Teacher Suspended For Reading Ender's Game To Students 1054
An anonymous reader writes "Forbes reports that a middle school teacher in South Carolina has been placed on administrative leave for reading sci-fi classic Ender's Game to his students. According to blogger Tod Kelly, '[A parent] reported him to the school district complained that the book was pornographic; that same parent also asked the local police to file criminal charges against the teacher. As of today, the police have not yet decided whether or not to file charges (which is probably a good sign that they won't). The school district, however, appears to agree with the parent, is considering firing the teacher and will be eliminating the book from the school.'"
"I Heard Your Giant's Drink Game is Broken?" (Score:5, Funny)
Re:"I Heard Your Giant's Drink Game is Broken?" (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't want to live on this pl- no. I don't want THESE people to live on my planet anymore.
Re:"I Heard Your Giant's Drink Game is Broken?" (Score:5, Funny)
They are ok with literal xenocide committed by a child soldier, but the moment the kid has to take a shower (and fight a bully), NOW it's pornographic? I don't want to live on this pl- no. I don't want THESE people to live on my planet anymore.
FTFY for all nerdkind.
Re:Gotta love the religious types (Score:5, Informative)
More importantly. God promises he won't destroy it "with water, but will do so with fire" (which is what revelations then details... but contrary to the good congresscritter, it only speaks about what God will do. It never says "you will not destroy yourselves."
Re:"I Heard Your Giant's Drink Game is Broken?" (Score:5, Insightful)
It was read to the class. Doesn't it mean it was pornophonic? Which has to be less severe. I mean... if it were the same in terms of arousal effectiveness, I imagine radio porn would be rampant.
Re:"I Heard Your Giant's Drink Game is Broken?" (Score:5, Interesting)
Student doesn't like the teacher for one reason or another, starts looking for the slightest provocations to harm the teacher. Student finds a reason, rants and raves and cries to mom about it, mom rushes to defend her precious snowflake. School administration fearing lawsuits and the PR backlash sides with the parent and fires teacher. Student pockets this victory and starts looking for the next. Keep an eye on this student, they are going to be big in politics or business some day...
Re:"I Heard Your Giant's Drink Game is Broken?" (Score:5, Interesting)
Come on now, surely you know exactly what's going on from your days in school...
Student doesn't like the teacher for one reason or another, starts looking for the slightest provocations to harm the teacher. Student finds a reason, rants and raves and cries to mom about it, mom rushes to defend her precious snowflake. School administration fearing lawsuits and the PR backlash sides with the parent and fires teacher. Student pockets this victory and starts looking for the next. Keep an eye on this student, they are going to be big in politics or business some day...
The student is not to blame, even if they were looking for a way to strike out at a teacher. The blame here lies in the parent(s) who made the complaints. The parent should have made sure the complaint was legitimate.
This is the problem with parents today. The school system and teachers are trying their best to educate children but they run head first into "golden uterus" syndrome which has infected parents meaning that their child is the most precious thing in the universe and must be protected from anything slightly remotely harmful. This hasn't been helped by society putting kids on a pedestal (ye olde think of the children).
The problem is, as you pointed out that Mum, drives her Mum-Tank into the principals office and demands to know why her child has been punished or is learning something she considers unsavoury. Unfortunately school policy is to appease the parents rather then to defend their position. This is mainly due to the fact that if the parent's dont get their way they'll go on TV with a "shocking report" revealing how schools are damaging our kids.
In Australia it's gotten to the point where the worst thing that can be written on a report card is "Little Johnny needs to pay more attention in class" as threats from parents with no clue and no inclination to punish their little ratbags have become so great. Teachers and principals now live in fear.
I think parent's need to be reined in, it's their responsibility to punish their children when they do something wrong but unfortunately, they punish anyone else who tries to rein in their inconsiderate, illiterate, little crotchspawn. Maybe if we made parents responsible for what their crotchspawns do, but that wont happen until there is a fundamental shift in the way society thinks (society thinks, isn't that an oxymoron).
Re:"I Heard Your Giant's Drink Game is Broken?" (Score:5, Insightful)
They are ok with literal genocide committed by a child soldier, but the moment the kid has to take a shower (and fight a bully), NOW it's pornographic?
Having gone to a high school where no less than ten of the students I saw everyday became mommies long before graduation, but no attempts at xeno/genocide, it doesn't really come as a big surprise to me.
Re:"I Heard Your Giant's Drink Game is Broken?" (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't have kids so I don't really know what's going through these people's heads. I've always suspected that everybody hopes that if nobody brings it up, it'll never occur to the teenagers to get up to mischief. It becomes a perpetual "no it cannot be a problem right now, maybe next year" sort of thing. So if something like sex-ed comes along, it causes the issue to come up at an inopportune time (note: There is no opportune time...) , so they get frustrated that this particular problem is coming up right now. The result? People don't want their kids exposed to things that'll make them think about sex. I'd like to think I'm right, but the thing that baffles me the most about this is all these parents, for some reason, don't remember what being a teenager was like. Remember Back to the Future? Remember Marty's Mom? "I never did things like call boys or park in a car with a boy" and all that other stuff? That's the image I get in my head when I think about these people.
Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong, I don't know. Whatever their motivations, I agree that trying to keep their kids as pure as the Flanders family is not a useful solution. I just don't see why they'd even have violence on their radar until they start seeing their kids actually hurting each other. Until then, there actually is some sense in being offended by pornographic imagery and turning a blind eye to violence on TV. It's a non-argument, sorry.
Re:"I Heard Your Giant's Drink Game is Broken?" (Score:5, Interesting)
Hurm... that would be a really underhanded way to get around the whole "abstinence-only education" thing. Assign a book (age-appropriate) that has safe sex as a major talking point (like a parent having "the talk" with their teenager) for a book report.
Bonus points, if any of the kids ask "why didn't we learn about this in sex ed", tell them that by law you cannot say anything and to talk to their parents.
P.S., one of my health teachers locked the door and basically violated the law by giving us proper safe sex education. I used to think he was kinda flaky, but he never lost my respect after that. I was one of the few students who understood the risk he was taking.
Re:"I Heard Your Giant's Drink Game is Broken?" (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:"I Heard Your Giant's Drink Game is Broken?" (Score:5, Insightful)
Glad I'm not the only one who wondered why OSC is so revered. I loved the Ender short story, and read quite a few of this guy's novels thinking they would be just as thought provoking, but each book I read made me like him less and less.
Re:"I Heard Your Giant's Drink Game is Broken?" (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess you don't like his writing style. I don't know that it's very prosaic but he does tell a great story. I remeber so many great authors I had to read in English lit. They had great style. Really wonderful writers. They couldn't tell a story for shit though. Theodore Dreiser? Really. What shit. Sylish shit is still shit. I think I read more polished turds in High School than I knew existed.
Re:"I Heard Your Giant's Drink Game is Broken?" (Score:4, Funny)
Re:"I Heard Your Giant's Drink Game is Broken?" (Score:5, Funny)
He fixes the cable?
He must be a Sysadmin [xkcd.com]!
Thank you, I was afraid there wouldn't be an opening for the obligatory XKCD reference.
Put them to work (Score:5, Interesting)
We need to find something to do for these people who just sit at home waiting for things to get outraged at (a.k.a. the “volleyball is exclusionary and tag promotes violence” types).
Some probably poses at least basic intelligence and education. Surely there is some way they can be made a useful part of our society. I think if they had something productive to focus on, we wouldn’t hear about stupid shit like this as often.
On a more serious note, I get that some people get off on being outraged/protesting/fighting something. We all know people like this. In a lot of cases they aren’t even really into the cause, they just like being behind something. When they have kids, it’s like a whole new world of stuff to complain about is opened up.
I’m sure this isn’t the first time the school has heard from her (ok, I’m gonna be sexist.. but this _has_ to be the Mother (Mother with a capital "M".. you know the type..)). You don’t go from 0 to this. I just wish these people would think about everyone else they hurt when they indulge their need to whine and at least try to put that energy into something more helpful to the world.
Re:Put them to work (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem isn't the outrage, it's that it's aimed at useless targets. By and large, the bigger problem with our society is complacency. When we really need outrage, e.g., to put bankers in jail for their crimes, the same busibodies are nowhere to be found.
Re:Put them to work (Score:4, Insightful)
The thing about protesting that kind of thing, is you put yourself at risk. This is largely why I am part of that complacent mass. I have a job, a home, a bright looking future. I think there's lots of problems with the world that should be fixed, but I sure as hell am not going to risk losing what I have. The only people who can protest this stuff are people who don't have much to begin with, and they just get shrugged off as "jobless hippies". It's actually a suspiciously well engineered little system.
Calling up the school in a huff because the cafeteria serves junk food on the other hand.. very low risk for the bored stay at home mom..
Why stay at home? (Score:5, Insightful)
Your circumstances are perfect for getting involved politically.
Start locally. Have you written a PAPER letter to your Congress critters yet? To your governor? To your state legislature?
If not, why not?
Have you volunteered for a political candidate?
So, Thatcher was right (Score:4, Insightful)
Congratulations slave, you have proven the Conservatives right, they believed that making the working class home owners would turn them into good reliable little workers unwilling to risk the house they can't afford with silly things such as looking for a new job, or even thinking about striking.
Why bother with capturing slaves when the feeble just whip themselves?
Mind you, you wouldn't be so bad, if the bleeding hearts wouldn't feel sorry you if you get slaughtered in the revolution. But somehow, your kind then suddenly turns into "innocent" citizens and not supporters of the regime.
Re:So, Thatcher was right (Score:4, Insightful)
unwilling to risk the house they can't afford
Almost paid for.. never had any major financial trouble in my life. Just because some people bought houses way out of their price range doesn't mean every home owner ends up screwing themselves. I went for a reasonably priced house with a reasonable term mortgage and 30% down payment (protip: if you can't save up at least 20% within a reasonable time.. do't buy it!) and with room to breath in the event of a major interest rate hike or other financial hardship.
I've lived within my means and have kept up on my retirement savings.
Why bother with capturing slaves when the feeble just whip themselves?
Yes.. job I like, decent money, house, car, time to spend on my hobbies.. my life is just terrible. I get that the people struggling down there are frustrated, and it's nice to think that the middle class only think they are happy but are really suffering.. however the truth is we are for the most part legitimately happy. That's why we arn't out protesting...
Slaughtered in the revolution.
The middle class probably need to be on board to have a hope in hell in getting anywhere with that one.
Then again, I'm Canadian... thing's arn't _as_ bleak up here yet.
Re:Put them to work (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a job, a home, a bright looking future. I think there's lots of problems with the world that should be fixed, but I sure as hell am not going to risk losing what I have.
Then, frankly, you don't belong in a democratic society. The whole point of our society and especially how the U.S. was set up to begin with was so that anyone in the populous could fight for what they believe is right without the fear of losing everything they have for speaking up. I am beginning to think that complacency isn't the real problem here, cowardice is. When did America get castrated by the corporations and the bullies? It's a sad day in a democracy when the people are afraid to say something is right or wrong because they are afraid to lose everything.
Re:Put them to work (Score:5, Interesting)
YOU ARE SLEEP WALKING and call it a life. You don't have to be a statistician to see the middle class is evaporating like a fragile mist on a summer morning... Those jobless hippies, used to be happily employed and have homes just like you. Then they sent their jobs to the third world. Destroyed their life savings by crashing the stock market. Gutted their retirement by turn entire states into economic wastelands call rust belts. Millions of people who did absolutely everything right, People who planned and saved and scrimped for their futures. Held diverse portfolios, and had property owned and paid for... got squashed like bugs. By the millions. You better believe they're pissed and ready to protest. Because they now live in vans and tent cities popping up outside of every major city in the country.
Your hubris would offend me, if it weren't so clear that you're simply ignorant. Sadly, you're ignorant by choice, and what you don't know my friend, really can kill you.
Re:Put them to work (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember watching a movie, The Firm, where Tom Cruise plays a lawyer working for a firm that turns out to be in the employ of the Mob. The firm operates by mean of a gloved fist. In one scene, Cruise's wife and another wife of a partner at the firm are walking together -- the other wife is a real Stepford Wife type -- when the subject of children comes up. Cruise's wife says that she and her husband plan on having children.
"Oh, good" says the other wife. "The firm encourages family. It promotes stability."
In the context of the film, it was obvious that there was ultimately menace behind the firm's "encouragement," but as soon as I saw that scene I thought, "Holy shit! That's how society works. That's what the status quo holds over people's heads." I was young at the time, so it was like a revelation. Later, when I became a history major, I learned that the Norman's of France made their way all over Europe, conquering lands, and were also very active in the Crusades, and all because the bulk of them were unmarried men with nothing to lose and everything to gain. (Inheritance laws deprived younger sons of any automatic livelihood.)
I guess what I'm trying to say is your point speaks to something fundamental in human society.
Re:Put them to work (Score:5, Insightful)
Your sniveling cowardice makes me want to vomit.You deserve to be stomped. Unfortunately, your disgusting weakness will only get OTHER people stomped. I have been raising hell about getting critical problems fixed for 20 years or so, occasionally WINNING those fights, and guess what? There have been NO destructive consequences to my life. None. Zero.
Re:Put them to work (Score:5, Interesting)
What crimes?
Mortgage fraud, perjury, racketeering.
Should we put in jail the average Banker (middle class/lower middle class) who just follows company policy, and greets you with a smile?
No, we should put the highest level CEOs in jail. The ones who are responsible for the pattern of racketeering activity. Just like the Mafia, you don't get to run a criminal organization and claim you have clean hands.
For the most part this is what happened.
You left a lot out of the summary. Like the part where most loans they were rebundling were known to the banks to be 90% fraudulent. How did they know? Congress and the FBI warned them about it. What did they do in response? They increased the number and percentage of so called "liars loans" they issued. They doubled down on practices they knew were fraudulent.
Tell me, what innocent explanation is there for that behavior?
The problem is Outrage. Outrage is getting mad at things that have already happened, it isn't productive method of try to make sure it doesn't happen.
If you're not mad enough to punish people who have done wrong in the past, there will be no deterrent to stop people from doing it again. If bankers know they can crash the economy and get bonuses for it, why wouldn't they do it again?
For most events if you are Outraged it means you don't know enough about what happened or you just more interested in revenge then actually solving the problem.
In your case, you're not outraged because you don't know enough about what happened. Either that, or you're deliberately shilling for the banks.
Go read William Black's book and/or columns. He's the guy who put nearly a thousand bankers in jail in the much smaller S&L crisis under Reagan. He argues forcefully, with plenty of evidence, that outright fraud was the reason for the crisis, and the only reason we can't prosecute this fraud is political corruption. Is his outrage due to being underinformed?
Re:Put them to work (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's TP the mother's home. My mom was/is very conservative but she never made a fuss about literature she found objectionable. She simply told the teacher that her kid would not be reading that book/seeing the movie until he was older (high school). That's the proper way to handle it. Like an adult instead of a whiny little bitch demanding the teacher be fired.
Nudity == nudity not porn. It is our natural state and nothing to be ashamed of.
Porn == sex. I don't recall any sex in Ender's Game (or the sequel Speaker for the Dead). So NOT pornographic.
This is as crazy as the government arresting teens who took nude photos with their phones, and then claiming it's porn. It isn't porn if there's no sex stupid cops and stupid politicians. Arrest them for the actual crime committed (nudity)..... oh that's right. The SCOTUS said nudity is not a crime.
Re:Put them to work (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Put them to work (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Put them to work (Score:4, Interesting)
I mean school is so screwed up that when we read the Canterbury Tales, the cool tales were the ones that could not be assigned.
To go into conspiracy theory time I think the conservatives don't want kids to read. The books that are allowed tend to enforce a traditional world view that is common to those who are less intelligent. The books that challenge that view, and are allowed, tend to end with the protagonist learning that the protest was a youthful indiscretion.
So Ender's Game, though written by a very traditional homophobe, certainly challenges the conservative world view and does not end well. Though the male dominated world is validated, there is an indication that doning anything to win a war. As so often happens, single incidences in the book are used to provide cover for objections that is really about general content. In effect, too many parents are afraid when their children learn to think.
Re:Put them to work (Score:5, Insightful)
To continue on the serious note, everyone, I mean everyone, complains that boys don't read. The fact is that if a boy is brought up int he average school, he is given nothing, and excuse my language, but chick lit to read. The only reason I read was because my father read and it was stuff interesting to boys. Heinlein, Pohl, etc. It was pulp, but it got me into the habit of reading so i could read more of the conventional and socially acceptable stuff.
My kid had no interest in reading until I got him started on Ben Bova's Orion series. He's 11 and loves it. Yes it's full violence, and sex, and "porn" - I mean, sex with a goddess while covered with animal entrails amid a stone age civilization? It doesn't get any better!
The early Card stuff is next; Planet Called Treason, Ender's Game, you name it. Those are boy books!
I mean school is so screwed up that when we read the Canterbury Tales, the cool tales were the ones that could not be assigned.
Hehe... I read The Wife Of Bath with my 14 year old daughter. Nothing like the prologue where she rants about the uselessness of virginity. Again, want to hold a teenager's attention while reading the classics? Show then the classics!
Re:Put them to work (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed. I can't help but chuckle at the outrage when I tell the neighbors that we had a fairly decent intro to mammalian reproductory systems in grade 4 biology. Oh yeah, we did have biology and history as separate subjects starting in grade 4, then chemistry and physics starting in grade 5.
The biggest conservative idiocy IMHO is the whine about sexualizing/objectifying children. Well, it's the adults who do it for crying out loud, not kids! For a kid, learning about the reproductive system has no subtexts at all, and is just as much of a non-loaded topic as learning about, say, basics of organic chemistry like perchance simple hydrocarbons. People who believe that knowledge of the reproductive system is somehow a taboo/dirty subject are the ones where the problem is -- it's not with the subject, nor with the kids, it's with the parents who unfortunately were not brought up in a sane environment, and their minds got so warped around those subjects that they can't deal with them in a normal way.
Re:Put them to work (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Put them to work (Score:5, Funny)
Orson Scott Card [nauvoo.com] on how homophobic Orson Scott Card is:
The hypocrites of homosexuality are, of course, already preparing to answer these statements by accusing me of homophobia, gay-bashing, bigotry, intolerance; but nothing that I have said here -- and nothing that has been said by any of the prophets or any of the Church leaders who have dealt with this issue -- can be construed as advocating, encouraging, or even allowing harsh personal treatment of individuals who are unable to resist the temptation to have sexual relations with persons of the same sex. On the contrary, the teachings of the Lord are clear in regard to the way we must deal with sinners. Christ treated them with compassion -- as long as they confessed that their sin was a sin. Only when they attempted to pretend that their sin was righteousness did he harshly name them for what they were: fools, hypocrites, sinners.
Oh, so that clears that up, then. He's not.
Re:Put them to work (Score:5, Insightful)
The teacher should be fired. The kids should have been reading their own books instead of having the book read aloud to them. How can everyone else be so far off topic?
Re:Put them to work (Score:5, Interesting)
Why is it the fault of the teacher that parents are happy to raise children who are illiterate and the parents actively discourage literacy?
Re:Put them to work (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Put them to work (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't care about the crazy soccer moms here. I care that the school board is failing utterly at their job. They are supposed to insulate teachers from crazy parents. They are supposed to be rational, and say "Yes, Mrs. Smith, we heard you, but we leave individual book assignments to the teachers. If you're unhappy with the content the public education system provides, take your child down the street to the private school that more closely matches your morals. Yes, we know it's expensive, but that's your choice."
And yes, a vocal minority of outraged parents (bonded together by a common hatred of porn / literature / science / logic / foreign accents / whatever) will put up their own flat-earth candidate, and will get that school board member fired. Term limits of one would prevent them from worrying about it too much.
Instead, what this school board did is told all their teachers "you're going to get fired for teaching anything that goes against the arbitrary capricious whims of any nutcake parent." And they told every nutcake parent in the district "want to get that unmarried pregnant teacher fired? Just accuse her of having dyed her hair, we're just as crazy as you and we'll fire her for you." That board may as well not exist for all the good they're doing their school system.
Good Ole Southern Cackalacky (Score:5, Insightful)
The other possibility is that the book is too descriptive in some parts (maybe when Ender burrows into the giant's eye in the simulation?). And they're in ye olde Southern Cackalacky where the definition of pornography is just anything that gets too descriptive for their comfort. So, you know, like anything that's written well.
Or perhaps one of the parents caught wind that Orson Scott Card is Mormon and different and therefore evil. And then they looked up the White Horse Prophecy and put
Re:Good Ole Southern Cackalacky (Score:5, Informative)
As usual, this case has been discussed in other places first. IIRC the "bruised testicle" was part of what the bitching is about.
We're in a bad spot in our society when these idiots aren't laughed out of the office. Let the freak homeschool her precious snowflake and stop being a burden on us.
Re:Good Ole Southern Cackalacky (Score:5, Informative)
I'm drawing a blank here but about the only thing I can think of that would qualify as close to pornography is the part where Ender beats the shit out of that bully and the book talks about how his medical sheet reads "bruised testicle."
After the teenager's mother contacted police, investigators contacted the school.
School officials have since said [aikenstandard.com] two of the three books the teacher read were determined to have materials (primarily swear words) and, in some instances, subject matter and terminology that school administrators consider inappropriate for the middle school.
According to commonsensemedia.org, which claims it has in-house staff and a team of reviewers who are experts in children's media, technology, health and policy matters, "this book was not originally intended for children. The violence is, at times, quite brutal, as kids kill other kids, though unintentionally, and the main character is admired for his ruthlessly efficient violence, though he himself is disturbed by it."
The website also advises parents to be aware of violence, sex and language, but states that the content is appropriate for children 12 years or older.
The student who gave a statement to the school is 14.
Re:Good Ole Southern Cackalacky (Score:5, Funny)
"Remember, the enemy's pants are DOWN!"
Re:Good Ole Southern Cackalacky (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Good Ole Southern Cackalacky (Score:4, Insightful)
Wasn't there a lot of child nudity in Ender's Game?
It's not a picture book. Any child nudity you saw while reading it (or listening to it in audiobook form or otherwise having it read to you) you produced yourself in your own mind.
Re:Good Ole Southern Cackalacky (Score:4, Informative)
In "Princess of Mars" ( book ), Dejah Thoris was described as naked except for a few ornamental items.
In the "John Carter" movie, she was clothed through the whole movie. They can find a way to handle it.
Re:Good Ole Southern Cackalacky (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe if she had been naked except for a few ornamental items the movie wouldn't have lost so much money.
For the Children (Score:5, Funny)
The school district reports that the letters E, I, N, P, and S have been removed from the school curriculum after a parent complained her son was being exposed to gateway pornography.
Re:For the Children (Score:5, Insightful)
What. The. Fuck. (Score:5, Insightful)
I only hope we can get over this state of permanent panic before it kills us.
Porn? (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was in High School... (Score:5, Interesting)
We read Candide. That's gotta be way more "pornographic" than Ender's Game. What is this country coming to?
Between Santorum, Limbaugh and the rest of those jokers bible thumping their way into our bedrooms but refusing to even tax one cent of a rich person's income (because that's government intrusion), this country is really and truly fucked.
We're going to be like Argentina, and the shooting in Florida is proving that there are now only gated communities and trailer parks -- and if you're the wrong color in a gated community, you are a target.
Re:When I was in High School... (Score:4, Insightful)
The bible is one of the most pornographic and violence filled books ever.
Two of the more pornographic passages, yes the second one is incest, no it is not taken out of context in the least.
Ezekiel 23:20
There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.
Genesis 19:32
Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.
Re:When I was in High School... (Score:5, Insightful)
Between Santorum, Limbaugh and the rest of those jokers bible thumping their way into our bedrooms
I don't care much for Bill Maher, but he was spot-on when he said "even gay men don't think about gay sex as much as Rick Santorum does".
Total failure in so many ways (Score:5, Interesting)
I think this is one of those things for which there is a simple solution, find name of parent, all Ender's fans call parent and explain what a complete and colossal idiot they are. Problem solved. News report of parent explaining how their phone didn't stop ringing for several months convinces all future such parents to just keep their opinions to themselves.
"Pornography" is supposed to be judged by the standards of the "community", I think its time or the community to judge the standards of those who wish to judge the community.
Re:Total failure in so many ways (Score:4, Interesting)
"Pornography" is supposed to be judged by the standards of the "community"
And that cop-out is the very antithesis of the idea of the rule of law.
Support the teacher (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish principals grew a spine and supported their teachers on this kind of stuff.
Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Bet this kid is popular.
He's 14 and running home to mommy because a book had naughty words in it..
I can see a parent running across the book and going full on "I'M A MOTHER, AND AS A MOTHER I FEEL.." mode while the kid stands there horribly embarrassed .. but for the kid to be the one who started it all... kid must be living in a bubble.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wow (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe he wasn't really reading Ender's Game (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Maybe he wasn't really reading Ender's Game (Score:5, Interesting)
From another article [wrdw.com]:
"One of the stories was about prostitutes having their faces covered with ejaculation."
Law of Unintended Consequences (Score:5, Interesting)
The school ended up bowing to the holier-than-thou asshole and banned the book; however, doing so had the unexpected side effect of Slaughterhouse V becoming the most read book in the city of Republic. The Vonnegut Library even donated several hundred copies of the book to the local library, all of which were swiftly checked out.
Experience tells me Ender's Game is about to become the most read book in Shofield, SC.
Obligatory (Score:4, Informative)
"Das war ein Vorspiel nur, dort wo man Bucher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen."
"That was but a prelude; where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people also." - Heinrich Heine "Almansor" 1821
--
BMO
Was there 3 books or one? (Score:4, Informative)
Read an artice about this here http://geeks.thedailywh.at/2012/03/15/geek-news-classroom-controversy-of-the-day/, and it said there was three books that were read and the Enders Game was the only one that was known that the teacher read. So it's possible that something inappropriate was read to the children if that story wasn't off.
According to original report it wasn't Enders Game (Score:5, Informative)
The original story reported it a bit differently:
"According to the incident report, a teacher had been reading pornographic material from the Internet to the students in class. One of the stories was about prostitutes having their faces covered with ejaculation."
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Unless this is the writer's cut that my library didn't stock - this wasn't enders game they were reading.
I think I know what happened here. (Score:4, Funny)
Parent: "Did you just say two kids beat each other off in the shower?!?!?"
American educational system: "SHUT. DOWN. EVERYTHING."
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Interrupting your regularly scheduled rant: (Score:4, Informative)
But the articles linked are very long on speculation and very short on info.
Parent makes complaint about something bizarre happening in the classroom. Teacher is suspended pending investigation.
Let me assure you, this happens outside of the south. Let me also assure you it happens in politically diverse communities.
Being the son of a high school teacher, I've heard this story a lot of times.
There are a lot of possibilities here. The complaint apparently was that the teacher read something about semen coating the faces of prostitutes. That certainly isn't in Ender's Game.
So, maybe it's in the other two books mentioned. But, that's doubtful given the books (Agatha Christie and a book aimed at young teens.)
So, we could have a kid (for whatever reason, but being nutty, or disliking the teacher are a couple possibilities or on a dare from friends) telling parents something that didn't happen.
Or, we could have a parent that's kinda mental, or having a bad week, or a drunken rage etc, etc . That happens with alarming regularity when you have to deal with large numbers of parents. Most are fine, some are messed up.
Much, much farther down the list is that it's due to a conservative and or southern conspiracy or any other societal factor.
As to the suspension. School administrations are historically the most pusillanimous bunch of cover your butt bureaucrats there are. Especially if the parent is a known problem, or someone of influence in the community.
But, if you want to elevate the less likely to the fore, then Occam's Razor isn't going to stop you.
Not about Ender's Game. (Score:4, Informative)
Apparently, this has less to do with Ender's Game than it does with something the teacher was reading which involved prostitutes getting facials. [wrdw.com]
As usual the Summary is horribly wrong (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Back to the Future (Score:5, Funny)
Now we just need to find some really cheap labor.
Think of the children!
Re:Back to the Future (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Back to the Future (Score:5, Funny)
Not such a bad idea. Can you imagine how effective a 5 year old could be at cable runs at data centers and in office building ceilings? All it would cost me is some Snackables and a visit to Chuck E Cheese later.
Re:Back to the Future (Score:5, Informative)
It is. Here's what a Pastor said [washingtonpost.com] while introducing Rick Santorum two days ago:
So there you have it. Santorum didn't object at the time, either.
Re:Back to the Future (Score:5, Funny)
Ok, so basically there's three Gods, and they're all God. And each one is also God. Jesus is God, Jesus's Father, God, is also God. Oh and there's the Holy Spirit - that's God too.
At least that's what it says in the bible. It makes no sense, but the bible is Truth (tm) so Christians spend an inordinate amount of trying to understand how Jesus went back in time and became his own father.
Re:Back to the Future (Score:5, Informative)
Why not, where do you think this is coming from? Read this [forbes.com]:
Mind you, I have nothing against abstaining from pornography or preaching against it, but this is something else. And don't say Santorum speaks only for himself, the point here is how many votes he is getting.
Re:Back to the Future (Score:5, Insightful)
Other banned books from the past:
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
American Heritage Dictionary
Catcher in the Rye
Fahrenheit 451
From Here to Eternity
The Grapes of Wrath
With the exception of the dictionary, all are timeless works of great art. What wikipedia says about Ender's game:
Reception to the book has generally been positive, though some critics have denounced Card's perceived justification of his characters' violent actions.[3][4] It has also become suggested reading for many military organizations, including the United States Marine Corps.[5] Ender's Game won the 1985 Nebula Award for best novel[6] and the 1986 Hugo Award for best novel.
Hey, why did <blockquote></blockquote> stop working?
At any rate, the teacher should be reinstated and the damned administrators should be fired. TFA is still loading and I missed this book (looks like a great one I need to read, too, trip to the library this Saturday). What's supposed to be pornographic about it?
As to the complaining parent, maybe the bitch should just stick to Dr Suess? Oh, she'll probably think Cat in the Hat is porno, too.
No matter how good something is, someone is going to say it's utter shit.
Re:Back to the Future (Score:4, Informative)
blockquote works fine if you are in HTML mode, although it just shows up as another layer of indentation in the new layout.
Re:Back to the Future (Score:5, Insightful)
At any rate, the teacher should be reinstated and the damned administrators should be fired.
Naw, I'm pretty sure it went like this:
.... um.... (quickly googles ender's game pornographic [google.com]) .... See! It's right there, at the top of google! Ender's Game is pornographic! [plover.net] .... by the way, are you voting for Santorum? Google "Santorum" and let's see what comes up.... [wikipedia.org]
Parent: This book is pornographic and the teacher is reading it to my 14 yr old!
Superintendent: Ender's Game? (thinking: I haven't read that) What parts are pornographic? (read: take quotes out of context and make them sound bad)
Parent: (thinking: shit! I haven't read it either! I just hate that teacher!)
Superintendent: OH! Well! That changes everything! I will definitely fire that teacher!
Re:Back to the Future (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Back to the Future (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Back to the Future (Score:4, Interesting)
conservative != social conservative
Re:Back to the Future (Score:4, Insightful)
This has nothing to do with conservatism. The problem is people who are simply pants on head retarded. They come in so-called progressive flavors too.
Re:Back to the Future (Score:5, Interesting)
How ignorant.. Thinking there are political sides in America.
Re:Back to the Future (Score:5, Funny)
How ignorant.. Not one mention of political side and you just jump right on the bandwagon.
Yes, how could anyone conclude that an American complaining about perceived eroticism in a book would be a conservative?
Re:Back to the Future (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a librarian, and I've been on the other end of a few attempts at book bans, and have probably heard more about them than most non-librarians. I have never seen nor heard an account of an "overly liberal parent" who objects to "books that they consider too racist or insensitive" to the point that --and this is an important distinction-- said person demands to have a book removed from a collection and made unavailable to students/people/kids.
I've never seen this behavior, I've never heard of it, and your own links don't provide even any anecdotal references to it. Your second link does describe how many liberals will often stock their libraries with books that support their own worldview, and how they will push to have these books included on school reading lists. That might be true enough, but it is absolutely inaccurate to equate this with book banning/censorship, as the article does. Sure, it is advocating one's own world view. However showing preference to certain books is very, very different from removing access to certain books. Only one of these things is censorship.
Book banning is censorship, and it is a typical (and a stereotypical) conservative solution, not a liberal one.
Re:Back to the Future (Score:4, Informative)
It's worse than just book burning. Up north they rewrote Huck Fin and Tom Sawyer to more closely adhere to their Politically correct beliefs. I kid you not. That is in many ways worse than outright censorship.
Re:There's this little problem with Ender's Game (Score:5, Insightful)
Hansel and Gretel shove a little old lady into on oven and broil her, and that's been broadly accepted as children's fare for two hundred years. A little justifiable homicide shouldn't be a big issue all of a sudden.
Re:There's this little problem with Ender's Game (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember reading "Lord of the Flies" as a school assignment, as well as "The Jungle", and "Jude the Obscure".
If those aren't banned yet, then I don't see why they would bother with such a tame offering as "Ender's Game".
Re:There's this little problem with Ender's Game (Score:4, Insightful)
There's more naked violent children in Lord of the Flies than there is in Enders Game.
Read that at school when I was 14.
Re:There's this little problem with Ender's Game (Score:5, Insightful)
The bully was already dead when kicked. He hit his head accidentally on a knob.
Time to read the book again :)
Re:There's this little problem with Ender's Game (Score:4, Funny)
STILSON SHOT FIRST
Re:There's this little problem with Ender's Game (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:There's this little problem with Ender's Game (Score:4, Interesting)
We're about to be immersed in The Hunger Games, because of the movie. I haven't read that, and my 12-year-old has. He optimizes what he reads for a reading score web site that the school district uses, as it's 25% of his grade. So, you can consider that The Hunger Games in this case was recommended by the government!
Re:There's this little problem with Ender's Game (Score:5, Informative)
Ender is a school child who kicks another school child to death in the school bathroom. Nobody has any question that it's happened, but not much seems to happen to Ender because of it.
Because of this particular scene in the book, I've always felt that it should not have been promoted as a children's book. I have also felt that Orson Scott Card is, IMO, unsavory for cooperating in promoting it as a children's book.
Spoiler alert: it's a pattern that foreshadows what happens at the end of the book. He lashes out in self defense against threats to his survival (or perceived threats) and immediately regrets it. It's not his fault that he kills. It is the fault of those who manipulate him and his peers so that these life-or-death conflicts keep occurring, without outside intervention.
Re:There's this little problem with Ender's Game (Score:4, Informative)
Ender is a school child who kicks another school child to death in the school bathroom. Nobody has any question that it's happened, but not much seems to happen to Ender because of it.
Nothing happens to Ender, legally--he's a child, and has been placed in that situation by the authorities, who are pretty much hoping for the response that they get. Later on (either at the end of Ender's Game, or in Ender's Shadow) it's revealed that Graff was indeed court-martialed for the deaths of both Bonzo and Stilson, though he is acquitted because of his statements that the war would have been lost if not for his actions in turning Ender into the weapon that humanity needed.
Graff aside, Ender did most certainly suffer for those deaths, and the billions more that he caused. Mentally, emotionally, and, later, being equated to another Adolf Hitler by the very people he saved.
Re:There's this little problem with Ender's Game (Score:5, Insightful)
Tricky moral situations are essential for children's reading. Feeding children sanitized narratives only primes them to accept the sanitizied narratives that are fed to us by government and media. Expose children to grey moral areas early, and they will be better equipped to handle grey moral areas in life.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:if this... then whats next (Score:5, Insightful)
if this, then Shakespeare has got to go as well.
Not to mention several books from The Old Testament.
Idiots...
Re:Heh, I just recommended this book (Score:5, Funny)
Wasn't that your plan all along ???