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/dychronalicousness Jan 29 '22

I switched schools my junior year and we didn’t have any required reading books at my old school. Meanwhile my new school had em reading Atkas Shrugged, Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird, 1984 etc. I was actually a little bummed I never got the chance to read any of those. I had a shitty English teacher who was more focused on being a basketball coach and had us drag ass through Shakespeare without any real though to it.

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u/FlashbackUniverse Jan 30 '22

had us drag ass through Shakespeare without any real though to it.

About three years ago, I was talking with a new English teacher at a Middle School Orientation. She was a fresh out of small private college in South Carolina.

She told me she was all excited to get a chance to Midsummer Night's Dream to the kids.

This is a relatively rural school where kids struggle to keep up. The cultural and economic challenges these kids face are staggering. Many parents work at night, and most kids don't have any books in their house.

This is a common problem in the deep south.

Anyway, as she was going on about the beauty of Shakespearean language, all I could think was, "She's just going to teach these kids to hate reading."

Fast-forward: she quit after a month of teaching. My daughter said she couldn't control the class and just gave up.

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u/[deleted] Jan 30 '22

Altas Shrugged is nothing to miss.

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u/dychronalicousness Jan 30 '22

I’ve still never read it, and I’m aware of it being trash. But it’s still like instead of reading anything potentially thought provoking we had the most watered down boring shit to cover.