'To Kill a Mockingbird' Returns to Mississippi School's Reading List After Outcry

[Eugene]

Source: New York Times

‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Returns to Mississippi School’s Reading List After Outcry

By CHRISTINE HAUSER OCT. 27, 2017

A public school board in Mississippi said this week that it would give students the option of reading the classic novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” — but only with a parent’s permission — weeks after it removed the book from the required curriculum for eighth graders.

In a letter dated Oct. 23, Scott Powell, the junior high school principal in Biloxi, Miss., informed parents that students could study the book in classrooms again starting on Monday.

“As has been stated before, ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ is not a required read for 8th Grade ELA (English Language Arts) students,” Mr. Powell wrote, according to a report in The Sun Herald newspaper.

“However, 8th Grade ELA teachers will offer the opportunity for interested students to participate in an in-depth book study of the novel during regularly scheduled classes as well as the optional after school sessions,” Mr. Powell said.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/27/us/mockingbird-banned.html

[BigmanPigman]

1. I am glad I taught my

GATE (gifted and talented) 6th graders in a blue city in a blue state. I had a parent who complained to my principal that I was teaching "cult religions" in my class. It turns out she was referring to the state curriculum textbook for Ancient Cultures and there were a few paragraphs about Yin and Yang in the Ancient China chapter. I taught the same lesson from the same book to her other child the previous year and she had no problem with it at that time. It turns out that she was bi-polar, a born again Christian and her daughter ran away from home several times when her mother was "having an episode". Teachers have to put up with so much crap from administrators, school boards, parents, students, etc....we really need this on top of bare bones budgets and reduced staffs.

[bearsfootball516]

2. I can already see this playing out in the shacks of rural Mississippi

"Dad, you have to sign this permission slip so I can read "To kill a Mockingbird"

"What? I've hears all sorts of junk bout that devil book, whites and blacks being friends. You aint reading a word of it."

[NCjack]

3. Or, "Finally a book on hunting. Hand that slip here -- I'll sign that." nt

[hoping4betterdays]

4. Exposing Racism Scares Those Who Enjoy It

To Kill a Mockingbird may be the only schoolbook that exposes racism and it always needs to be in the curriculum. Our American history books already filled with lies about slavery on purpose to keep kids in the dark. The more our children know about racism the better they'll be able to end it. Nobody needs to be ignorant to our REAL history, America was Never Great for Everybody.