Posts Tagged ‘schools’
“Don’t join the book burners… Don’t be afraid to go in your library and read every book”*…
The American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) receives reports from libraries, schools, and the media on attempts to ban books in communities across the country, from which they compile lists of challenged books in order to inform the public about censorship efforts that affect libraries and schools.
From Persepolis and The Kite Runner to The Bluest Eye and The Perks of Being a Wallflower— the top ten most frequently challenged books of 2014.
* Dwight D. Eisenhower
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As we celebrate Banned Book Week by taking the General’s advice, we might recall that it was on this date last year that thousands of students in Jefferson County, Colorado stayed home to protest School Board action that “edited” the District’s AP History curriculum to “promote patriotism” and not to “encourage or condone civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law.” Two days later, the School Board backed down.
Student protestors (who will, one hopes, be catching up in spelling class on their return to school)
“The human animal differs from the lesser primates in his passion for lists”*…
Our friends at Public Domain Review have gone all Buzzfeed on us, creating a collection of lists that runs from “7 types of drunkard” through “114 proved plans to save a busy man time” and “9 types of newspaper adverts with a sexual purpose,” to “162 recorded sightings of sea serpents from 1522 – 1890.” Enjoy them all at “17 Numbered Lists from History.”
“17 numbered lists that will restore your faith in humanity, specifically in its ability to make numbered lists.”
* H. Allen Smith
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As we enumerate, we might pause to celebrate the founding of Boston Latin School, both the first public school and oldest existing school in the United States. As the town records of Boston report:
On the 13th of the second month, 1635…At a Generall meeting upon publique notice…it was…generally agreed upon that our brother Philemon Pormort shall be intreated to become scholemaster for the teaching and nourtering of children with us
Formally opened in April of that year, the school has produced four Harvard presidents, four Massachusetts governors, and five signers of the United States Declaration of Independence. Benjamin Franklin and Louis Farrakhan are among its better-known dropouts. Current students aver that Harvard College, founded a year later in 1636, was created for Boston Latin’s first graduates.
The internship of Dr. Seuss…
Readers will know that Theodor Seuss Geisel, AKA “Dr. Seuss,” worked in other forms than the books for which he was most famous– readers will remember his (in both senses of the word) fabulous The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, and pre-blog readers will recall his work as an editorial cartoonist during World War II.
But readers may be surprised, as your correspondent was, to learn that, two years before he published his first book, And To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street!, Dr. Seuss authored a comic strip:
Hejji, which ran for under a year in 1935, told the story of a traveler who found himself in the strange land of Baako, a mountaintop country that’s equal parts Tibet, the Middle East, and Whoville… Heijji’s adventures prefigure several of the good Dr.’s classics-to-come– and delight in their own right. Explore them further in Chris Sim’s lovely tribute at ComicsAlliance.
As we rethink our position on green eggs and ham, we might recall that it was on this date in 1978 that California voters approved Proposition 13, rolling back property taxes to 1975 levels and capping increases to a 2% inflation factor. Since then California public schools, which had been ranked among the nation’s best, have declined to 48th (in surveys of student achievement).
Teach your children well…
It’s that time again: pencils, books, teachers’ dirty looks… Lest one forget that at least some students actually learn what they’re taught, Foreign Policy presents a round-up of “The World’s Worst Textbooks.”
There’s…
Saudi Arabia
“Fill in the blanks with the appropriate words (Islam, hellfire): Every religion other than ______________ is false. Whoever dies outside of Islam enters ____________.” — from a first-grade textbook
And then, there’s…
Texas, U.S.A.
“Explain how Arab rejection of the State of Israel has led to ongoing conflict.” And “Evaluate efforts by global organizations to undermine U.S. sovereignty.” — from study exercises proposed by the Texas School Board (thus, the “markers” to which textbook publishers create).
More on each of these examples, and others, at “The World’s Worst Textbooks.”
As we reach for our Zinn’s, we might recall that it was on this date in 2001 that, in an address to a joint session of Congress and the American people, U.S. President George W. Bush declared a “war on terror.”
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