When I was in high school, the bane of my summertime existence was the day that the reading lists arrived. I took accelerated English (freshman and sophomore years) and Advanced Placement English (junior and senior years), so summer reading assignments were a sad, inevitable occurrence that I just had to suck up and bear. Kind of like periods.
Junior year was the year that our reading lists exploded, expanding from 2 or 3 books to around 7 or 8. I love to read, I've made that clear before, but there's something about homework over summer vacation that made every indignant bone in my body stand up and say "Hey! No fair! I want to sleep until noon and then watch a movie and then go over to my friend's house and smoke some pot and eat inordinate amounts of Taco Bell!" Healthy, I know.
The summer reading lists were also a big pain in the ass because you never knew which books you were going to study first once school started. What's the point of reading a book in July if you're not even going to get to it in class until after mid-terms when you're just going to have to read it again because you'll have forgotten everything by that point? What was that thing I was saying about no fair?
Now that I live in California, I keep tabs on what's going on in my hometown by checking out Indystar.com every morning, the website for the Indianapolis Star newspaper. When I looked at it this morning, a headline caught my attention: "District pulls book out of students hands." Ignoring the lack of punctuation (copy editors, where?) in the title I clicked in to the story because I was kind of intrigued: was it a specific student that forcibly had a book pulled out of its hands? Was the district being a big bully and knocking books out of nerdy kids' hands in the hallway like in movies and TV shows? Or were they being a big douche and telling students that they couldn't read a certain book? DING DING DING WE HAVE A WINNER.
My alma mater is censoring Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison from junior AP English class.
People, people, people. Song of Solomon was on our reading list when I took junior AP English, oh, let's see, nine years ago. I THINK I TURNED OUT OK. I don't smoke pot anymore. Apparently some parent got mad that the book has (oh no!) sex and (eek!) violence and (oh, Lawdy, save us!) profanity. Profanity?!?!?!?! WHATEVER SHALL WE DO NOW? Our sad little Puritanical hearts and minds just can't take it!
I'm sure the parent in question has no problem with his/her son or daughter having their own TV and computer with an internet connection in his/her bedroom. Or unlimited text messaging on their cell phone. Guess what, Mom and Dad? Your kid knows what sex is, is probably already doing it, and I dare you to check their text messages because you know what? YOUR KID IS SEXTING.
This is just totally unbelievable to me. What's even more incredible is that this book has been on the reading list for that class for over 12 years (my sister read it when she took that class two years before me), and only now some parent complains. It's nice to see this regression of open-mindedness after over a decade of that book being taught with no problems. Oh wait, it's not nice, it's hugely and thoroughly disappointing and disgusting. If I recall correctly, we read A Catcher in the Rye in the same class. WANT TO JUMP ON THE BANDWAGON AND BAN THAT ONE TOO?
What makes me even madder is that I owe so much to that AP English class. Because of that class, and others like it, I was able to complete my bachelor's degree in three years instead of four, saving me I don't even know how many thousands of dollars in student loans. I went into college as a sophomore because I had earned so much college credit from those classes. And I got a 5 on that particular AP test, as did a ton of my classmates, because the woman that taught that class, the woman that still teaches that class, was no-nonsense awesome and new how to teach students about literature. I know for a fact that she's not in that classroom sensationalizing sex and violence in a book; she's in there giving those students an education and showing how it illustrates a story of racism and struggle and heartbreak.
I think these parents should be more worried about when their kids get to senior AP English and get that one teacher who only thinks about sex all day every day and relates every single sentence ever written in every work of literature to sex. Why is the knight green in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight? BECAUSE IT SYMBOLIZES SEX. What was Chaucer talking about in this part of The Canterbury Tales? SEX. Why is the author of this short story talking about the moon? BECAUSE HE'S HORNY AND WANTS LOTS OF SEX.
Protect your kids from that, you pervert. Oh, and by the way, parents? Ever hear of a library? Your kid can still read that book whenever he or she wants.
