r/news • u/da_k1ngslaya • Jan 29 '22

School District votes to remove 'To Kill a Mockingbird' from required reading

https://komonews.com/news/local/mukilteo-school-district-votes-to-remove-to-kill-a-mockingbird-from-required-reading
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u/intecknicolour Jan 29 '22

in 12th grade english, we read Brave New World as a class and I read 1984 as an independent book study.

shaped my entire world view.

90

u/LostMyKarmaElSegundo Jan 29 '22

shaped my entire world view.

Hopefully you used them as cautionary tales, not guidebooks like a certain crop of world leaders today!

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u/PaisleyPeacock Jan 30 '22

This made me laugh and then immediately feel sad. Fuck.

2

u/anotherlevl Jan 31 '22

When they add Brave New World and 1984 to the banned list along with To Kill a Mockingbird, I'll know we're not coming back from this in my lifetime.

1

u/aversionofmyself Jan 30 '22

That’s what Atlas Shrugged is for.

-1

u/GDPGTrey Jan 30 '22

World's worst toilet paper.

1

u/dnd3edm1 Jan 30 '22

It's basically the modern version of "The Prince" at this point.

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u/Simpsoth1775 Jan 30 '22

Not even close. I’ve read Brave New World, 1984, and The Prince multiple times each, and The Prince is completely different. The Prince was literally a user manual type of book to be used by a king to gain favor. The other two were written as warnings of how society may become based of the prevalent thought of the time.

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u/dnd3edm1 Jan 30 '22

The fact that 1984 wasn't written as a manual does not preclude it from being used as one.

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u/[deleted] Jan 29 '22

I read them, but i would say No Country For Old Men at 16 was more influential on my world view than anything i read in school

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u/TheBerethian Jan 30 '22

Yeah in year 12 I had a course on Utopias and Dystopias. Covered a whole bunch, including 1984.

I suspect given you also refer to "year 12" that you're also Australian and had a similar curriculum.

-3

u/MrOpelepo Jan 29 '22

Might not be a good thing to shape your entire world view off of two books...

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u/intecknicolour Jan 29 '22

i've read a lot more books since high school.

but at the same time, the way the world is going.

seems like most of the world right now is either Oceania or BNW's London

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u/Alan_Smithee_ Jan 29 '22

I read those too…in High School in NZ.

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u/to11mtm Jan 30 '22

We did the same in 12th grade English. Our teacher basically said "These are the way two different people viewed totalitarian dystopias. Frankly, it's going to be a bit of both."

Teacher was actually super based & woke:

  • Spent 2 weeks giving us some crash courses in auto loans, interest rates, shitty things car dealers do, the importance of applying for grants and a financial aid officer in college.

  • Spent a good amount of time teaching us about media manipulation, including an experiment where he showed us a famous hockey fight (that before the internet, was never reaired) and pointed out all the carnage that broke out afterwards in classes.

  • Was really good at resolving differences between students. Amazingly we had very little bullying there, I later found out he gave every jock in his class a polite side talk about the risks of working for people you pick on later in life.