Bob Cox shared with us this news story from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Last fall, the Renton School District had asked teachers to stop teaching Mark Twain’s classic “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” until they had developed guidelines for it.
“School district spokesman Randy Matheson said the half-inch-thick book of guidelines, which will be posted on the district’s Web site and distributed to teachers, includes information on the history of the contentious word and the book’s place in the canon of Western literature, as well as articles from educational journals and other sources about how to teach it.”
Most civilized book ever
I wonder if this lady has read Huck Finn, or if she was so hung up on the degrading word that she missed the whole point. IMO, Huck Finn is one of the most civilized books ever written. It’s beautiful (with the exception of Twain just having to drag that Sawyer brat’s games into it).
It uses a degrading word. I think most people would agree with that. Twain’s not using it for shock value. He’s using it because that was the word that people used during that time period. I wonder if she’s taking the whole thing out of context, or if the kids are being, well, kids and using it as a derogatory term.
And perhaps because the word is degrading is precisely why it needs to be discussed. Honestly, I hear the African American kids call each other the “n” word at school, at the library, at the mall, all the time. Makes my skin crawl, whether it’s “friendly” or otherwise. But the connotations are something that maybe kids should be taught, should understand.