Not active enough for him to read the book, of course. I certainly hope he doesn't allow network television in his home, either! I went to Oak Ridge High School, which is in Conroe ISD. We always considered Caney Creek to be a bunch of Grangerland hicks, but sheesh. If this moron had actually read the book, he'd discover that the hero leaves his life and family to go on the run, preserving a fragment of literature that he was able to memorize. The passage? A portion of the BIBLE! Parents: I realize that the world and its art contains feelings, ideas, and statements that are challenging to deal with and interpret for your children. But you and they will both be better served by examining and discussing these things, as was intended, rather than simply banishing them. Literature has a function unrelated to entertainment.
By his reasoning, nobody should read the Bible because it includes murder, rape, incest and genocide and Christianity forbids all of these things. People this stupid shouldn't be allowed to have kids.
Have you read every book (literature and text) your high school (or grade school) child has been assigned?
If you are going to publically b**** about a book, you should at least know what it is you are b****ing about.
From reading the article, the daughter told the father that she did not think the book was appropriate. It appears she either pointed out what she thought was inappropriate or he skimmed the book and found some things that he thought was bad according to his moral and belief system. It appears that he then went through the procedures set up by the school district to try and get the book removed from the curriculum. From the article, it doesn't indicate that he was publically griping about the book, unless you consider going through the channels set up by the school disstrict public griping. Regardless of people's own perceptions, we all have our own set of moral codes and value systems. We should respect the rights of others to go through the proper channels to state their case. Would I let my 15 year old read Fahrenheit 451 - Yes. Would I consider someone an idiot or a moron for not wanting his 15 year old to read it - No.
Please, this guy is doing a disservice to his daughter by this. What you think because his daughter does not read one book that has some controversial topics that she will never be exposed to them? That she has never heard any of those words before? If parents want to take a more active role in their kids lives, stop putting them in front of the TV and sit down and discuss these books with them. Just because you sit your kid down in front of the TV and let them watch PBS and block out every other channel does not make you good or even actively concerned parents. Just makes you lazy. Also makes you very ignorant for trying to ban a book you never read.
If you "skim" through the pages looking at each content individually without knowing how it ties in to the story, you could potentially throw out every single book on any high school reading list. Every book has some reference of bad words, rape, murder, atheism, etc. Like someone mentioned earlier, you could even do this with the bible or any other religious books.
It sounds like the girl probably got in trouble at school for cursing, had to read this book, saw cursing in the book, so decided to whine about it. That's what a lot of kids do. Everything's unfair to them and they'll try to point out any inconsistencies in the school's actions that would help them. And like others have brought up, you can do that with just about any book. Especially the Bible. Then where did they get all the quotes in the original article, where he cites all kinds of filth in a book he hasn't even read. Would you not consider someone an idiot or a moron for not wanting his 15 year-old to read a book that he had never even read himself?
From a distance, I would not consider them anything because I don't know them. I don't think we can judge folks on what they consider, funny, stupid, intellectual, immoral, moral, or whatever. Based on this article, this guy was essentially standing up for his daughter. I can assume that she thought the material was inappropriate for her age based on her upbringing, but perhaps not. My kids have long since been done with school and I had a few conversations with teachers and administrators about various inadequacies in the school system. I stood up for my kids in some instances and I stood up for their teachers in others. There was a time when my daughter was 11 and she went to the day care for a couple of hours after school. When I picked her up one day, they were letting the older kids (10-12) watch Cujo. I read them the riot act. I suspect some parents may have thought poorly of me as they may not care that their 12 year old was watching an R rated movie. At some point, we, as parents, need to set limits. Until folks have had kids, it is hard for them to appreciate what parents go through and, even then, everyone's situation is unique. I have found through experience that it is simply too dififcult to judge and comment upon how anyone is raising their children.
You are making a big assumption about what the girl's thought process was rergarding her pointing out the stuff int he book to her father. I don't know if HE went public, perhaps the publicity was brought upon him. I would not consider anyone an idiot or a moron for not wanting a 15 year old to read a book that they haven't read themselves. I might consider them close-minded but idiot and moron are pretty strong words.
Probably. In my experiences with people like this, I've never met a rational one. I also had kids I went to school with try the same act. I guess it was too hard to say "no comment". Based on the history of that county and censorship, I'd be surprised if didn't go public. I think they're one and the same.
I've known a lot of very smart people who judge movies and books without watching or reading them. As an example, would you conisder a well respected Priest or Minister an idiot or a moron if they encouraged you not to see a particular pornographic movie? My guess is a lot of religious leaders are "close-minded" (i.e. set in their ways) when it comes to what they consider immorality, but they are far from being idiots or morons.
Yes. And I consider those who are against all murder close-minded as well. Like MB said, there's a huge difference between judging a work of literature and p*rnography.
Just to make it clear, I was NOT attempting to compare this incident with a pornographic movie, I was using it to illustrate MY differentiation of being "close-minded" and being an "idiot".
First of all, 451 is not a 400 page long description of sex. 2nd, I would not call them an idiot but I would not respect their ideas if they started banning books without reading it because they found a couple of F-bombs on a few pages. So by that reasoning, yes I would probably lose respect for him. Now if he reads the book and then decides, then I might not agree but still respect his beleifs and ideas.
Assume he read the book from cover to cover and did everything else exactly the same. What would your honest opinion of him be?
That he needs to lighten up. They are just words. Some people are just way too uptight about things that ultimately do not matter.
