High School Principal Cancels Entire Reading Program To Stop Students From Reading Cory Doctorow's 'Little Brother'
from the you-want-to-learn-about-questioning-authority? dept
Welcome to the modern equivalent of a book burning. The principal of Booker T Washington High in Pensacola Florida has apparently cancelled the school’s “One School/One Book” summer reading program all in an effort to block students from reading Cory Doctorow’s (absolutely fantastic) book Little Brother. It appears he may be against the fact that one of the messages of the book is the importance of “questioning authority,” and has decided to show the school what true, obnoxious authoritarianism looks like.
Little Brother had been selected and approved as the school’s summer One School/One Book reading pick, and the school librarian Betsy Woolley had worked with Mary Kate Griffith from the English department to develop an excellent educational supplement for the students to use to launch their critical discussions in the fall. The whole project had been signed off on by the school administration and it was ready to go out to the students when the principal intervened and ordered them to change the title.
In an email conversation with Ms Griffith, the principal cited reviews that emphasized the book’s positive view of questioning authority, lauding “hacker culture”, and discussing sex and sexuality in passing. He mentioned that a parent had complained about profanity (there’s no profanity in the book, though there’s a reference to a swear word). In short, he made it clear that the book was being challenged because of its politics and its content.
Ultimately, the entire schoolwide One Book/One School program was cancelled.
In an attempt to… er… question that authority, Doctorow and his publisher, Tor, are sending 200 free copies of the book to the school. A school trying to ban books is almost always a stupid idea, but it seems particularly stupid in this day and age with this particular book. In the end, all it is likely to do is cause more people to actually read the book and to, you know, question authority.
Filed Under: booker t washington high school, challenging authority, cory doctorow, florida, little brother, one school one book, pensacola, reading, students
Companies: tor
Comments on “High School Principal Cancels Entire Reading Program To Stop Students From Reading Cory Doctorow's 'Little Brother'”
Don't these people remember...
What it was like to be a teenager?
The best way to get a teen to do something is to say “it’s not allowed”. They’re going to rebel over this.
Re: Don't these people remember...
Maybe the principal is more subversive than we realize. Any half wit knows that the best way to get a teenager to do something is to forbid it.
Re: Don't these people remember...
Exactly. I think they just guaranteed 100% readership from all the students.
Looks like a fun time for the principal next fall.
Maybe we’re not giving the guy enough credit, maybe instead of being an unintentional example of why people should question authority, it was meant as an intentional example of why people should question authority.
Maybe it was all carefully thought out and planned and- wait, ‘Highschool principal’…
Never mind.
Re: Re:
I like the idea that it’s sort of a modern day version of The Wave. Especially because it works whether it was intentional or not.
Depends on how you look at it. To those who love being in authority over others–questioning that authority is the most profane thing that one could do.
Don't Question Authority - Reject it.
End of Message 🙂
Wait...
So just to understand the logic…
Instead of asking the parents about the book, the principle takes it upon himself to act like the parent of all of these children and decide what was appropriate?
And this couldn’t have been solved by just asking the parents how they felt at the next PTA?
Re: Wait...
Actually, it isn’t even necessary to wait for the next PTA. I can state with a great deal of confidence that had the principal asked he would have discovered that some parents thought it was a good idea and others thought it was not.
Just taking a poll isn’t the way you resolve questions like this — you need principles. A principle principle for principals should be encouraging students to learn and think on their own.
Re: Re: Wait...
Why don’t they just offer 2-3 books of different types? Let the students choose and break them into groups when they come back?
Forcing everyone to read a single book always smells too much like propaganda to me (even if it’s propaganda that we might agree with).
Re: Wait...
You better be careful.
This is Florida after all. The principal is allowed to stand his ground.
Re: Re: Wait...
He’s a liberal, “stand your ground” is anathema.
Re: Wait...
In my school days (admittedly, far too long ago) when controversial reading was to be assigned, permission was obtained from the parents and those who didn’t get permission got an alternative reading assignment.
Re: Re: Wait...
” permission was obtained from the parents and those who didn’t get permission got an alternative reading assignment.”
One was offered. Here’s the wording from the ‘educational supplement link’, apparently this was not good enough for the fine Principal:
“Parents are invited to join the conversation by reading and discussing Little Brother with your students.
..
Parents are the ultimate authority in deciding appropriate material for their children, so parents requesting an alternative assignment should contact Mrs. Griffith”
Re: Re: Re: Gotta watch the fine-print
Parents are the ultimate authority in deciding appropriate material for their children, so parents requesting an alternative assignment should contact Mrs. Griffith”
Available choices parents have for ‘appropriate reading material’ for their children shall be made known after the Principle has determined what books are ‘acceptable’, with reading any ‘prohibited’ books to be strictly forbidden.
Re: Re: Re: Wait...
You would make the parents have to read something? That isn’t a magazine?
Hahaha, don’t you know nobody reads anymore after college?
Re: Re: Re:2 Wait...
People are reading as much after college as ever. By some studies, even more — and that’s actually quite a lot. Despite the stereotype, we actually do a lot of serious reading.
Re: Re: Wait...
“when controversial reading was to be assigned”
There is no such thing. Kids should read EVERYTHING: Homer and Aristophanes, Shakespeare and Jong, Asimov and Hunter S. Thompson, Sagan and Gould, Sun Tzu and Doyle, Faulkner and Rowling, Einstein and Thurber. The great, the minimal, the profound, the romantic, the tragic, the inspiring, the profane, the funny, all of it, as much as they can, as often as they can, whenever they can.
“Controversial reading” is the recent construct of uneducated, fearful people seeking to incite moral panics to suit their own political/social/economics/religious ends. (I find it instructive to note how many those behind these charades have no objection to children reading the major religious work of the western world: the bible. Yet it contains rape, murder, torture, sodomy, racial cleansing, bigotry, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, genocide, war crimes, pedophilia, etc., etc., etc.)
The burning of an author’s books, imprisonment for opinion’s sake, has always been the tribute that an ignorant age pays to the genius of its time. — Joseph Lewis
Dort, wo man Bucher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen. (Where they burn books, they will in the end also burn people.) — Heinrich Heine
When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, “This you may not read, this you may not see, this you are forbidden to know,” the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. —Robert Heinlein
Lock up your libraries if you like, but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind. —Virginia Woolf
Re: Re: Re: Wait...
“Controversial reading” is very far from a new concept. It’s been literally around since my grandmother was in elementary school. “Controversial” means that it’s reading that some parents might object to (usually, very strict religious parents). That it shouldn’t be controversial doesn’t mean it’s not.
“Kids should read EVERYTHING”
I agree completely, but the school system also has to serve families who don’t agree with that. However, I would not that when I was of that age, all but one or two kids would get the required parental permission, so most parents also agreed with us.
Still, I don’t really see a problem with providing an opt-out for those few parents who want to restrict what their children are exposed to. Better that than being unable to serve those kids at all.
Re: Re: Re:2 Wait...
the school system also has to serve families who don’t agree with that
So send permission slips home.
Boom, problem solved.
I don’t think of school systems as substitute parents. Why would we ever teach our kids to think that way?
Re: Re: Re:3 Wait...
Problem with the permission slip? How would it be worded? In the principal’s voice, or a proponent’s? The way this book could sway a reader, so too the permission slip.
Re: Re: Re:4 Wait...
heaven forbid the parents actually use Google to look at reviews and awards or… gasp READ THE BOOK THEMSELVES to make the most informed decision.
Sometimes being a parent means having to actually do stuff yourself rather than expect everyone else to solve it for you.
Imagine if the parent had read the book, approved the kid reading it… they could have a conversation about it, the topics, the themes, etc…
Re: Re: Re:2 Wait...
Teach the Controversy.
Re: Re: Re:3 Wait...
EXACTLY! Present BOTH sides to the controversy. USE the book to educate EVERYONE, students, parents, teachers about the controversy. The book is far less controversial than the subject matter it covers.
I’ll never understand the human propensity for self-delusion. Instead of fixing the errant social construct about which this book was written, let’s just ban the book and put our heads in the sand and pretend that none of this is happening. And people wonder how society degrades.
Re: Re: Re:3 Wait...
Matey, I give thee my word of honor that “Teaching the Controversy” is just heathen palaver for “not teaching a Damned Thing”. I’ve just witnessed a middle school student “study the controversy” about the US Civil War and evolution. The ship of education be founderin, shipmate, on these topics! Not a bad word was read about the infernal evil of slavery, or Satan’s own anti-factual “Intelligent Design”. Those freshwater swab teachers just avoided the topic altogether.
PS
I bought a copy of “Little Brother” years ago so I could give it to my kid. When he turned 11 I had him read it. He loved it. I read it. I would be calling that principal to get an appointment to discuss the book with him. I really wish my kids went to a school were stupidity like this exhibited itself so I’d have a chance to go to an office and chew up some scenery. It wouldn’t do any good, but I would be able to use all my best lines on some officious dope.
Re: Re: Re:4 Wait...
“Matey, I give thee my word of honor that “Teaching the Controversy” is just heathen palaver for “not teaching a Damned Thing”.”
This is spot on. “Teaching the controversy” is an expression designed to let everyone weasel out of actually teaching.
Re: Re: Re: Wait...
“There is no such thing.”
By definition, there most certainly is such a thing, but you’re absolutely right that kids should never be prevented from reading controversial material.
Re: Re: Re: Wait...
Yes, yes, yes, but they don’t have to read it all this summer.
“”Controversial reading” is the recent construct of uneducated, fearful people”
Define “recent”. The destruction of texts has been going on throughout history. The printed bible was originally kept under lock and key so that the peasantry wouldn’t be able to read it (even those who could read). And those who kept it so (locked away) were not at all uneducated and knew from their own studies the risks to power of uncontrolled access to ideas and works of the mind.
Re: Re: Re: Wait...
“Controversial reading” is a convenient buzz phrase for censorship because someone with an IQ less than a rock’s got offend. Questioning authority is based on the premise that essentially there are two groups of people in authority: those who hold it by position and those whe hold it by merit. Those by position are scared of questioning because they did not earn their position. The few who earned their authority by merit are usually less threatened by questioning because they have genuine credibility. Note being elected to a political office gives one positional authority not earned authority.
Re: Re: Re: False dichotomy
I understand where you’re coming from, but as a parent, I feel that I messed up once or twice when I recommended a book which, in retrospect, my child wasn’t emotionally developed enough to appreciate (or possibly, even, just absorb it without negative psychological effects).
I get the “we overprotect our children” bit, but your post throws up a false dichotomy. Do you actually believe that all children of all ages are capable of absorbing any or all experiences without negative effects?
Re: Re: Wait...
But, as far as I know, Doctorow’s Little Brother wasn’t actually controversial, until this principal went and banned it.
Re: Re: Wait...
If you follow the link to the summer reading guide, you’ll see parents were indeed given the option to request an alternative reading assignment. So the option was available. No reason to cancel it for everyone when it appears as if appropriate measures were taken.
Re: Re: Re: Wait...
The principal certainly found it controversial.
Re: Wait...
He’s not concerned with what the parents think. He doesn’t want the kids getting it in their heads that they should question HIS authority.
People like this, man.
How does a person in the 21st Century not realize that a decision such as this one will make them a target for national outrage? How does a person who likely has access to newspapers, television, and the Internet not realize how much of a censorious jackass a decision like this will make them look?
Regardless of the quality, few people like hearing about attempts to stifle access to (or discussion of) content ? especially books. That way lies madness and a harm upon society that no sane person would dare bring upon his fellow man.
In one act, this principal tossed away their integrity and their principles as an educator because they disagreed with one book?s politics. I don?t see how any rational person would ever trust him to educate a child ? or oversee the education of children ? ever again.
Re: Re:
In one act, this principal tossed away their integrity and their principles as an educator because they disagreed with one book?s politics
In order to toss something away, you first have to have it.
A worse way of putting this is that this act can be viewed as a demostration of long-held values and priorities. Some aspects of this may (or may not– you never know) be a surprise to the parents and school board.
Re: Re:
I suspect it is like third world dictators giving speeches full of obvious lies. Put up appearances that you know looks absolutely ridiculous to the outside world for the sake of generating internal propaganda.
Re: Re:
How does a person in the 21st Century not realize that a decision such as this one will make them a target for national outrage?
Easy: because he knows the “outrage” will blow over with the start of the next news cycle. Oh, sure, there will be some people in his town that will get upset, but the rest of the country will move on to the next “outrage” over a kid with a Pop Tart shaped like a gun.
Who cares about that principal not allowing books when we have a dangerous student roaming the hallways with loaded Pop Tarts. I hope the kid doesn’t make things worse by pointing his fingers at people! Has the SWAT team been called out yet?
Wait, what were we talking about again?
So is this guy Old Guard or...
Exactly how old is this principal? Regardless the answer, who’s willing to bet said principal is in bed with the NSA or CIA?
Well, now they’ve done it. If Tor and Doctorow are going to send 200 copies to the school the principal is going to have to actually burn those copies. Although, maybe shredding is the modern way, so as to avoid air pollution and an increased carbon footprint. A principal’s job is to avoid controversy at all costs, including sacrificing education. So, the principal will be forced to do this in secret. I suggest Tor publish special copies with an asbestos cover. They can use the same type of cover used for a special edition of Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451”. The publisher claimed the asbestos based material for that cover was safe to handle but it does preclude burning or shredding which would render the material hazardous.
(The) Fantastic(ks)!
Why did the kid put beans in his ears?
Why WOULD a kid put BEANS in his ears?
After a while, the reason appears.
He did it ‘cuz you said, “no.”
As many here have observed, this is not a new idea.
My comment practically writes itself!
Suddenly, I have an uncontrollable desire to read this book.
Mighty oafs from little icons grow.
Way to go there guy!
Now I’m certain the students will want to read it – nothing sparks curiosity like prohibition and censorship.
If anyone here wants to read the book, it’s available to download for free from Cory Doctorow’s website.
“In an email conversation with Ms Griffith, the principal cited reviews ..”
So he didn’t want to pollute his purity by actually, actually READING the book?
There’s really no more to say. Except that I just skimmed it and I recommend he read it for himself, he will indeed see that his worst nightmares about it are justified, and now he’s lost control of letting kids discuss it in class and have teacher input. Foot-bullet.
and people still dont think there is anything wrong with what is happening in the USA today? i think the rose colored glasses need to ccome off and damn quick too!
A Clergymans?s Daughter
In Orwell’s A Clergymans?s Daughter Macbeth, Act V, scene VIII the ‘womb’ word is used, enough to make a parent write the following letter:
To my mind it?s a disgrace that schoolbooks can be printed with such words in them. I?m sure if any of us had ever known that Shakespeare was that kind of stuff, we?d have put our foot down at the start. It surprises me, I must say. Only the other morning I was reading a piece in my News Chronicle about Shakespeare being the father of English Literature; well, if that?s Literature, let?s have a bit LESS Literature, say I!
(Taken from: A Clergymans?s Daughter (George Orwell))
Always question authority, Because, those in authority are every bit as corruptible as I am.
But the tea party says living on the street, being poisoned by profitable companies and driving defective cars is in my best interest, how such wise men be wrong, just look at the huge number of supporters they have.
Banning a book is the best recommendation to read a book ever. Amy chance this was a trick to get kids to read the book?
Book banning in a positive light
In a sense modern book banning is positive. It highlights the idiots for you while providing massive free advertising to generally excellent books. So kudos to the morons I guess?
Banning Little Brother
Unbelievable, but sadly unsurprising. Some similar garbage is in process in the UK – an attempt to ban non-British novels.
http://tinyurl.com/mhu8rrv
Re: Banning Little Brother
There really isn’t. It does your argument a disservice to come onto a thread about access to information and the importance of reading only to spread misinformation. The syllabus for some exams in England is being reformed so that kids have to read a twentieth-century British work (alongside a lot of other stuff) but nobody is ‘banning’ anything.
If you’re going to take the moral high ground about other people, you’d better make sure you’re standing on firm moral foundations yourself. If you don’t let facts get in the way of a good self-righteous rant, you’ve lost the plot somewhere along the way.
There’s enough real rubbish going on in the world without making up more. I think you need to read more because you’re clearly still too trusting of your own chosen sources of authority.
Check out the school's summer reading list
This summer reading list, courtesy of the school’s website, has made me hopeful that this was a well-planned attempt to get the kids to participate. This list includes some of the most challenged or banned books of all time, including Fahrenheit 451 and The Absolutely True Diary of a part-Time Indian. The books on the list are required reading, whereas the One Book/One Summer was optional. Doctorow’s book that started this all is actually on the required summer reading list for one of the grade levels.
Check out the school's summer reading list
This summer reading list, courtesy of the school’s website, has made me hopeful that this was a well-planned attempt to get the kids to participate. This list includes some of the most challenged or banned books of all time, including Fahrenheit 451 and The Absolutely True Diary of a part-Time Indian. The books on the list are required reading, whereas the One Book/One Summer was optional. Doctorow’s book that started this all is actually on the required summer reading list for one of the grade levels.
LIST: http://www.btwash.org/summer%20reading%20list%202014.pdf
Given that Little Brother is CC licensed, there’s hope for plenty of Streisand…
When I was a kid...
‘Civil Disobedience’ and ‘1984’ were required reading in school. They were ostensibly raising citizens back then, although it must be admitted that if you backsassed a teacher with a quote from Orwell or Thoreau, it was off to the Vice Principle with you. Seriously, it wasn’t that long ago. Maybe they didn’t really want us to question authority, but they sure paid lots of lip service to those historical figures who did, and we got to read their books.
I think public education has always been about indoctrinating drones, it’s just that now they are making no pretense otherwise.
Take a look at world literature:
Peruse the Old French Fablieux or, say, read “The Miller’s Tale” in the Middle English “Canterbury Tales” by Geoffrey Chaucer. I have to admit to not having read the genre-similar Decameron by Boccaccio, but I suspect that it contains a similar mixture of the profane and learned in a well-chosen spectrum.
Or the Old French “Roman de la Rose” in its culmination by Jean de Meun combining the learned allegories with the crude.
Doctorow is probably weak sauce in comparison to those…
Wait...
If we can get the same dimwit to ban math, chemistry, physics, and healthy eating maybe there would be some hope for those poor kids. And still, where are the teachers on this? Why haven’t they strung this guy up yet?
the book.
well guess what every student will read now after forbidding it.
I allways think that prizipals are smart^^. but obiously not this one.
great reading kids get wize and beat this crazy system.
Well – it is Florida, where reading comprehension is optional.
Why waste all that public money on teaching children how to read when it could be better spent buying some politicians new mansions, yachts and fancy cars? I mean really – where are your priorities people ?????
Book-banning principal
Why is this person anywhere near a position of authority in a school? Has no idea what an education is. Could serve as the prime “bad example” though – a character right out of Dickens (a book he probably would like to ban, if he ever read it.)
Re: Book-banning principal
You answered you own question, he was promoted to get him away from kids, and to minimize his opportunities to stop their educuation.
Re: Re: Book-banning principal
Damn it, why can’t the higher-ups just get fired like everyone else?
That just sold another copy of that book.
Banning books
It was short, but direct & to the point. Well said.
Florida.
What happenned next?
Following the links from this article indicates that this incident occurred five years ago. Was there a follow up story?
Re: What happenned next?
None of the links I visited indicate this is old… Which one has you thinking it happened 5 years ago?
Re: Re: What happenned next?
@Mandolin Bee
I apologize for my poor reading skills. I misread this:
http://craphound.com/summerreadingbrochurefinal12.pdf
“Parents are invited to join the conversation by reading and
discussing Little Brother with your students.
“Little Brother was a Florida Teens Read nominee for 2009-2010 and has been categorized as young adult fiction.”
However it now appears that “Little Brother” is on the 11th grade reading list rather than the whole school. (does that mean 15-16 year olds?)
http://whs-ecsd-fl.schoolloop.com/file/1289140567980/1376459413970/4278655134204228924.pdf page #2.
—
vagabondo
Praise god...
…problem solved!
Clever Marketing Scheme
Maybe he made a deal with Doctorow: ‘I will ban your book at my school. When this news goes viral, sales of your book will skyrocket worldwide, and you pay me a modest percentage of your spike in royalties from these sales.”
For the guy who leaps and bounds to the conclusion that this principal must be a Christian, like all those rednecks down south, that it’s Christians who want to ban books, that no one stops kids from reading the bible, here’s this story which also recently happened in Florida: http://www.dcclothesline.com/2014/05/07/florida-public-school-bans-student-reading-bible/ . In fact I see stories like this one at least as often as I’ve seen the ones about schools banning ‘Huckleberry Finn’ or ‘Brave New World’.
You don’t have to be religious to be a control freak. I think tyranny of the mind is pretty evenly represented among all types of people. One difference though, is that if you don’t send your kid to church, or he refuses to go, nobody gives a shit. If you don’t send him to school, however, the law can take him away from you if deemed necessary to ensure that little fucker’s regular attendance at the child indoctrination center.
Another difference is that no kid ever shot up his church, but lots of kids have shot up their schools.
Freedom of mind
Lock up your libraries if you like, but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind. —Virginia Woolf
She has obviously never been forceably administered Thorazine, Stellazine, and/or Haldol.
Re: Freedom of mind
Unless it was forcibly administered by a time traveler she couldn’t have been. Even the typical (first generation very side effect heavy) antipsychotics didn’t come about until the 1950s. Given that she ended up committing suicide by throwing herself into the river loaded with rocks during the very early 1940s proper (which one could argue didn’t exist then) psychiatric treatment would have been the better option by that point.
My hero!
Cory Doctorow is a hero (and internet friend) of mine. Give them another kick up the backside Cory! 🙂
-Spiff (aka Rubberman)
What the …… Since when are we censoring and closing a summer reading program because one individual felt it went against authority is anyone questioning the motives and philosophies of this Principal?????? Questioning authority….censoring the freedom and rights of students….
INCORRECT UNSUBSTANTIATED INFORMATION
This book is still on the summer reading list and NO the summer reading program was not cancelled. Where do these people get their information???
BTWash Parent