Posted on 02/24/2010 10:56:49 AM PST by JoeProBono
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C.- A North Carolina high school student said she was willing to sacrifice her honor roll grades to avoid writing an essay contrary to her Christian beliefs.
Tieanna Trough, a student at Gray's Creek High School in Fayetteville, said her English class was instructed to write essays on making deals with the devil as part of a curriculum studying Washington Irving's short story "The Devil and Tom Walker," WTVD-TV, Durham/Raleigh, reported Tuesday.
Trough said her faith bars her from writing about deals with the devil.
"I believe you don't write about how to sell your soul to the devil," she said.
The girl's parents said they agreed with their daughter.
"We can't allow God into the classrooms, but yet they are going to allow the devil in the classroom, that's the way I felt," said her mother, Monice McLean. "They were told if they didn't do it they would get a zero."
Trough said teachers have now given her an alternate subject for her essay, how and why money is important. She said the new essay subject is acceptable.
Good for her. It was a stupid idea for an assignment.
I admire her for following her beliefs but isn’t the point about these stories is you don’t make deals with the devil in the first place.
A lot of great literature has been based on this storyline, even the Book of Job is “deal with the devil” story.
...Obviously the NEA and DOE have already made a deal with the devil.
School prayer order 'blatantly unconstitutional' (OneNewsNow ^ | 2/24/10 | Bill Bumpas)
"A teacher, if she or he gets an email from a parent and the parent has 'God bless you' or scripture anywhere in the email, the teacher is prohibited from responding to that email without first taking out those words," Staver explains.
Homer Simpson sold his soul to the Devil (Ned Flanders) for a Donut. Marge takes on the Daniel Webster role and defends him in front of a Jury that included the 1975 Philadelphia Flyers.
I admire her principles. Good for her.
Had I been her parent, I’d have discussed with her a way to make the assignment fit her faith. If they ask a question about the devil — that’s a good way to get into the subject of God. There cannot be a devil without a God, and she may have missed an opening for working God into the classroom.
That being said, she made her stand and made her point. Her parents should be proud.
SnakeDoc
The Left never gets that lesson.
Sure, making a deal with Stalin didn't turn out well, but socialism is still a good idea.
Sure, making a deal with Castro and Che didn't turn out well, but socialism is still a good idea.
Sure, making a deal with Pol Pot didn't turn out well, but socialism is still a good idea.
Ignore the past. The NEXT deal I make with the Devil will work out just fine. See, here's how I'd do it ...
And Bart sold his to Milhouse in one of the early episodes.
Exactly, it is also a classic piece of American literature. The point not made here is that there is a school out there in the great USA that still teaches Washington Irving.
Like "Do I just shut up and do what the teacher tells me, or do I rock the boat and get a failing grade?" This kid is going to get a lesson at the college of hard knocks at an early age.
Might be a bit of an early age to learn lessons like this, but I don't see much problem with it, otherwise.
You apparently wouldn’t ever allow discussion of Aesop’s fables, Grimms fairy tales, or perhaps even Pilgrim’s Progress. You seem to not understand the purpose of allegory or the power of story telling. this young woman ( and her parents) have missed the point of the assignment. if she is so limited in her thinking that she could not have written using Biblical illustrations ( of for example Jesus being tempted by Satan) then she is not really protecting her ‘faith’. She is ignorant and chooses to stay that way
The moral of most dealing-with-the-devil stories is NOT to deal with the devil. Only a devil worshiper could object to that.
I remember when I went through my own “hyper-religious pain-in-every- teacher’s-ass” phase. It’s all about getting attention and sympathy. No better than using race for the same reasons.
LOL on the pix of the devil holding a banjo! I’ve got to show that to my banjo playing hubby.
I think this is an over reaction by this girl and mother. I hate public schools as much as the next person, but Washington Irving is an important authors of early America.
“...how and why money is important.”
I’m surprised she will do an essay on this one with the whole “money is the root of all evil” thing and all. (Intentional partial quote as my liberal sister would say it!)
author...not authors.
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