Uncomfortable 7th-grader spurs decision to drop 'Huck Finn' from class

PensacolaNewsJournal.com ^ | JANUARY 30, 2003 | Ginny Graybiel

[SauronOfMordor]

The bottom line was: There was one student who felt uncomfortable," said Principal Richard Harper. "Our feeling was: We're not here to make kids feel uncomfortable, and if he felt uncomfortable, then it was a problem."

Meanwhile, a seminar on homosexual fisting is deemed appropriate for 14-year olds...

[BabsC]

Few seventh graders will understand Huckleberry Finn. It's over the heads of many adults--maybe most.

If that's true the government indoctrination centers and parenting today, are even worse than I thought. Are you making a personal statement here? I don't know of anyone I'm aquainted with that this would exceed their understanding, young or old.

But then again, I don't suffer the company of fools.

[tnlibertarian]

Superintendent Jim Paul said he learned about the Ransom incident Wednesday

Irony abounds.

[Let's Roll]

Our teacher did that on Friday afternoons when we were in the Fifth Grade - complete with tongue in cheek when appropriate. It was our reward for working hard all week. How we loved it.

[Savage Beast]

Most public presentations of Huck--movies, drawings, etc--describe a harmless, cute little boy with freckles. Huck is nothing like that; he is an epic hero. His truth is profound, subversive, and threatening, and he is bowlerized as a defense against it.

[Savage Beast]

"Grand Kleagle Robert Byrd could show up in session wearing his sheet and the Democrats wouldn't even boo him."

LOL! Never underestimate the power of denial. They wouldn't even admit that he was wearing a sheet. They might even insist that the Republicans were. And millions would believe them!

[ncpastor]

"The bottom line was: There was one student who felt uncomfortable," said Principal Richard Harper. "Our feeling was: We're not here to make kids feel uncomfortable, and if he felt uncomfortable, then it was a problem."

Actually, the bottom line is, you're not there to make children comfortable, you're supposedly there to give them an education. If your focus is on making kids comfortable, then there is your problem.

[Xenalyte]

Honest-to-God true story:

I went to a local Baptist college and majored in literature. One of my classmates in an American lit class would NOT read Huck Finn because she said it promoted homosexuality.

The passage in question: Huck is wandering around onshore somewhere, and Jim asks him to "Come back to the raft, Huck honey."

[Savage Beast]

"All right, then, I'll go to hell"

See post #25.

Thank you, general_re.

[Savage Beast]

I don't think Adventures of Huckleberry Finn should be taught to seventh graders.

Few of them will understand it, even if they have an expert teacher, and the chances of that are zilch.

Furthermore, Mark Twain's "dialect" is abominable, and children should not be exposed to this "Negro dialect", use of "the N-word", etc., presented as great literature (which the book is, dispite the "dialect") and without adequate guidance, which they are highly unlikely to receive.

Unless this book is explained adequately, it is likely to reinforce racial stereotyping. The subtleties of the bitter satire can easily escape the casual reader, and how many seventh graders--or high school students--are anything but casual readers.

I think it should be studied in college, maybe high school if the students and teachers are serious, but not to students any younger than that.

[Savage Beast]

"I don't know of anyone I'm aquainted with that this would exceed their understanding, young or old."

Then either you are surrounded by geniuses, or you don't understand it yourself.

"But then again, I don't suffer the company of fools."

Maybe you don't recognize them.

[Savage Beast]

Yes, but the seventh grade is much too young to learn about Auschwitz. Maybe high school. At the college level, it must be a requirement.

[Savage Beast]

Hey, and don't forget: Huck dressed like a girl too! I guess you know what that means!

[Xenalyte]

I forgot ALL about the rampant transvestism. Okay, I'm convinced. Off the shelves with this piece of trash!

[Wurlitzer]

The United States of America, home of the once free, and the comfortable.

How very PC that nobody is ever made uncomfortable except, of course, anybody on the political right.

[Savage Beast]

How can one read anything if one is that touchy?

(P.S. Then there was that unpleasant part about Jim discovering Pap. One could make a case for necrophilia.)

(I just can't take any more.)

[Xenalyte]

We need to stop now, before we can't find anything redeeming in it!

[Oztrich Boy]

I think it should be studied in college, maybe high school if the students and teachers are serious, but not to students any younger than that.

I know it's a crazy thought, but perhaps Twain wrote the book to be read, not studied

But perhaps to make everybody happy, it should be law that possession or reading of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn should be prohibited to anyone below the age of 18.


heh.. that should do it, they'll all read it then

[Bubba_Leroy]

A teacher in one of these palaces of learning got into trouble for using the word "niggardly" recently.

She should have. That word is horribly offensive to misers, especially those of Nordic descent. [/sarchasm]