Politician Wants Sci-fi To Be Mandatory In School

Avantare writes "The first sci-fi novel I read was A Wrinkle in Time; the next was Dune. Why don't more people read these extraordinarily imaginative books? Delegate Ray Canterbury, who represents Greenbrier County in southern WV, wants to help with that. Canterbury introduced House Bill 2983, which reads, 'To stimulate interest in math and science among students in the public schools of this state, the State Board of Education shall prescribe minimum standards by which samples of grade-appropriate science fiction literature are integrated into the curriculum of existing reading, literature or other required courses for middle school and high school students.' For decades, walking around with a paperback sci-fi novel in your back pocket at school was the quickest way to find yourself permanently excluded from the cool-kid clique. But what if it wasn't just the geeks who read Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke? What if science fiction was mandatory reading for all students?"

Comments

Re:Congress can Butt Out.

[Anonymous Coward]

"professional educators" are the main problem. Yes, they got the degree. Yes, they get paid to teach. But in my experience only about 1 in 10 teachers is any good at teaching, let alone any kind of creativity in lesson planning. The problem is most of them are drones who unquestionably follow the teachers' union...but hey I guess if I had a giant group that made it so I could endlessly fuck up and not get fired I'd probably do whatever they said also.

Re:Congress can Butt Out.

[angel'o'sphere]

Well, strictly speaking it was a war of northern aggression.
The south seceeded, which was their constitution or union contract given right as far as I understand .
The north did not accept this and started the war on the south. (Hint: the "reason" of freeing slaves was invented in the third year of the war roughly when there was a stallmate and the north could not get enough recruits, slavery never was the reason for this war, or abolishing slavery)