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Teacher Suspended For Reading Ender's Game To Students
An anonymous reader writes "Forbes reports that a middle school teacher in South Carolina has been placed on administrative leave for reading sci-fi classic Ender's Game to his students. According to blogger Tod Kelly, '[A parent] reported him to the school district complained that the book was pornographic; that same parent also asked the local police to file criminal charges against the teacher. As of today, the police have not yet decided whether or not to file charges (which is probably a good sign that they won't). The school district, however, appears to agree with the parent, is considering firing the teacher and will be eliminating the book from the school.'"
Well there was that scene where Ender shows up at Petra's dorm wearing a sleeveless jean jacket with a utility belt and says that he heard the cable was broken ... or wait, am I confusing Ender's Game with Logjammin'? I mean, clearly, they're basically the same thing.
My work here is dung.
We need to find something to do for these people who just sit at home waiting for things to get outraged at (a.k.a. the “volleyball is exclusionary and tag promotes violence” types).
Some probably poses at least basic intelligence and education. Surely there is some way they can be made a useful part of our society. I think if they had something productive to focus on, we wouldn’t hear about stupid shit like this as often.
On a more serious note, I get that some people get off on being outraged/protesting/fighting something. We all know people like this. In a lot of cases they aren’t even really into the cause, they just like being behind something. When they have kids, it’s like a whole new world of stuff to complain about is opened up.
I’m sure this isn’t the first time the school has heard from her (ok, I’m gonna be sexist.. but this _has_ to be the Mother (Mother with a capital "M".. you know the type..)). You don’t go from 0 to this. I just wish these people would think about everyone else they hurt when they indulge their need to whine and at least try to put that energy into something more helpful to the world.
I'm drawing a blank here but about the only thing I can think of that would qualify as close to pornography is the part where Ender beats the shit out of that bully and the book talks about how his medical sheet reads "bruised testicle." Which, if two adolescent boys bruising up each other's private parts arouses you in anyway, you are probably the one that needs help.
... wait, that's already far more reading and research than this individual is capable of.
The other possibility is that the book is too descriptive in some parts (maybe when Ender burrows into the giant's eye in the simulation?). And they're in ye olde Southern Cackalacky where the definition of pornography is just anything that gets too descriptive for their comfort. So, you know, like anything that's written well.
Or perhaps one of the parents caught wind that Orson Scott Card is Mormon and different and therefore evil. And then they looked up the White Horse Prophecy and put
My work here is dung.
The school district reports that the letters E, I, N, P, and S have been removed from the school curriculum after a parent complained her son was being exposed to gateway pornography.
Now we just need to find some really cheap labor.
Think of the children!
People who try to ban things "because someone might be offended" are themselves the problem. And it is a wide-spread and serious one.
I only hope we can get over this state of permanent panic before it kills us.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
There was some violence in that book, yes. But was there anything sexually graphic? I can't think of anything. I don't even think there was an profanity. Can anyone think of anything that even comes close to being pornographic?
We read Candide. That's gotta be way more "pornographic" than Ender's Game. What is this country coming to?
Between Santorum, Limbaugh and the rest of those jokers bible thumping their way into our bedrooms but refusing to even tax one cent of a rich person's income (because that's government intrusion), this country is really and truly fucked.
We're going to be like Argentina, and the shooting in Florida is proving that there are now only gated communities and trailer parks -- and if you're the wrong color in a gated community, you are a target.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
I think this is one of those things for which there is a simple solution, find name of parent, all Ender's fans call parent and explain what a complete and colossal idiot they are. Problem solved. News report of parent explaining how their phone didn't stop ringing for several months convinces all future such parents to just keep their opinions to themselves.
"Pornography" is supposed to be judged by the standards of the "community", I think its time or the community to judge the standards of those who wish to judge the community.
-jon
Hansel and Gretel shove a little old lady into on oven and broil her, and that's been broadly accepted as children's fare for two hundred years. A little justifiable homicide shouldn't be a big issue all of a sudden.
No relation to Happy Monkey
No wonder the educational system is going to shit since any parent can bully teachers. Seriously, if you're so annoyed about the teacher asking your kid to read any specific book then ask the teacher for an acceptable replacement (for your kid only of course). Or take your kid somewhere else. Or accept an F for that specific assignment.
I wish principals grew a spine and supported their teachers on this kind of stuff.
Bet this kid is popular.
He's 14 and running home to mommy because a book had naughty words in it..
I can see a parent running across the book and going full on "I'M A MOTHER, AND AS A MOTHER I FEEL.." mode while the kid stands there horribly embarrassed .. but for the kid to be the one who started it all... kid must be living in a bubble.
The bully was already dead when kicked. He hit his head accidentally on a knob.
Time to read the book again :)
At any rate, firing the teacher would be more than sufficient if the school decides it was a major no-no.. criminal charges is beyond ridiculous.
Firing the teacher would be absurd, criminal charges would be truly insane. The former only seems in any way legitimate because of the total insanity of the latter - not for one second does a teacher deserve to lose their job for reading a perfectly innocuous (and pretty damn good, IMO) scifi novel to a class of 14 year olds.
if this, then Shakespeare has got to go as well.
Not to mention several books from The Old Testament.
Idiots...
Check out some of the comments on the source article. There are claims he was not really reading Ender's Game, and that the school is covering it up.
I know more than you drink.
Not too long ago, we had a similar issue here when a local religious fanatic (who home schools his children, BTW) demanded the local high school ban, among others, Kurt Vonnegut's classic Slaugherhouse V, claiming it too was pornographic in nature.
The school ended up bowing to the holier-than-thou asshole and banned the book; however, doing so had the unexpected side effect of Slaughterhouse V becoming the most read book in the city of Republic. The Vonnegut Library even donated several hundred copies of the book to the local library, all of which were swiftly checked out.
Experience tells me Ender's Game is about to become the most read book in Shofield, SC.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Card is certainly unsavory, but I am curious why you think it shouldn't be promoted as a young adult book. Many of those books involve violence, often without consequences (e.g The Lottery short story). I personally think that scene makes a great discussion point; people should understand why Ender wasn't punished, and that could frame an interesting ethical discussion. I think the target audience for Ender's Game is old enough that they can understand that not everything that happens (in a book or reality) is just.
If your theory is different from practice, then your theory is wrong.
Read an artice about this here http://geeks.thedailywh.at/2012/03/15/geek-news-classroom-controversy-of-the-day/, and it said there was three books that were read and the Enders Game was the only one that was known that the teacher read. So it's possible that something inappropriate was read to the children if that story wasn't off.
I remember reading "Lord of the Flies" as a school assignment, as well as "The Jungle", and "Jude the Obscure".
If those aren't banned yet, then I don't see why they would bother with such a tame offering as "Ender's Game".
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Ender is a school child who kicks another school child to death in the school bathroom. Nobody has any question that it's happened, but not much seems to happen to Ender because of it.
Because of this particular scene in the book, I've always felt that it should not have been promoted as a children's book. I have also felt that Orson Scott Card is, IMO, unsavory for cooperating in promoting it as a children's book.
Spoiler alert: it's a pattern that foreshadows what happens at the end of the book. He lashes out in self defense against threats to his survival (or perceived threats) and immediately regrets it. It's not his fault that he kills. It is the fault of those who manipulate him and his peers so that these life-or-death conflicts keep occurring, without outside intervention.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
It is. Here's what a Pastor said while introducing Rick Santorum two days ago:
So there you have it. Santorum didn't object at the time, either.
The original story reported it a bit differently:
"According to the incident report, a teacher had been reading pornographic material from the Internet to the students in class. One of the stories was about prostitutes having their faces covered with ejaculation."
---
Unless this is the writer's cut that my library didn't stock - this wasn't enders game they were reading.
Wasn't that your plan all along ???
Other banned books from the past:
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
American Heritage Dictionary
Catcher in the Rye
Fahrenheit 451
From Here to Eternity
The Grapes of Wrath
With the exception of the dictionary, all are timeless works of great art. What wikipedia says about Ender's game:
Reception to the book has generally been positive, though some critics have denounced Card's perceived justification of his characters' violent actions.[3][4] It has also become suggested reading for many military organizations, including the United States Marine Corps.[5] Ender's Game won the 1985 Nebula Award for best novel[6] and the 1986 Hugo Award for best novel.
Hey, why did <blockquote></blockquote> stop working?
At any rate, the teacher should be reinstated and the damned administrators should be fired. TFA is still loading and I missed this book (looks like a great one I need to read, too, trip to the library this Saturday). What's supposed to be pornographic about it?
As to the complaining parent, maybe the bitch should just stick to Dr Suess? Oh, she'll probably think Cat in the Hat is porno, too.
No matter how good something is, someone is going to say it's utter shit.
Free Martian Whores!
Tricky moral situations are essential for children's reading. Feeding children sanitized narratives only primes them to accept the sanitizied narratives that are fed to us by government and media. Expose children to grey moral areas early, and they will be better equipped to handle grey moral areas in life.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
How ignorant.. Thinking there are political sides in America.
PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
How ignorant.. Not one mention of political side and you just jump right on the bandwagon.
Yes, how could anyone conclude that an American complaining about perceived eroticism in a book would be a conservative?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
If you burn all the books, in a few decades ALL labour in the US will be AWESOMELY cheap!
Your circumstances are perfect for getting involved politically.
Start locally. Have you written a PAPER letter to your Congress critters yet? To your governor? To your state legislature?
If not, why not?
Have you volunteered for a political candidate?
Congratulations slave, you have proven the Conservatives right, they believed that making the working class home owners would turn them into good reliable little workers unwilling to risk the house they can't afford with silly things such as looking for a new job, or even thinking about striking.
Why bother with capturing slaves when the feeble just whip themselves?
Mind you, you wouldn't be so bad, if the bleeding hearts wouldn't feel sorry you if you get slaughtered in the revolution. But somehow, your kind then suddenly turns into "innocent" citizens and not supporters of the regime.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Ok, so basically there's three Gods, and they're all God. And each one is also God. Jesus is God, Jesus's Father, God, is also God. Oh and there's the Holy Spirit - that's God too.
At least that's what it says in the bible. It makes no sense, but the bible is Truth (tm) so Christians spend an inordinate amount of trying to understand how Jesus went back in time and became his own father.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I think I see where you're going with this... You, my friend, are a job creator!
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
Why not, where do you think this is coming from? Read this:
Mind you, I have nothing against abstaining from pornography or preaching against it, but this is something else. And don't say Santorum speaks only for himself, the point here is how many votes he is getting.
At any rate, the teacher should be reinstated and the damned administrators should be fired.
Naw, I'm pretty sure it went like this:
.... um.... (quickly googles ender's game pornographic) .... See! It's right there, at the top of google! Ender's Game is pornographic! .... by the way, are you voting for Santorum? Google "Santorum" and let's see what comes up....
Parent: This book is pornographic and the teacher is reading it to my 14 yr old!
Superintendent: Ender's Game? (thinking: I haven't read that) What parts are pornographic? (read: take quotes out of context and make them sound bad)
Parent: (thinking: shit! I haven't read it either! I just hate that teacher!)
Superintendent: OH! Well! That changes everything! I will definitely fire that teacher!
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Not such a bad idea. Can you imagine how effective a 5 year old could be at cable runs at data centers and in office building ceilings? All it would cost me is some Snackables and a visit to Chuck E Cheese later.
But this time the original article was flawed too, and it ahs subsequently been updated (although I'm sure 95% of /. readers will never know that). Supposedly the teacher read stuff off the internet to the class that was "pornographic" and Card himself has said he heard what was read and it WAS inappropriate for kids (and he maintained that his book is perfectly OK for 14 years olds).
Problem is that second fact of yours isn't one. This issue isn't one where the behavior is the same on both sides of the aisle.
I'm a librarian, and I've been on the other end of a few attempts at book bans, and have probably heard more about them than most non-librarians. I have never seen nor heard an account of an "overly liberal parent" who objects to "books that they consider too racist or insensitive" to the point that --and this is an important distinction-- said person demands to have a book removed from a collection and made unavailable to students/people/kids.
I've never seen this behavior, I've never heard of it, and your own links don't provide even any anecdotal references to it. Your second link does describe how many liberals will often stock their libraries with books that support their own worldview, and how they will push to have these books included on school reading lists. That might be true enough, but it is absolutely inaccurate to equate this with book banning/censorship, as the article does. Sure, it is advocating one's own world view. However showing preference to certain books is very, very different from removing access to certain books. Only one of these things is censorship.
Book banning is censorship, and it is a typical (and a stereotypical) conservative solution, not a liberal one.
More importantly. God promises he won't destroy it "with water, but will do so with fire" (which is what revelations then details... but contrary to the good congresscritter, it only speaks about what God will do. It never says "you will not destroy yourselves."
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *