The classic literary novel To Kill a Mockingbird is being pulled from the Grade 10 English course at a Brampton [Ontario] high school after a parent complained about the use of a racial epithet in the book.Although I’d seen a couple of stage versions over the years and, of course, the 1962 movie, I didn’t get around to reading Harper Lee’s acclaimed novel until this year. It was worth the wait: To Kill a Mockingbird is a subtly stunning work of fiction. If you haven’t already read the book, add it to your must-read list. And if there’s a teenager in your life, perhaps you should buy another copy for him or her, if only to protest that idiotic St. Edmund Campion Secondary School parent who would ban a contemporary masterwork through their own lack of intellect and understanding.
Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, which challenges racial injustice in America’s Deep South, will be removed from curriculum at St. Edmund Campion Secondary School following a lone complaint from a parent whose child will be in Grade 10 this September.
READ MORE: “Mockingbird Debate Continues,” by Linda L. Richards (January Magazine).
8 comments:
Hear, hear.
What's worse than the moronic parent is the complete lack of spine on the part of the school. If any book is worth defending - and they ALL are - TKaM is surely at the top of the list.
The parent may be a moron but one would expect the school to understand the historical context.
Excellent points, as Uriah says, the parent[s] maybe under-educated, but WTF are the school nobs doing apart from wallowing in absurdity.
Ali
The ignorant promulgate ignorance. It's a shame. Yes, the school should have stood up
Ignorance, indeed. People like that are often wrong but never uncertain.
It is predictable that there will be idiotic parents. It is, sadly, more predictable that officials in school systems will give in to a single, moronic complaint. Absolutely indefensible; the responsible officials should be fired and sent off to find some line of work that doesn't require half a brain.
Thanks, Linda, for reminding me that we Canadians can be just as stupid, benighted, timorous, ill-informed and tin-eared as our American friends.
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