrote in message
news:8qlolb$p...@ssbunews.ih.lucent.com...
> >news:39CD8E...@columbia-center.org...
> >
of
> >line, nor did I find anything that should rise concern in parents, since
> >these are high school students heading towards adulthood. But then again
> >that's just my opinion.
> >
>
>
> Lew Mammel, Jr.
I remember the book very well since I just reread it a few months ago, and I
still don't see anything wrong with it but I guess that's just because I'm
an Atheist.
Don D'Ammassa
they're supposed to teach them how to think. How to think includes choosing
intelligently among conflicting choices. That is what education is. Getting
kids to regurgitate "facts" is not education; it's conditioning. Obviously this
includes building skills - math, writing, etc. Knowing the location of Switzerland
is not as important as knowing how to look it up in the library, or knowing that
Switzerland was neutral during World War II and allowed Nazis to bank money that
was stolen from the people they victimized. It's also not as important as knowing
how to critically evaluate a political argument and make an intelligent choice
among candidates.
Robert Lee wrote:
> On Sun, 24 Sep 2000 10:04:41 -0400, in rec.arts.horror.written, Don D'Ammassa
> <damm...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> > The object of education is to expose you to different
> >viewpoints, not to eliminate uncomfortable ones.
>
> No, actually, the object of education is precisely what the word says,
> "education." I have to agree with the poster you're objecting to, only in that
> one of the ways education has gone awry is that educators feel it's their
> primary duty to offer alternative propagandizing to what kids are getting at
> home.
>
> Uh, no, I have kids, their mom's a big fundie Christian, and while I'll
> appreciate it if you counter that on your own time, your primary function,
> Teach, is making sure they know where Switzerland is and how to recognize prime
> numbers. I'll take care of the rest, thanks.
>
> --Robert
Jason Bontrager
> Heck, who needs to read about Huxley's Brave New World when we're
> living the damned thing.
Humph! So where's my invitation to the orgy?
Jason B.
Mark Atwood
>
> ObHypotheticalSpringerEpisode: "My Momma said she was doin' my husband _and_
> our family dawg for the sake of the Stupidity Meme!"
ObWeirdAl: "That goat don't love you!"
--
Mark Atwood |
m...@pobox.com |
http://www.pobox.com/~mra
Ruth
> "Brave New World" pulled from library
>
> Sept. 21, 2000 | FOLEY, Ala. (AP) -- A complaint from a
> parent has prompted school officials to pull Aldous
> Huxley's novel "Brave New World" from library shelves in
> Foley High School.
oh for the love of ...something......
they are up to their old tricks again.
--
"I tried reality once, I found it too confining" Lily Tomlin
Ruth
<gr...@ext.canterbury.ac.nz> wrote:
> Phil Fraering wrote:
>
> > Who needs _Brave New World_ when we have the Jerry Springer Show?
> > "That's not a dystopia... THIS is a dystopia!"
>
> Hmm...
>
> Springer: "We have a special guest tonight for the Director of Hatcheries and
> Conditioning. Come in, Linda!"
> Linda: "Tomakin, you made me have a _baby_. I was it's _mother_."
> Audience: "Ooooh...."
hehe......
Jim Lovejoy
>
> Heck, who needs to read about Huxley's Brave New World when we're
> living the damned thing.
Then someone's getting my share of the government issued drugs and
orgies.
>
> In article <39CD8FC5...@swbell.net>,
> rsn...@swbellnospam.net wrote:
> >
> >
> > Dan Clore wrote:
> >
> > > "Brave New World" pulled from library
> > >
> > > Sept. 21, 2000 | FOLEY, Ala. (AP) -- A complaint from a
> > > parent has prompted school officials to pull Aldous
> > > Huxley's novel "Brave New World" from library shelves in
> > > Foley High School.
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> > > Kathleen Stone of Elberta filed the complaint in letters to
> > > the school and Gov. Don Siegelman. She said
> > > Wednesday the novel's references to orgies,
> > > self-flogging, suicide and the characters' contempt for
> > > religion, marriage and family do not make it a good
> > > choice for high school students.
> > >
> > > "When you're a college student, it's one thing, but I
> > > don't think too much of assigning this to high school
> > > students," Stone said.
> >
> > 'It's a dystopia, you twit!' - S.M. Stirling
> >
> > --
> > Nathan Raye
> >
> >
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.
Joe "Nuke Me Xemu" Foster
> In article <39CD8E...@columbia-center.org>, cl...@columbia-center.org wrote:
> > "Brave New World" pulled from library
> >
> > Sept. 21, 2000 | FOLEY, Ala. (AP) -- A complaint from a
> > parent has prompted school officials to pull Aldous
> > Huxley's novel "Brave New World" from library shelves in
> > Foley High School.
> oh for the love of ...something......
> they are up to their old tricks again.
What, tricking kids into actually reading it instead of relying on Cliff's
Notes and its clones to pass the class? Isn't that what always happens?
Gareth Wilson
> Who needs _Brave New World_ when we have the Jerry Springer Show?
> "That's not a dystopia... THIS is a dystopia!"
Hmm...
Springer: "We have a special guest tonight for the Director of Hatcheries and
Conditioning. Come in, Linda!"
Linda: "Tomakin, you made me have a _baby_. I was it's _mother_."
Audience: "Ooooh...."
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gareth Wilson
Christchurch
New Zealand
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Moggin
>>>> Requiring someone to read a book is almost as authoritarian as
>>>> forbidding them from doing so.
Don:
>>> Nonsense. By that reasoning, you couldn't assign any required reading
>>> to any student in any class.
smw:
>> Moggin, your cue.
ted:
> Dang, I was going to say something like that.
You gotta be quick around here, Ted. I've given this some
thought, and it's occurred to me that teachers should model
themselves after Dirty Harry. You know the famous "Do you feel
lucky" scene? Consider it from a pedagogical perspective.
After they go thru the "Have I fired six shots, or have I fired
six?" routine, as the crook is about to be carted off, he turns
to face Harry and says, "I gots to know! I gots to know!"
_There's_ the attitude we want to instill in our students. The
logical thing would be to issue all teachers .44 magnums.
Just one catch: math classes will have to be called off, since
the plan won't work if students can count.
-- Moggin
Simon van Dongen
>Jerry Brown <je...@jwbrown.co.uk.RemoveThisBitToReply> writes:
>
>> On Sun, 24 Sep 2000 05:10:19 GMT, Dan Clore
>> <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote:
>>
>> >"Brave New World" pulled from library
>> >
>> >Sept. 21, 2000 | FOLEY, Ala. (AP) -- A complaint from a
>> >parent has prompted school officials to pull Aldous
>> >Huxley's novel "Brave New World" from library shelves in
>> >Foley High School.
>>
>> May Ford forgive them.
>
>Who needs _Brave New World_ when we have the Jerry Springer Show?
>"That's not a dystopia... THIS is a dystopia!"
>
"Oct. 19, 2000 | FOLEY, Ala. (AP) -- After parents succeeded in
banning the book "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley from the Foley
High School library, further complaints have prompted school officials
to ban all references to the real world..."
--
Simon van Dongen <sg...@xs4all.nl> Rotterdam, The Netherlands
'My doctor says I have a malformed public duty gland and a
natural deficiency in moral fibre,' he muttered to himself,
'and that I am therefore excused from saving Universes.'
Life, the universe and everything
Malcolm
ph...@comuno.freeserve.co.uk (phil hunt) wrote:
>
> > Requiring someone to read a book is almost as authoritarian as
> > forbidding them from doing so.
>
>
at work, but most people don't). However mathematical theorems are not
politically controversial, unlike Science Fiction predictions (or for
that matter, biological theories).
>
> > If the work is studied then the pupils will not be
> > allowed to make any comments they wish about it, but only those
> > sanctioned by the teacher.
>
> Why not?
>
between pupil and teacher not similar to the student / professor
relationship, and certain not to the poster-poster relationship on
Usenet. There are certain things you can't say as a pupil, such as that
the assigned work is not of sufficient literary quality to be worth
studying, or that it lends support to a political movement that the
school is opposed to. (Exceptionally, a very bold pupil might say this,
but it is very difficult. I rememeber going to a modern dress Romeo and
Juliet which made many mafia-type jokes. I said it was a celebration of
mob violence, which went down rather badly.)
Malcolm
Don D'Ammassa <damm...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> Sorry, but you're wrong. Teachers are not supposed to tell kids
> what to think, they're supposed to teach them how to think. How to
> think includes choosing intelligently among conflicting choices.
> That is what education is.
>
think" is difficult. Teaching them that "ain't got no" is stigmatised,
that Shakespeare is a better choice of subject with parents' rich
friends than rock music, and that science fiction is for vulgar lower-
middle class hippies is easy and, as a rule, far more valuable as a
preparation for life.
>
> Getting kids to regurgitate "facts" is not education; it's
> conditioning. Obviously this includes building skills - math,
> writing, etc. Knowing the location of Switzerland
> is not as important as knowing how to look it up in the library,
> or knowing that Switzerland was neutral during World War II and
> allowed Nazis to bank money that was stolen from the people they
> victimized. It's also not as important as knowing how to critically
> evaluate a political argument and make an intelligent choice among
> candidates.
>
educator should teach about it is that the banks co-operated with the
Nazis. This is surely value judgement. (Incidentally I used to have a
Hebrew Bible printed in Switzerland in 1943). Good for socialising
children as holocaust campaigners. (Why not teach that it owes its
wealth and social stability to the genocide of gypsies in the 1930s and
strict immigration policies) ?
>
A lot of things that schools do teach ideologically can be done fairly
neutrally. An example is history. University level history is mainly
about interpreting events and drawing political lessons from them.
School history should be mainly about the uncontroversial sequence of
events. Everyone agrees that the Ameerican Colonists rebelled against
the British and finally gained Independence, and what the text of the
Declaration of Independence and Constitution was. It more controversial
why the rebellion was successful, and whether the new state helped
social development or kept slavery alive for another fifty years.
Children who don't even know the difference between the Articles of
Federation and the Constitution should learn that before trying to be
historians in their own right.
The other point is that socialisation requires a large number of facts.
A Christian needs to know the text of the bible. If he is a Catholic he
also needs to know about the great church councils, and if a Protestant
about the reformation and (maybe) Wesley or Wilberforce. These don't
have to be taught controversially (again, no-one denies that there was
such a person as Wesley and that he founded the Methodist movement),
but the choice of Wesley over, say, Russell (founder of Jehovah's
Witnesses) or Marie Stopes (a contraception campaigner) is a value
judgement.
Back to Brave New World - choice of that text to study at school level
is a value judgement, and will tend to undermine prudish morality
because it says that a work can present casual sex and be valuable.
However I tend to agree with that judgement - I am very opposed to
sexual promiscuity and think that Huxley has written a critique of it.
jti...@my-deja.com
l...@ihgp160h200.ih.lucent.com (-Mammel,L.H.) wrote:
> In article <8qk7sd$cp9$1...@bob.news.rcn.net>, The Atheist
<har...@rcn.com> wrote:
> >Dan Clore <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote in message
> >news:39CD8E...@columbia-center.org...
> >
> >I read the book in high school and enjoyed it I didn't find anything
out of
> >line, nor did I find anything that should rise concern in parents,
since
> >these are high school students heading towards adulthood. But then
again
> >that's just my opinion.
> >
>
> How about the epsilons? Remember them?
Epsilons don't read, much, so they probably don't mind the book. It's
probably some damn Beta.
Regards,
Jack Tingle
rbm...@library.syr.edu
As he said, "obviously discriminated heavily against blacks and Latinos"
which does not mean they were the only ones getting hit. Frankly,
though, that rule discriminated against the poor, in general, which in
turn means that blacks and Latinos were hit heavily since, 1) they made
up a large percentage of the poor at the time; 2) very few of the people
with scholarships (at that time) were either black or Latino.
Of course, being dumb as an ox certainly didn't help one avoid the
draft, either.
Randy
Ruth
Foster" <jfo...@ricochet.net> wrote:
> "Ruth" <rufi...@rcn.com> wrote in message
news:rufie710-240...@207-172-127-47.s47.tnt1.fmt.nj.dialup.rcn.com...
>
> > In article <39CD8E...@columbia-center.org>,
cl...@columbia-center.org wrote:
>
> > > "Brave New World" pulled from library
> > >
> > > Sept. 21, 2000 | FOLEY, Ala. (AP) -- A complaint from a
> > > parent has prompted school officials to pull Aldous
> > > Huxley's novel "Brave New World" from library shelves in
> > > Foley High School.
>
> > oh for the love of ...something......
>
> > they are up to their old tricks again.
>
> What, tricking kids into actually reading it instead of relying on Cliff's
> Notes and its clones to pass the class? Isn't that what always happens?
huh?? You mean they are more likely to actually read it if it is banned?
Is that what you are saying here?
Ruth, curious
phil hunt
>On Sun, 24 Sep 2000 10:04:41 -0400, in rec.arts.horror.written, Don D'Ammassa
><damm...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
>> The object of education is to expose you to different
>>viewpoints, not to eliminate uncomfortable ones.
>
>No, actually, the object of education is precisely what the word says,
>"education." I have to agree with the poster you're objecting to, only in that
>one of the ways education has gone awry is that educators feel it's their
>primary duty to offer alternative propagandizing to what kids are getting at
>home.
>
>Uh, no, I have kids, their mom's a big fundie Christian, and while I'll
>appreciate it if you counter that on your own time, your primary function,
>Teach, is making sure they know where Switzerland is and how to recognize prime
>numbers. I'll take care of the rest, thanks.
"I don't sent my kids to school so you can put ideas in their heads"
For bonus points: which writer an I quoting (probably mis-quoting) here?
Francis Muir
cannot imagine it being a required reading book in English schools. I
can see why people might think it's the sort of book I might read what
with my usual preference for the antique. Doesn't Orwell make more sense
as a classroom author?
Mark Atwood
> >
> > What, tricking kids into actually reading it instead of relying on Cliff's
> > Notes and its clones to pass the class? Isn't that what always happens?
>
> huh?? You mean they are more likely to actually read it if it is banned?
> Is that what you are saying here?
Exactly! It works for movies too.
Ruth
wrote:
> rufi...@rcn.com (Ruth) writes:
> > >
> > > What, tricking kids into actually reading it instead of relying on Cliff's
> > > Notes and its clones to pass the class? Isn't that what always happens?
> >
> > huh?? You mean they are more likely to actually read it if it is banned?
> > Is that what you are saying here?
>
> Exactly! It works for movies too.
ah. ok. Well then I have a huge list of books and movies I am gonna ban
from my house.
problem is , my kids aren't especially rebellious. Yet.
Joe "Nuke Me Xemu" Foster
> rufi...@rcn.com (Ruth) writes:
> > > What, tricking kids into actually reading it instead of relying on Cliff's
> > > Notes and its clones to pass the class? Isn't that what always happens?
> > huh?? You mean they are more likely to actually read it if it is banned?
> > Is that what you are saying here?
> Exactly! It works for movies too.
Too bad it also works for racial supremacists wherever their ideas are
banned instead of soundly debunked. When will we ever learn?
Don D'Ammassa
Ruth wrote:
> huh?? You mean they are more likely to actually read it if it is banned?
> Is that what you are saying here?
>
> Ruth, curious
>
> --
> Yes, and he's right. When I was in high school, Henry Miller's novels were
not only banned in the schools, they were illegal to sell in the entire state. I
drove into Massaschusetts and bought over a dozen copies for kids at my school who
would never have read Miller otherwise.
Stephen Hayes
Malcolm wrote in a message to All:
M> From: "Malcolm" <mal...@55bank.freeserve.co.uk>
M> "Dan Clore" <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote in message
M> [ Brave New World ]
>
> School officials said the book has not been banned, but
> is being reviewed after educators received a complaint
> about the novel being placed on a required reading list
> for 11th-grade English students.
>
M> I've got mixed feelings about this. Requiring someone to read a book
M> is almost as authoritarian as forbidding them from doing so. Schools
M> are not free environments, and if the work is studied then the
M> pupils will not be allowed to make any comments they wish about it,
M> but only those sanctioned by the teacher.
Why should that be so?
Surely it depends on the teacher?
Most schools that I know of have required reading. True, it's authoritarian, in
that places like universities often require exams as proof of some intellectual
ability in candidates for admission, and the exams in English literature are
usually on prescribed books.
And just because something is "required reading" doesn't mean people acutally
read it. When I was in high school, "reat expectations" was required reading,
and I didn't read it. "Breave new world" was not required reading, and I read
it. Making something "required reading" seems to ensure that people don't read
it.
I got to university, and both were required reading.
M> (Eg a pupil would not be allowed to say that the book was written
M> shortly before the rise of Hitler, shows what he was fighting, and
M> is a great work). On the other hand, someone has to set the
M> curriculum, and _Brave New World_ is an excellent choice of book.
Why would a pupil not be allowed to say that?
Keep well
Steve Hayes
WWW: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/steve.htm
E-mail: haye...@yahoo.com
FamilyNet <> Internet Gated Mail
http://www.fmlynet.org
Stephen Hayes
Anatoly Vorobey wrote in a message to All:
AV> From: mel...@pobox.com (Anatoly Vorobey)
AV> On Sun, 24 Sep 2000 13:03:37 GMT,
AV> Robert Lee <rober...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>On Sun, 24 Sep 2000 06:17:18 GMT, in rec.arts.horror.written,
>death...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
>>Heck, who needs to read about Huxley's Brave New World when we're
>>living the damned thing.
>
>Amen to that.
AV> And enjoying it, too!
One cubic centimetre cures ten gloomy sentiments.
Stephen Hayes
Don D'Ammassa wrote in a message to All:
DD> From: Don D'Ammassa <damm...@ix.netcom.com>
DD> Sorry, but you're wrong. Teachers are not supposed to tell kids
DD> what to think, they're supposed to teach them how to think. How to
DD> think includes choosing intelligently among conflicting choices.
DD> That is what education is. Getting kids to regurgitate "facts" is
DD> not education; it's conditioning.
And the trouble with Brave New World, of course, is that it might lead pupils
to examine their own conditioning.... um, education, more critically.
carl Dershem
> death...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> > Heck, who needs to read about Huxley's Brave New World when we're
> > living the damned thing.
>
> Humph! So where's my invitation to the orgy?
>
> Jason B.
Heck - if you've been on the 'net more than a few months you've probably
alrady gotten several score of those.
Of course, the *free* ones, involving people you'd be seen in public
with are another matter, but ...
cd
--
This post is copyright 2000 by Carl Dershem. Permission to
insert links when displaying it is available for $100. Use in
this fashion constitutes acceptance of these terms.
Goddess
"Don D'Ammassa" <damm...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:39CFCD74...@ix.netcom.com...
Gram
Moggin
Malcolm wrote:
>>>> Requiring someone to read a book is almost as authoritarian as
>>>> forbidding them from doing so.
Don:
>>> Nonsense. By that reasoning, you couldn't assign any required reading
>>> to any student in any class.
smw:
>> Moggin, your cue.
ted:
> Dang, I was going to say something like that.
You gotta be quick around here, Ted. I've given this some
thought, and it's occurred to me that teachers should model
themselves after Dirty Harry. You know the famous "Do you feel
lucky" scene? Consider it from a pedagogical perspective.
After they go thru the "Have I fired five shots or have I fired
ted samsel
Ah, practicing the rote method, I see.
--
TBSa...@infi.net
http://home.infi.net/~tbsamsel/
'Do the boogie woogie in the South American way'
Hank Snow (1914-1999)
THE RHUMBA BOOGIE
Stephen Hayes
Francis Muir wrote in a message to All:
FM> From: Francis Muir <fra...@stanford.edu>
FM> Has anyone read *BNW* lately? Difficult to get too excited about
FM> it. I cannot imagine it being a required reading book in English
FM> schools. I can see why people might think it's the sort of book I
FM> might read what with my usual preference for the antique. Doesn't
FM> Orwell make more sense as a classroom author?
Yes, I re-read it a couple of years ago, and found it banal.
But when I read it as a teenager I found it quite fascinating.
That seems to happen with a lot of books. Tastes change.
Jean Clarke
answer?
Just a Jeanie
Jean Clarke
all of he Harvard Classics, you will have had a well rounded education?
Just a Jeanie
phil hunt
>In article <slrn8ssikl...@comuno.freeserve.co.uk>,
> ph...@comuno.freeserve.co.uk (phil hunt) wrote:
>> > allowed to make any comments they wish about it, but only those
>> > sanctioned by the teacher.
>>
>> Why not?
>>
>It's maybe a long time since you were at school.
It's a long time since i studied English at school.
> The relationship
>between pupil and teacher not similar to the student / professor
>relationship, and certain not to the poster-poster relationship on
>Usenet. There are certain things you can't say as a pupil, such as that
>the assigned work is not of sufficient literary quality to be worth
>studying, or that it lends support to a political movement that the
>school is opposed to. (Exceptionally, a very bold pupil might say this,
>but it is very difficult. I rememeber going to a modern dress Romeo and
>Juliet which made many mafia-type jokes. I said it was a celebration of
>mob violence, which went down rather badly.)
I don't think would have happened to me, if I'd said that. If I
had an opinion on a work of literature, and could express it
reasonably well, I don't think that would have gone down badly at
all.
The nearest think like that happing to me was when I had to read a
short shory and give my comments on it. My comments were that I
thought it stupid and pointless, & I didn't get into any trouble
for saying that.
Nebbiolo
<fra...@stanford.edu> wrote:
>Has anyone read *BNW* lately? Difficult to get too excited about it. I
>cannot imagine it being a required reading book in English schools. I
>can see why people might think it's the sort of book I might read what
>with my usual preference for the antique. Doesn't Orwell make more sense
>as a classroom author?
With some trepidation, since it's already been called "banal," I'll
admit that I read _Brave New World_ recently and thought it was not
only good, but quite timely. I wasn't blown away by it or compelled
to recommend it to everyone I talked to, but I did think it was worth
reading. It's been so long since I've read Orwell that I'm uncertain
about whether Orwell or Huxley are better for the classroom, if that
choice has to be made. In terms of the potential dangers for society
they deal with, both _1984_ and _Brave New World_ seem equally
important to me. As to their relative "literary merit" aside from
their "messages," my readings of them are too distant in time for me
to make a call.
Nebbiolo <nebb...@nospam.nospam>
(replace the first nospam with concentric
and the second with net)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Say what you like, but such things do happen --
not often, but they do happen.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
resl...@earthlink.net
Malcolm <malcolm...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> The other point is that socialisation requires a large number of
facts.
> A Christian needs to know the text of the bible. If he is a Catholic
he
> also needs to know about the great church councils, and if a
Protestant
> about the reformation and (maybe) Wesley or Wilberforce. These don't
> have to be taught controversially (again, no-one denies that there was
> such a person as Wesley and that he founded the Methodist movement),
> but the choice of Wesley over, say, Russell (founder of Jehovah's
> Witnesses) or Marie Stopes (a contraception campaigner) is a value
> judgement.
Please pardon my intrusion, but I feel I need make a clarification
historical accuracy:
It is a common misconception that Charles Taze Russell was the founder
of the Jehovah's Witnesses religion. While he was instrumental in the
founding of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, he did so, not to
found a new religion, but as a service to the various Bible Students
groups that were being established any many cities of various
countries. As it was originally chartered, the WTS was not meant to be
a dictatorial agency, but rather a service agency.
Charles Taze Russell believed that the church was operative and
complete without the aid of any human headquarters, thus he did not
believe in such an organizational structure as the JWs have. Russell
also believed that Jesus died for all and that his ransom benefits all
of mankind condemned by Adam's fall, not just a few as the JWs teach.
I can also say that very few "Jehovah's Witnesses" actually know what
Russell believed and often present distorted views of that time era, as
they often project their present concepts back into the eartly WTS.
The actual founder of the JW organization was Joseph Rutherford, who
wrested control of the WTS away from the Board of Directors and used
the WTS as a means to form his new religion -- *after* Russell's death.
For more on this, see:
http://reslight.addr.com/l-russell.html
Esp: "Pastor Russell Not the Founder of Jehovah's Witnesses"
Ronald
mstemper - psc . com
>I can think of no better way to entice high schoolers to read it.
>
>My thanks go out to the utter doofus who asked this book be banned.
When I was a kid, my parents forced me to read something by Salinger
(Holden Caulfield?), because somebody had banned it, somewhere. The
experience made me somewhat sympathetic (at the time) with the folks
who had banned it.
--
Michael F. Stemper
Disclaimer: My employer has no official opinion on
depressing twentieth century novels.
Robert Lee
<sm...@umich.edu> wrote:
>> Uh, no, I have kids, their mom's a big fundie Christian, and while I'll
>> appreciate it if you counter that on your own time, your primary function,
>> Teach, is making sure they know where Switzerland is and how to recognize prime
>> numbers.
>
>How does that work in a lit class? Making sure they know how to read from left to
>right and recognize a table of contents?
No, but you don't have to create controversy to ensure that your students have
the necessary skills to criticize or even read a text correctly. Fuck, if it's
controversy, give your junior high-ers or whoever a bath in Reader Response
Theory or something.
This is not, BTW--to counter something I can already guess is coming in these
responses--to say that books that might offend everyone outside of the "mushy
middle" ought never to be used in class. There are, however, in teaching as in
any other field, fights you want to get in and fights you don't--you "pick the
hills you'd want to die on," is how I generally put it.
My objection was to the idea that introducing controversial or even "new,
challenging" subjects was the heart of teaching. No, it isn't, and if your
attempts to have students read Alice Walker or C.S. Lewis or
Harry-bloody-Potter* are being mistaken by you as your primary goal...great,
maybe you'll win. It'll be a hollow victory, though, since your real goal,
instilling math skills or social skills or geographical knowledge or literacy
went out the window as soon as you decided that counter-indoctrination was your
primary task.
Than again, I'm a big crank because I went to art school, which is pretty much
the worst of that kind of world, releasing zillions of "artists" every year with
no knowledge of history, style or technique, but lots of lofty notions about the
"challenging" role of artists. How, precisely, you're supposed to challenge
anyone with half a wit, no one seems to know.
--Robert
*Which aren't *better* in any definable sense than a billion other pop
children's novels written in the past several decades. They're just exceedingly
popular right now, and even better, they're published and cross-marketed by
Scholastic Book Services. SBS, in case you don't have kids or aren't a public
school teacher, has changed drastically since the seventies, when I was a kid.
Rather than the "good books at affordable prices" house they used to be, they
are now a rather crass marketer of series books (Babysitters Club, Animorphs,
Goosebumps, Captain Underpants, yadda, yadda, yadda), tie-in novels (Star Wars,
blah, blah, blah), cross-marketing and full-priced CD-ROMs. Schools don't make a
fuss as they get kickbacks from SBS on the deal, which helps take up the slack
for all the money their bloated administrations suck up--so it's hard to blame
*them.* But yes, Harry Potter is another SBS series like R.L. Stine's horrid
crap.
Robert Lee
Xemu\" Foster" <j...@bftsi0.UUCP> wrote:
>PRIME NUMBERS?!!! Get the behind me, Satan! I guess my point is, it may
>not be possible to teach kids anything useful without running the risk
>of offending *somebody*.
Granted. However, much too much has been made in my lifetime, I think, of the
inherent value in offense. The value of notorious and noteworthy "offenses"
(think Luther at Wittenburg, Rosa Parks, etc.) lies not in their offensiveness
but in factors that led to and necessitated that offense, made it brave, worth
knowing about, etc., and ultimately effectual.
"Offense," in and of itself, is a pretty lackluster endevour, although it can be
entertaining. National Lampoon springs to mind, and the difference between the
early Doug Kenney/Henry Beard/Michael O' Donahue days vs. the pointlessly
offensive P.J. O'Rourke period and increasingly irrelevant John Hughes and
beyond era. If you want to see a direct contrast, go look at The Onion, which is
as close to 1970-1975 NatLamp as you're likely to get, lately. Then go look at
nationallampoon.com. There really is one, since the name is now a trademark that
keeps getting sold off to make sadder and sadder movies. It seems to take its
cues from some tenth generation rumour about National Lampoon circa 1982, and
it's...really just sad.
I'm also reminded of Robert Mapplethorpe. According to his friend, Patti Smith,
he probably rolled in his grave over the big brou-ha-ha over his posthumous
travelling show in the late eighties. He had a policy of removing any photo from
a show that caused uproar, for one reason: he wanted people to look at his
pictures, and that was all. If people didn't want to see "whip up the ass" or
"trouser snake" one place, they would another, and in the meantime, people in
the first area wouldn't be driven from his other pictures by one problematic
image.
Which makes the whole thing, around 1990, a little ridiculous: Republican
Congressmen and right pundits screaming about some poor dead guy who would have
been only too glad to accomodate them, were he alive, and the arts communtity,
Democrats (some) and liberal journalists all taking up a cause that the dead man
never wanted taken up.
--Robert
Robert Lee
<damm...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>Sorry, but you're wrong. Teachers are not supposed to tell kids what to think,
When did I say that?
>they're supposed to teach them how to think.
And how do you do that, precisely? A one or two sentence description should
suffice for us laymen.
>How to think includes choosing
>intelligently among conflicting choices. That is what education is. Getting
>kids to regurgitate "facts" is not education; it's conditioning. Obviously this
>includes building skills - math, writing, etc. Knowing the location of Switzerland
>is not as important as knowing how to look it up in the library, or knowing that
>Switzerland was neutral during World War II and allowed Nazis to bank money that
>was stolen from the people they victimized.
All of these, however, involve training and rote learning, not vaguaries like
"how to think" or "open minds." I know a lot of people with wide open minds, and
most of them couldn't put together a persuasive argument or figure out how to
look up an answer if their lives depended on it.
> It's also not as important as knowing
>how to critically evaluate a political argument and make an intelligent choice
>among candidates.
So apparently a strong belief in representative democracy isn't one of those
things you think teachers should cause kids to be "open minded" about, it's
something they should teach them what to think about. (There are a few other
options besides "make a choice between candidates," you know.)
--Robert
Robert Lee
<damm...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>Getting
>kids to regurgitate "facts" is not education; it's conditioning.
Don, when it comes to kids, *everything* is conditioning. Anyone who says
different is selling something, and it's probably scary.
> Obviously this
>includes building skills - math, writing, etc. Knowing the location of Switzerland
>is not as important as knowing how to look it up in the library, or knowing that
>Switzerland was neutral during World War II and allowed Nazis to bank money that
>was stolen from the people they victimized.
Again, all of these: the existence and location of the library and Switzerland,
never mind ostensibly "neutral" Switzerland's collaboration with the Nazis, are
your despised "regurgitated facts."
--Robert
Robert Lee
ph...@comuno.freeserve.co.uk (phil hunt) wrote:
>"I don't sent my kids to school so you can put ideas in their heads"
And the location of Switzerland is not an idea...how?
--Robert
David J. Loftus
: I'm also reminded of Robert Mapplethorpe. According to his friend,
: Patti Smith, he probably rolled in his grave over the big brou-ha-ha
: over his posthumous travelling show in the late eighties. He had a
: policy of removing any photo from a show that caused uproar, for one
: reason: he wanted people to look at his pictures, and that was all. If
: people didn't want to see "whip up the ass" or "trouser snake" one
: place, they would another, and in the meantime, people in the first
: area wouldn't be driven from his other pictures by one problematic
: image.
: Which makes the whole thing, around 1990, a little ridiculous: Republican
: Congressmen and right pundits screaming about some poor dead guy who
: would have been only too glad to accomodate them, were he alive, and
: the arts communtity, Democrats (some) and liberal journalists all
: taking up a cause that the dead man never wanted taken up.
True, but on the other hand, how many additional people know his name and
admire his other work because Republican Congressman and pundits of the
right chose to offer it loads of free publicity?
David Loftus
(Who saw the whole thing at Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art circa
1989, and who would like to add that he is OUTRAGED that his tax dollars
go to support such FILTH as the photography of Andres Serrano and he --
Mr. Loftus, that is -- never gets to SEE it!)
Robert Lee
<rober...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>Fuck, if it's
>controversy, give your junior high-ers or whoever a bath in Reader Response
>Theory or something.
"If it's controversey you want..." that should have read.
--Robert
Robert Lee
<dl...@netcom14.netcom.com> wrote:
>True, but on the other hand, how many additional people know his name and
>admire his other work because Republican Congressman and pundits of the
>right chose to offer it loads of free publicity?
Not many, I'd bet. His name is big, his work less so. (Which is fitting, since
another ridiculous aspect of the entire affair is that he was a pretty minor
artist and likely would have remained so, based solely on his work and impact.)
>(Who saw the whole thing at Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art circa
>1989, and who would like to add that he is OUTRAGED that his tax dollars
>go to support such FILTH as the photography of Andres Serrano and he --
>Mr. Loftus, that is -- never gets to SEE it!)
It's a picture of a crucifix in a jar of piss. Drop one in some lager, stick it
in an indirectly lighted window, and you'll get the idea.
--Robert
David J. Loftus
Organization:
In rec.arts.books Robert Lee <rober...@earthlink.net> wrote:
: On 27 Sep 2000 20:22:23 GMT, in rec.arts.horror.written, "David J. Loftus"
: <dl...@netcom14.netcom.com> wrote:
:>(Who saw the whole thing at Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art circa
:>1989, and who would like to add that he is OUTRAGED that his tax dollars
:>go to support such FILTH as the photography of Andres Serrano and he --
:>Mr. Loftus, that is -- never gets to SEE it!)
: It's a picture of a crucifix in a jar of piss. Drop one in some lager,
: stick it in an indirectly lighted window, and you'll get the idea.
I gather that you also have only seen the work in reproduced form. That
wasn't what I was talking about.
Are you familiar with any of his other work? I am. I just haven't
gotten the opportunity to see it outside of books.
David Loftus
Robert Lee
<dl...@netcom14.netcom.com> wrote:
>I gather that you also have only seen the work in reproduced form.
It's a photograph. Unless you're looking at the initial negative, you're always
looking at it in "reproduced form," and even calling the negative "original"
strikes philosophical chords I don't want to step on.
>That
>wasn't what I was talking about.
>
>Are you familiar with any of his other work? I am.
A little bit. I especially like his fashion shoots. Oooh. He uses *dwarves.* How
very.
--Robert
Irina
Ha. Not to mention the total waste of time that was his first post-
piss-Christ show: large fashion-like color photos of homeless people.
Not to say homeless people couldn't be interesting subjects, but this
was sooo gimmicky and dull. I went to the opening at Stux, where a
friend of mine worked at the time, and couldn't believe all the critics
ooh-ing and ahh-ing about how cool the photos were and kissing
Serrano's ass.
The other artist whose NEA grant was pulled at the same time (I can't
remember her name, she's the performance artist who smeared chocolate
over her body) I saw and liked a lot. She was clever and political and
didn't deserve to be lumped in with Serrano (who should've been
encouraged to go into advertising, but I hope it goes w/o saying I
don't approve of Helms & Co.'s tactics).
--
Irina
Don D'Ammassa
Robert Lee wrote:
> On Sun, 24 Sep 2000 20:33:55 -0400, in rec.arts.horror.written, Don D'Ammassa
> <damm...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> >Sorry, but you're wrong. Teachers are not supposed to tell kids what to think,
>
> When did I say that?
I didn't say you did.
>
>
> >they're supposed to teach them how to think.
>
> And how do you do that, precisely? A one or two sentence description should
> suffice for us laymen.
>
Part of that is explained below. Mostly it consists of practice. Challenge viewpoints
so that students understand WHY they believe what they do. They might well believe the
right thing, but if they don't understand WHY, then they will have trouble applying it
to other situations. If you get people habituated to thinking critically, they're more
likely to do so.
>
> >How to think includes choosing
> >intelligently among conflicting choices. That is what education is. Getting
> >kids to regurgitate "facts" is not education; it's conditioning.
>
> All of these, however, involve training and rote learning, not vaguaries like
> "how to think" or "open minds." I know a lot of people with wide open minds, and
> most of them couldn't put together a persuasive argument or figure out how to
> look up an answer if their lives depended on it.
>
Rote learning consists of regurgitating facts without understanding them. You learn
song lyrics by memorizing them. You understand lyrics by thinking about them.
>
> > It's also not as important as knowing
> >how to critically evaluate a political argument and make an intelligent choice
> >among candidates.
>
> So apparently a strong belief in representative democracy isn't one of those
> things you think teachers should cause kids to be "open minded" about, it's
> something they should teach them what to think about. (There are a few other
> options besides "make a choice between candidates," you know.)
>
I never said that either. That doesn't mean that representative democracy doesn't have
its flaws that we should be cognizant of. For example, should a representative vote the
way a majority of his/her constitutents feel, or should he/she make a decision based on
personal beliefs?
>
> --Robert
Don D'Ammassa
Robert Lee wrote:
> On Sun, 24 Sep 2000 20:33:55 -0400, in rec.arts.horror.written, Don D'Ammassa
> <damm...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> >Getting
> >kids to regurgitate "facts" is not education; it's conditioning.
>
> Don, when it comes to kids, *everything* is conditioning. Anyone who says
> different is selling something, and it's probably scary.
>
Anyone who believes that is even scarier. Your opinion appears to be rooted in your
contempt for young people and your belief that they cannot make intelligent rational
judgments. I'm a parent and ex-teacher, and I've found that for the most part, kids are
more likely to question authority than are adults, they haven't been "conditioned" yet.
My objection to most schools is that they've been taken over by administrators who feel
orderly corridors are more important than active minds.
>
> > Obviously this
> >includes building skills - math, writing, etc. Knowing the location of Switzerland
> >is not as important as knowing how to look it up in the library, or knowing that
> >Switzerland was neutral during World War II and allowed Nazis to bank money that
> >was stolen from the people they victimized.
>
> Again, all of these: the existence and location of the library and Switzerland,
> never mind ostensibly "neutral" Switzerland's collaboration with the Nazis, are
> your despised "regurgitated facts."
Sigh. It is NOT the facts that are important. It's understanding why things happened.
And I never said I despised "regurgitated facts", but they do not alone result in an
education. They result in very articulate parrots with no feathers.
>
>
> --Robert
Malcolm
> historical accuracy:
>
have heard of the movement, but maybe don't know it is officially called the
"Watchtower Bible and Tract Society", and to whom the name Charles Russell
means little. I can accept that it is possible that Russell didn't intend to
found a religion but only a religious publishing society.
Skrybe
news:39CE09F9...@ix.netcom.com...
>
>
> Malcolm wrote:
>
> >
> > >
> > I've got mixed feelings about this. Requiring someone to read a book is
> > almost as authoritarian as forbidding them from doing so. Schools are
not
> > free environments, and if the work is studied then the pupils will not
be
> > allowed to make any comments they wish about it, but only those
sanctioned
> > by the teacher.
> > >
>
> Nonsense. By that reasoning, you couldn't assign any required reading to
any
different
> viewpoints, not to eliminate uncomfortable ones.
Exactly. If the teachers are doing their jobs properly you can express your
opinions and as long as you back them up with solid logic then the teacher
will give you a good mark - even if your opinions are vastly different from
their own.
Relying solely on parental education will continue to result in sheltered,
poorly educated people who don't and can't see alternatives to their own
narrow views.
Ken aka Skrybe
Jon Ivars
> In article <t2itss4fsgb0c7fqn...@4ax.com>, gor...@NOSPAMwhite-crane.com (Guy Gordon) writes:
> >I can think of no better way to entice high schoolers to read it.
> >My thanks go out to the utter doofus who asked this book be banned.
> When I was a kid, my parents forced me to read something by Salinger
> (Holden Caulfield?), because somebody had banned it, somewhere. The
> experience made me somewhat sympathetic (at the time) with the folks
> who had banned it.
Catcher in the Rye? At least that's the one that is usually targeted of
Salinger's books.
BTW I always get a chuckle when I see The Handmaid's Tale continually on
the annual top 10 list of books requested to be withdrawn from American
libraries. The reason for my chuckling? The ostensible reason given is
almost always sexual content. Somehow I think the fundies are angry
about something else in that book.
Oh, almost forgot...
*chuckle*
Star Captain Jon 'Gauss Bear' Ivars Member of Clan Ghost Bear
Visit my Battletech pages at http://www.abo.fi/~jivars/gb.htm
Robert Lee
<iri...@att.com> wrote:
>The other artist whose NEA grant was pulled at the same time (I can't
>remember her name, she's the performance artist who smeared chocolate
>over her body) I saw and liked a lot. She was clever and political and
>didn't deserve to be lumped in with Serrano (who should've been
>encouraged to go into advertising, but I hope it goes w/o saying I
>don't approve of Helms & Co.'s tactics).
Much as I hate to disagree, given how agreeable we've been up until now...ewwww,
*Karen Finley?* Have you ever heard her try to talk? The woman can barely string
sentences together...her political ideas don't go any further than your average
high school freshman who Just Discovered That The World Isn't Fair, either.
Which is probably why she's on Politically Incorrect all the time when Anne Rice
isn't.
Tim Miller and Holly Hughes, two of the other "NEA Four" were actually pretty
cool, and still are, I imagine, although I have no idea what they've done in
forever.
Much as I disagree with "Helms and Co." (and since it was pretty much a
meaningless publicity campaign for the Repubs, "disagree" may actually be too
strong), I also find the idea of a bunch of bourgeois performance artists
demanding art welfare as a "right" pretty fucking stupid, too. Thank god they
lost, and look how little the world has suffered for it.
--Robert
Robert Lee
<damm...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> If you get people habituated to thinking critically, they're more
>likely to do so.
But "critical thinking" isn't the same thing as "open mindedness." As a matter
of fact, they're pretty much antithetical. "Critical thinking" implies
structure, discipline and a definite conclusion, never mind a whole raftload of
those "regurgitated facts" to inform the process.
>Rote learning consists of regurgitating facts without understanding them.
Oh, then you're talking about a straw man, like most proponents of etheral
teaching methods, because back in the bad old days of "rote learning," mere
memorization wasn't prized or rewarded, either.
--Robert
Robert Lee
<damm...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>Robert Lee wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 24 Sep 2000 20:33:55 -0400, in rec.arts.horror.written, Don D'Ammassa
>> <damm...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>>
>> >Getting
>> >kids to regurgitate "facts" is not education; it's conditioning.
>>
>> Don, when it comes to kids, *everything* is conditioning. Anyone who says
>> different is selling something, and it's probably scary.
>>
>
>Anyone who believes that is even scarier. Your opinion appears to be rooted in your
>contempt for young people and your belief that they cannot make intelligent rational
>judgments.
Okay, Don. You're a parent. You go grab a three-year-old and put him or her in a
kitchen with a bubbling pot on the stove whose handle is hanging out over the
edge. Make sure the cabinets are unlatched and full of knives and rat poison,
and that you've let a nasty old rabid dog bed down in the kitchen.
Now leave that toddler alone in the kitchen for an hour to make his or her own
"intelligent rational judgements." I dare you.
And then you explain to me, in a real setting much like this, how you keep said
toddler away from every potential danger in the room, absent "conditioning."
>I'm a parent and ex-teacher, and I've found that for the most part, kids are
>more likely to question authority than are adults, they haven't been "conditioned" yet.
Oh, bullshit. Only in bad novels, and if you're an ex-teacher, I pretty much
rest my case. Most children are so rabidly selfish and conservative that if they
ran the world, we'd all be in death camps. If you really are a parent, I think
you either sat your own childhood and your kids' out and let your wife deal with
all the "THAT'S MIIIIINE..." arguments that last approximately from first speech
until first marriage.
>My objection to most schools is that they've been taken over by administrators who feel
>orderly corridors are more important than active minds.
At least we can agree on something, except I know from experience that many of
those administrators are of your educational bent, you know, at least in theory,
until the noise level gets too high.
>> > Obviously this
>> >includes building skills - math, writing, etc. Knowing the location of Switzerland
>> >is not as important as knowing how to look it up in the library, or knowing that
>> >Switzerland was neutral during World War II and allowed Nazis to bank money that
>> >was stolen from the people they victimized.
>>
>> Again, all of these: the existence and location of the library and Switzerland,
>> never mind ostensibly "neutral" Switzerland's collaboration with the Nazis, are
>> your despised "regurgitated facts."
>
>Sigh. It is NOT the facts that are important. It's understanding why things happened.
Okay, Don. Why did Switzerland "happen?"
>And I never said I despised "regurgitated facts", but they do not alone result in an
>education. They result in very articulate parrots with no feathers.
And you know this, how, since you've obviously never tried it in your life?
--Robert
Robert Lee
<jiv...@aton.abo.fi> wrote:
>On 27 Sep 2000 mstemper@siemens wrote:
>> In article <t2itss4fsgb0c7fqn...@4ax.com>, gor...@NOSPAMwhite-crane.com (Guy Gordon) writes:
>
>> >I can think of no better way to entice high schoolers to read it.
>> >My thanks go out to the utter doofus who asked this book be banned.
>
>> When I was a kid, my parents forced me to read something by Salinger
>> (Holden Caulfield?), because somebody had banned it, somewhere. The
>> experience made me somewhat sympathetic (at the time) with the folks
>> who had banned it.
>
>Catcher in the Rye?
I stole a bunch of books from my high school library by checking them out as
"Holden Caulfield." I almost felt bad and gave them back at the end of the year,
especially since there was a lot of pressure, since everybody knew I'd done it,
but I wouldn't admit it. (They made an announcement at graduation practice:
"Will the student who signed himself or herself 'Holden Caulfield'...") Then my
guidance counselor called me into his office to be buddy-buddy with me and said
"Hey, Robert. You and I know that there's only one kid in this school who would
steal books by checking them out as a character from The Lord of the Flies."
My sympathy and any residual guilt ended right there. (This, naturally, was
because as a teen, I was Don's beautiful, rebellious fruit of the sun. Never
mind the people who didn't get to read the books later because of my pointless
vandalism. I had to be free, you see, and that's what's important.)
>BTW I always get a chuckle when I see The Handmaid's Tale continually on
>the annual top 10 list of books requested to be withdrawn from American
>libraries. The reason for my chuckling? The ostensible reason given is
>almost always sexual content. Somehow I think the fundies are angry
>about something else in that book.
Oh, you mean the contradictory regurgitated gothic plot, with the desperate
heroine in need of a dashing prince to save her from the evil empire? Yeah, that
bugged me, too, along with the fact that Margaret Atwood's about a ninth-rate
writer, at best.
--Robert
Mark Atwood
> Oh, bullshit. Only in bad novels, and if you're an ex-teacher, I pretty much
> rest my case. Most children are so rabidly selfish and conservative that if they
> ran the world, we'd all be in death camps.
ObSF: The classic Twilight Zone episode, redone in the movie, and later
in a hallowe'en episode of "The Simpsons".
--
Mark Atwood |
m...@pobox.com |
http://www.pobox.com/~mra
Robert Lee
<m...@pobox.com> wrote:
>Robert Lee <rober...@earthlink.net> writes:
>> Oh, bullshit. Only in bad novels, and if you're an ex-teacher, I pretty much
>> rest my case. Most children are so rabidly selfish and conservative that if they
>> ran the world, we'd all be in death camps.
>
>ObSF: The classic Twilight Zone episode, redone in the movie, and later
> in a hallowe'en episode of "The Simpsons".
Heh. I didn't think about "It's A Good Life."
--Robert
Mark Atwood
> On 28 Sep 2000 00:10:39 -0700, in rec.arts.horror.written, Mark Atwood
> <m...@pobox.com> wrote:
>
> >Robert Lee <rober...@earthlink.net> writes:
> >> rest my case. Most children are so rabidly selfish and conservative that if they
> >> ran the world, we'd all be in death camps.
> >
> > in a hallowe'en episode of "The Simpsons".
>
> Heh. I didn't think about "It's A Good Life."
"I'm not nodding. There's a breeze in here." -- H. J. Simpson
ted samsel
>
> On 28 Sep 2000 00:10:39 -0700, in rec.arts.horror.written, Mark Atwood
> <m...@pobox.com> wrote:
>
> >Robert Lee <rober...@earthlink.net> writes:
> >> rest my case. Most children are so rabidly selfish and conservative that if they
> >> ran the world, we'd all be in death camps.
> >
> > in a hallowe'en episode of "The Simpsons".
>
> Heh. I didn't think about "It's A Good Life."
Isn't that "wonderful"?
--
TBSa...@infi.net
http://home.infi.net/~tbsamsel/
'Do the boogie woogie in the South American way'
Hank Snow (1914-1999)
THE RHUMBA BOOGIE
Don D'Ammassa
Robert Lee wrote:
> On Wed, 27 Sep 2000 20:07:38 -0400, in rec.arts.horror.written, Don D'Ammassa
> <damm...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> > If you get people habituated to thinking critically, they're more
> >likely to do so.
>
> But "critical thinking" isn't the same thing as "open mindedness." As a matter
> of fact, they're pretty much antithetical. "Critical thinking" implies
> structure, discipline and a definite conclusion, never mind a whole raftload of
> those "regurgitated facts" to inform the process.
>
That's not critical thinking. Critical thinking does not require structure and
certainly doesn't involve a definite conclusion.
>
> >Rote learning consists of regurgitating facts without understanding them.
>
> Oh, then you're talking about a straw man, like most proponents of etheral
> teaching methods, because back in the bad old days of "rote learning," mere
> memorization wasn't prized or rewarded, either.
I have no idea what you're talking about. Memorization WAS prized and rewarded,
and still is.
>
> --Robert
Don D'Ammassa
Robert Lee wrote:
> On Wed, 27 Sep 2000 20:12:56 -0400, in rec.arts.horror.written, Don D'Ammassa
> <damm...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> >Robert Lee wrote:
> >
> >> On Sun, 24 Sep 2000 20:33:55 -0400, in rec.arts.horror.written, Don D'Ammassa
> >> <damm...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> >Getting
> >> >kids to regurgitate "facts" is not education; it's conditioning.
> >>
> >> Don, when it comes to kids, *everything* is conditioning. Anyone who says
> >> different is selling something, and it's probably scary.
> >>
> >
> >Anyone who believes that is even scarier. Your opinion appears to be rooted in your
> >contempt for young people and your belief that they cannot make intelligent rational
> >judgments.
>
> Okay, Don. You're a parent. You go grab a three-year-old and put him or her in a
> kitchen with a bubbling pot on the stove whose handle is hanging out over the
> edge. Make sure the cabinets are unlatched and full of knives and rat poison,
> and that you've let a nasty old rabid dog bed down in the kitchen.
>
> Now leave that toddler alone in the kitchen for an hour to make his or her own
> "intelligent rational judgements." I dare you.
>
> And then you explain to me, in a real setting much like this, how you keep said
> toddler away from every potential danger in the room, absent "conditioning."
>
You're missing the point. I never said conditioning/rote learning was BAD. I said it is
not education. It is part of the process, just like homework, and lectures, and everything
else. But if you want kids to be educated, you have to teach them WHY that course of action
is bad, because otherwise they could wander into someone else's house and not know how to
deal with the situation. (And we're not talking about toddlers here - we're talking school
aged children, and there IS a difference.)
>
> >I'm a parent and ex-teacher, and I've found that for the most part, kids are
> >more likely to question authority than are adults, they haven't been "conditioned" yet.
>
> Oh, bullshit. Only in bad novels, and if you're an ex-teacher, I pretty much
> rest my case. Most children are so rabidly selfish and conservative that if they
> ran the world, we'd all be in death camps. If you really are a parent, I think
> you either sat your own childhood and your kids' out and let your wife deal with
> all the "THAT'S MIIIIINE..." arguments that last approximately from first speech
> until first marriage.
>
Well, that paragraph sort of proves my point, doesn't it? If you detest children that
badly, no wonder you want to torture them with rote learning and don't want them to think
for themselves.
>
> >My objection to most schools is that they've been taken over by administrators who feel
> >orderly corridors are more important than active minds.
>
> At least we can agree on something, except I know from experience that many of
> those administrators are of your educational bent, you know, at least in theory,
> until the noise level gets too high.
You must be from a parallel universe. In my entire career, I knew exactly ONE teacher who
went into administration. On the other hand, too many teachers have the same mind set, and
THAT's why American public education is failing.
>
>
> >> > Obviously this
> >> >includes building skills - math, writing, etc. Knowing the location of Switzerland
> >> >is not as important as knowing how to look it up in the library, or knowing that
> >> >Switzerland was neutral during World War II and allowed Nazis to bank money that
> >> >was stolen from the people they victimized.
> >>
> >> Again, all of these: the existence and location of the library and Switzerland,
> >> never mind ostensibly "neutral" Switzerland's collaboration with the Nazis, are
> >> your despised "regurgitated facts."
> >
> >Sigh. It is NOT the facts that are important. It's understanding why things happened.
>
> Okay, Don. Why did Switzerland "happen?"
>
> >And I never said I despised "regurgitated facts", but they do not alone result in an
> >education. They result in very articulate parrots with no feathers.
>
> And you know this, how, since you've obviously never tried it in your life?
Given your lack of civility, your misinterpretation of what I've been saying, your odd
definitions of terms that don't coincide with common usage, and your clear hostility to
kids, I really don't see any purpose in continuing this. Have a nice life.
>
>
> --Robert
David J. Fiander
> > >
> > >ObSF: The classic Twilight Zone episode, redone in the movie, and later
> > > in a hallowe'en episode of "The Simpsons".
> >
> > Heh. I didn't think about "It's A Good Life."
>
> Isn't that "wonderful"?
"Wonderful" was the Capra thing that gets dragged out every Xmas.
"Good" was a horror/sf short story written by Sturgeon (or one of
the others of that vintage) that was made into an original TZ
episode about a small boy with very strong supernatural powers
that makes sure that he always gets his way, and runs the small
town into which he was born quite handily. The last line in said
show (and the title) is spoken by an adult who understands that
the kid brooks no criticism. Unless you _want_ to be turned into
a jack-in-the-box for his amusement.
- David
--
David J. Fiander | We know for certain only when we know little.
Librarian | With knowlege, doubt increases
| - Goethe
Irina
Robert Lee <rober...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 27 Sep 2000 22:31:17 GMT, in rec.arts.horror.written, Irina
> <iri...@att.com> wrote:
>
> >The other artist whose NEA grant was pulled at the same time (I can't
> >remember her name, she's the performance artist who smeared chocolate
> >over her body) I saw and liked a lot. She was clever and political
and
> >didn't deserve to be lumped in with Serrano (who should've been
> >encouraged to go into advertising, but I hope it goes w/o saying I
> >don't approve of Helms & Co.'s tactics).
>
> Much as I hate to disagree, given how agreeable we've been up until
now...ewwww,
> *Karen Finley?* Have you ever heard her try to talk? The woman can
barely string
> sentences together...
I caught her on Politically Incorrect once and know what you mean.
However, when she has more than a millisecond to get her ideas across
she's a LOT more interesting. Aaand the performance I saw was more
than the chocolate which was just a tiny joke that got taken out of
context and blown out of proportion.
Joan Marie Shields
>All of these, however, involve training and rote learning, not vaguaries like
>"how to think" or "open minds." I know a lot of people with wide open minds,
>and most of them couldn't put together a persuasive argument or figure out
>how to look up an answer if their lives depended on it.
Yup - you do have a point there though I wouldn't say it's because they
have an open mind - knowing how to think might be another matter, it's not
that hard to use a card catalogue.
I work with college undergraduates on a regular basis - oh, and I'm an
environmental microbiologist. While memorization can be helpful it is
only a bare start. I've had students who know a lot of facts but they
have a great deal of difficulty in applying those facts in any useful
sort of way. I've had college seniors who write like they're still in
junior high.
In highschool I learned to write, started reading critically and learned
to use a library. In college I learned how to think critically and
continued to learn to read critically. I tell my students that if they
want to learn how to write they must read - and it's even better if they
read books that make them uncomfortable. It teaches you, if not how
to better understand others, at least it teaches discipline.
Personally, I think it's a good thing to be offended from time to time.
ObBook: Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
yiwf,
joan
--
Joan Shields jshi...@uci.edu http://www.ags.uci.edu/~jshields
University of California - Irvine School of Social Ecology
Department of Environmental Analysis and Design
I do not purchase services or products from unsolicited e-mail advertisements.
Robert Lee
jshi...@rigel.oac.uci.edu (Joan Marie Shields ) wrote:
>Robert Lee <rober...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>>All of these, however, involve training and rote learning, not vaguaries like
>>"how to think" or "open minds." I know a lot of people with wide open minds,
>>and most of them couldn't put together a persuasive argument or figure out
>>how to look up an answer if their lives depended on it.
>
>Yup - you do have a point there though I wouldn't say it's because they
>have an open mind - knowing how to think might be another matter, it's not
>that hard to use a card catalogue.
>
>I work with college undergraduates on a regular basis - oh, and I'm an
>environmental microbiologist. While memorization can be helpful it is
>only a bare start.
I do know that, and I'd like to nip any meandering into my being "the king of
memorization" in the bud, here. I've simply argued, all along, that challenging
students' moral, political, religious or other tightly-held beliefs isn't the
most important thing about being a teacher. Don's the one who's turned it into
an "either/or" situation, as if you couldn't do your job and challenge what you
see as stagnant thinking.
I do maintain, though, that if you don't consider that "bare start" the start at
all, you will end up teaching nothing. Which is what I've been arguing against.
> I've had students who know a lot of facts but they
>have a great deal of difficulty in applying those facts in any useful
>sort of way.
Ah, the "knows the whole book back and forth, so it makes her the smartest"
girl. I still know thirty-five-year-old "girls" like that. (I do know a few of
their male variants, too.) Again, I'm not arguing for mistaking photographic
memory for thought. Many of these people seem to be utterly immune to the entire
concept of lateral thinking, and not a few of them are so overly educated that
they pretty much confirm my worst suspicions about education.
(And I realize I'm sounding like a broken record, but these people, at least in
my life, tend to be the biggest mushy liberals I know regarding education, too.)
>I've had college seniors who write like they're still in
>junior high.
Outside of genius, though, writing skills don't come from an "open mind"--they
come from application (or intentional discarding) of theory--which involves
nasty old rote memorization--and practice.
>In highschool I learned to write, started reading critically and learned
>to use a library. In college I learned how to think critically and
>continued to learn to read critically.
To continue about the not-as-smart-as-they-think types in my life, mentioned
above: a lot of them believe that they "think critically," too. (This, BTW, is
not directed at you. I don't know you, and I have no reason to take your words
at anything but face value.) What develops, though, as you get to know them, is
that they learned some group of critical criteria from profs in college, who no
doubt pounded these criteria into their heads in the name of an "open mind.
They honestly seem to believe that slavishly applying these criteria (whether to
art, lit, politics, whatever) counts as thought. They don't seem able to bend
one of these criteria in the slightest, when challenged, let alone jump tracks.
They've simply been converted to something that seems (or *is,* it makes little
difference) more "progressive" than what their families believed, or they
believed as children, or whatnot. Although that may be more pleasant to deal
with than, say, someone converted to white supremacy, it's hardly evidence of
"critical thinking," no more than the kid who thwarts his liberal parents by
becoming a skinhead. (Known a few of those, too. Sigh. Hey, at least they were
"open minded." BTW, that term and idea is specifically and easily co-opted by
fucks like neo-Nazis, which is why I brought up Holocaust revisionism, earlier.)
>I tell my students that if they
>want to learn how to write they must read - and it's even better if they
>read books that make them uncomfortable. It teaches you, if not how
>to better understand others, at least it teaches discipline.
>
>Personally, I think it's a good thing to be offended from time to time.
Well, so do I, obviously. I just don't think it's the core of a teacher's job,
or anywhere near it.
--Robert
Robert Lee
djfi...@sympatico.ca (David J. Fiander) wrote:
>ted samsel <tbsa...@infi.net> writes:
>> > >
>> > >ObSF: The classic Twilight Zone episode, redone in the movie, and later
>> > > in a hallowe'en episode of "The Simpsons".
>> >
>> > Heh. I didn't think about "It's A Good Life."
>>
>> Isn't that "wonderful"?
>
>"Wonderful" was the Capra thing that gets dragged out every Xmas.
>
>"Good" was a horror/sf short story written by Sturgeon (or one of
>the others of that vintage)
Jerome Beatty, I think.
>that was made into an original TZ
>episode about a small boy with very strong supernatural powers
>that makes sure that he always gets his way, and runs the small
>town into which he was born quite handily. The last line in said
>show (and the title) is spoken by an adult who understands that
>the kid brooks no criticism. Unless you _want_ to be turned into
>a jack-in-the-box for his amusement.
The story's a lot better and spookier. Little Anthony doesn't do anything as
cute (and cliched, frankly) as turning people into jack-in-the-boxes. He just
"wishes them into the corn field," meaning they're dead and buried in a second,
unless he tortures them horribly and indescribably first, while everybody else
has to sit around with a big grin on his or her face.
--Robert
Paul A Sand
>On Thu, 28 Sep 2000 14:30:31 GMT, in rec.arts.horror.written,
>djfi...@sympatico.ca (David J. Fiander) wrote:
>>ted samsel <tbsa...@infi.net> writes:
>>> > >
>>> > >ObSF: The classic Twilight Zone episode, redone in the movie, and later
>>> > > in a hallowe'en episode of "The Simpsons".
>>> >
>>> > Heh. I didn't think about "It's A Good Life."
>>>
>>> Isn't that "wonderful"?
>>
>>"Wonderful" was the Capra thing that gets dragged out every Xmas.
>>
>>"Good" was a horror/sf short story written by Sturgeon (or one of
>>the others of that vintage)
>Jerome Beatty, I think.
Jerome Bixby, I'm pretty darn sure. (Just in case anyone gets the
urge to go out and track it down by author name.)
--
-- Paul A. Sand | We have a hammer.
-- University of New Hampshire | Your problem is a nail.
-- p...@unh.edu | (Larry Ellison)
-- http://pubpages.unh.edu/~pas |
Robert Lee
<rober...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>The story's a lot better and spookier. Little Anthony doesn't do anything as
>cute (and cliched, frankly) as turning people into jack-in-the-boxes.
What just occurred to me, apropos what I've said about cliched and bizarrely
sunny views of children, is that you can actually watch the portrayal of Anthony
(the little monstrously psychic boy in this story) degrade through its three
versions.
*Version 1, the 50's short story by Jerome Bixby (my mistake, on the last post),
depends for its chill entirely on one idea: what if you couldn't "condition" a
baby, because that baby was the most powerful being in the world and started
exerting its power first thing out of the chute? Anthony isn't really "bad." He
isn't even really a "brat" in the sense that anyone would understand, because he
isn't reacting to bad parenting, reacting badly to good parenting, or anything
else. He's had absolutely no input from anyone but himself at all, especially as
his first act in life was to either destroy the entire world outside of his home
town or take it off the planet, nobody knows.
Three-year-old Anthony doesn't play with toys--he plays with people and animals,
and increasingly viciously, because who's going to stop him?
*Version 2, the 60's Twilight Zone episode, has Bill Mumy as a slightly older
Anthony. This Anthony doesn't turn people inside out or make animals eat
themselves. He does wacky, vaguely disturbing (because there's a death involved)
but primarily absurd things like turning people into jack-in-the-boxes. He may
be a little devil, but he's all Familiar Kid. It's been a while since I've seen
it, but I don't think any mention is made of Anthony's have dismissed the rest
of the Earth--what's outside town just never comes up.
*Version 3, the Joe Dante segment of the TZ movie from '82, is entirely
pointless. It begins with a teacher (named after Rod Serling's favorite teacher
from grade school...awwww), driving into a one-stop burg controlled by
ten-year-old Anthony, which pretty much kills the whole isolation angle.
This Anthony is a total cliche--naturally the jack-in-box thing is trotted out
again, even though it's an old-fashioned toy that nobody this kid's age (we're
introduced to him as he blows up a video game he's frustrated with) would go
near. He kills people by wackily inserting them into Saturday morning cartoons
and the like. The aspect of familial and communal responsibility turned around
is destroyed when it's revealed that his "family" isn't his family at all, just
people who broke down, like the teacher, and got sucked into Anthony's home.
Nobody seems to know where the hell Anthony came from, or who his parents were.
Luckily for everyone who didn't, you know, DIE, during the course of the story,
though, the teacher knows exactly what poor Anthony needs--he just needs some
*love.* Her affirmation of just how much she cherishes this psychotic, psychic
stranger (who she only met because he wrecked her car to lure her into his home)
changes him instantly, and they drive off together, Anthony using his mental
powers to seed the roadsides with pretty weeds. No doubt, an entire lifetime of
"open mindedness" lies before them. Egad.
--Robert
Robert Lee
<p...@unh.edu> wrote:
>>Jerome Beatty, I think.
>
>Jerome Bixby, I'm pretty darn sure. (Just in case anyone gets the
>urge to go out and track it down by author name.)
I know...oops. Jerome Beatty wrote the Matthew Looney books, didn't he?
--Robert
Don Tuite
Francis Muir wrote:
>
> Has anyone read *BNW* lately? Difficult to get too excited about it. I
> cannot imagine it being a required reading book in English schools. I
> can see why people might think it's the sort of book I might read what
> with my usual preference for the antique. Doesn't Orwell make more sense
> as a classroom author?
My daughter had BNW as a summer reading assignment (was going to be a
sophomore). At the beach, I was able to point out to her an optimistic
woman wearing a thong as a living example of "pneumatic."
Anent Francis' question, she also had to read _1984_. I grumped that in
that case, the teacher should also assign _A Clockwork Orange_ to
complete the dystopic trilogy by cranky Englishmen.
But I don't know if either _1984_ or _Animal Farm_ is particularly
appropriate, except as period pieces. I think _Homage to Catalonia_,
being about a bloody-minded young nincompoop who invites himself into
somebody else's feud, finds that anarchy is a bad model for an army, and
gets shot in the throat for his troubles, would resonate more with
teenagers.
Don
(Also recommending _After Many a Summer Dies the Swan_ as an antidote to
BNW.)
jdv_m...@my-deja.com
the school and Gov. Don Siegelman. She said
Wednesday the novel's references to orgies,
self-flogging, suicide and the characters' contempt for
religion, marriage and family do not make it a good
choice for high school students.
Yes, as opposed to the Bible's murder, rape, incest, and crimes against
humanity? ;)
Joe "Nuke Me Xemu" Foster
> To continue about the not-as-smart-as-they-think types in my life, mentioned
> above: a lot of them believe that they "think critically," too. (This, BTW, is
> not directed at you. I don't know you, and I have no reason to take your words
> at anything but face value.) What develops, though, as you get to know them, is
> that they learned some group of critical criteria from profs in college, who no
> doubt pounded these criteria into their heads in the name of an "open mind.
> They honestly seem to believe that slavishly applying these criteria (whether to
> art, lit, politics, whatever) counts as thought. They don't seem able to bend
> one of these criteria in the slightest, when challenged, let alone jump tracks.
I believe I can "think critically" and "jump tracks" too. How do I tell,
though? For that matter, could the Scientific Method be considered a
"group of critical criteria" to be slavishly applied to everything,
resulting in only pseudo-thought instead of the real thing?
--
Joe Foster <mailto:jfo...@ricochet.net> Got Thetans? <http://www.xenu.net/>
WARNING: I cannot be held responsible for the above They're coming to
because my cats have apparently learned to type. take me away, ha ha!
Joe "Nuke Me Xemu" Foster
> Than again, I'm a big crank because I went to art school, which is pretty much
> the worst of that kind of world, releasing zillions of "artists" every year with
> no knowledge of history, style or technique, but lots of lofty notions about the
> "challenging" role of artists. How, precisely, you're supposed to challenge
> anyone with half a wit, no one seems to know.
Don't you have to *know* the rules before you can figure out the most
effective ways to break^H^H^H"challenge" them?
Jim Ward
> Kathleen Stone of Elberta filed the complaint in letters to
> the school and Gov. Don Siegelman. She said
> Wednesday the novel's references to orgies,
> self-flogging, suicide and the characters' contempt for
> religion, marriage and family do not make it a good
> choice for high school students.
> "When you're a college student, it's one thing, but I
> don't think too much of assigning this to high school
> students," Stone said.
Perhaps college students have more experience with orgies, self-flogging,
suicide, and contempt for religion, marriage and family.
jdv_m...@my-deja.com
and I
> still don't see anything wrong with it but I guess that's just
because I'm
> an Atheist.
Atheist? Swear to God?
Francis Muir
When it comes to the Spanish Civil War, Muriel Spark's *The Prime of
Miss Jean Brodie* might illuminate and entertain the adolescent mind.
paschal
On Thu, 28 Sep 2000, Francis Muir wrote:
> When it comes to the Spanish Civil War, Muriel Spark's *The Prime of
> Miss Jean Brodie* might illuminate and entertain the adolescent mind.
Well, I don' know nuthin, 'bout The Spanish Civil War; but I really
liked "The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie"!
G'Nite!
-P.