Sunday, July 6, 2008
Freedom Writers Dispute
When teachers try to make a difference and work hard to help students connect to literature, should districts have the right to censor them? What do you think? I for one, am outraged at the district leadership.
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Trying to get students interested in reading can be a complicated task. Forcing kids to read “the classics,” often coincides with a declining interest in reading. I can certainly understand the teacher’s methods when she selected the Freedom Writers Book. War and Peace is boring and kids don’t feel that it relates to their lives. Freedom Writers is hip and modern. They can find common ground with it. HOWEVER, a GOOD teacher can make almost anything enjoyable. The first time I read something by Shakespeare, I was confused and frustrated. Then my 9th grade English teacher read Romeo and Juliet to us and found ways to make it relevant to 14 year olds in the year 2000. We acted it out and drew comparisons to current TV characters. To this day, its one of my favorites!
ReplyDeleteI think anyone involved in education truly wants kids to have an unquenchable thirst for reading, but what are we willing to stoop to in order to achieve that goal? The discovery channel has some great programs for kids, but in order to get them to watch it should we first allow them to watch Cinemax? Everyone knows that teens are having sex and while we don’t approve, we at least want them to be safe. Should teachers be passing out condoms? These are sensitive issues and it is our right and our duty as Americans to question potentially out-dated principles. However, it is NOT our right to break the rules.
Teachers can play by the rules and still have fun. I think often times kids aren’t excited about reading because their teachers aren’t excited. This teacher should not have needed a racy novel to capture the kids’ attention. In Freedom Writers, the teacher uses a classic novel- Diary of Anne Frank- but she relates it to things the kids understand. She makes it interesting. She relates the hatefulness and genocide being perpetrated by modern day gangs to what the Nazi’s did in the book they were reading. The kids quickly realized that they had more in common with Anne Frank than they ever thought they could have with a white German girl. And it was because they had a GOOD teacher.
The teacher was told in advance that she could not use the book and did so anyway. I was certainly disappointed to see our public schools taking a censorship approach one would expect of communist China, but was more disappointed to hear that a teacher was willing to become a rogue agent. What does this teach the students? If you don’t like the rules, just break them anyway? Making waves can be good. No one wants education to be stagnant. But fighting the system shouldn’t be done at the children’s expense. Use the proper channels when advocating for children or you’ll end up doing more harm than good!
I hope people continue fighting for this book to be approved. But until then, I hope teachers can find fun ways to liven up the classroom with the currently approved materials. That’s just one girl’s opinion.
I can certainly see Cassandra's point on this issue but I don't think administrators and legislators should be able to determine the fate of this teacher's career based on this particular incident, whether she was in the wrong or not. She was trying, to the best of her ability, to engage her students and teach them something, anything, I expect. I can't imagine taking on such a difficult classroom and I feel the administrators should have handled this issue "behind closed doors" so to speak.
ReplyDeleteWhat has her students really learned from this incident? It is my opinion that now, they are probably more prone to ignore authority, for they must feel that their teacher has been overly punished, and I'm sure they don't view her choice as a mistake.