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Teacher assigns Bret Easton Ellis; gets fired

I love how the article goes out of its way to quote some negative reviews of the book and give the school a chance to wash their hands of it. Clearly, that teacher was not just perverted but had bad literary taste as well, right? What was she thinking. I'm glad she's unemployed now.
 
"Whoaaa!"

Yes,they have enough of that stuff on tv and in their surroundings,why read about it and discuss it?
 
You know that I always find it a little sad and a bit amusing when I hear how parents are complaining about what their children are reading. I have to wonder how would they feel if they read through the book and understood the intended meaning.
 
A quick Googling indicates that Jack Kerouac wrote On the Road while he lived in Ozone Park. Whoaaa--better not assign that in the local high school.
 
Good for the district. Substitutes are "at will" employees and so this was dealt with rather quickly. There is a reason why there is a curriculum, and we wonder why our schools are in trouble.:whistling:
 
SFG75 said:
Good for the district. Substitutes are "at will" employees and so this was dealt with rather quickly. There is a reason why there is a curriculum, and we wonder why our schools are in trouble.:whistling:
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I just don't think firing her is enough. I mean, because of her, now several sixteen-year-olds know about sex. She should go to jail. Who knows, maybe she has kids of her own? They should be taken from her.
 
I'm sure they all could have used some brushing up on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow instead.
 
So, upon further thought, I've been wondering:

Is this a book that should have been banned by the School Board?
 
I might understand if she assigned Stephen King or John Sanford,but Bret Easton Ellis?!
I've read half of American Psycho,and I can honestly say that Ellis is not appropriate even for high school teens.
 
Lincoln Rhyme said:
. . .I can honestly say that Ellis is not appropriate even for high school teens.
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So, it might be a book appropriate for banning by a School Board?

So far I'm only asking, since I haven't read the book in question. But it is on order and soon my own eyeballs will be assaulted by its contents. Then we shall see.

But I am asking, because of the dissonance I think I see between the reaction to this story and to the more usual book-banning threads we see here more frequently during Library Week (I think it is called).
 
Lincoln Rhyme said:
I might understand if she assigned Stephen King or John Sanford,but Bret Easton Ellis?!
I've read half of American Psycho,and I can honestly say that Ellis is not appropriate even for high school teens.
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First of all, Rules Of Attraction isn't American Psycho. Second of all, are you proposing age limits on books? On what grounds should a book be judged readable by under-18s?

I don't see any dissonance. Several people in this thread have expressed dismay at book banning, just as we do in other threads.
 
I do find it weird how she added something that wasn't even on the curriculum. From what I remember, the substitute teachers just continued with whatever the teacher was covering in class.

On another note, I wish one of my required reading assignments for English included a Ray Bradbury book.
 
I think there is a lot of factual information missing from the cited article that would help understanding and discussion of exactly what happened.
 
beer good said:
First of all, Rules Of Attraction isn't American Psycho. Second of all, are you proposing age limits on books? On what grounds should a book be judged readable by under-18s?

I don't see any dissonance. Several people in this thread have expressed dismay at book banning, just as we do in other threads.
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I'm 16 years old and I've been told I've been reading books meant for college students. So no,I'm not for banning books based on a persons age. It's just that Ellis is EXTREMELY violent and descriptive when it comes to books. And I've read Heartsick and Red Dragon(Two of the goriest novels I've ever read).

Besides, I'm usually the one fighting with the English teacher on what students should read :lol:.
 
I've recently read a little Ellis. Based on what I read, I don't think I would assign it to sixteen year olds. I know I wouldn't want my little girl reading that stuff. Sorry, I know that might be the minority view here.....
Firing the teacher might have been a bit much and probably was borne from a political motivation, but a reprimand was probably in order.
Again I haven't read the material in question, but it sounds pretty explicit.
 
It never ceases to amaze me how Americans (yes, I'm generalising here) get upset with books that have graphic scenes in it while the same thing can be watched in TV-series that 16-year-olds do watch and nobody says a thing about that. The same with the controversy around using the "f-word" or any other bad words while it's OK to watch murder, violence, sex (both visually and talking about it), etc on TV but when it's in a book it's suddenly an outrage and the teacher gets fired and people even talk about banning the book for the school curriculum. That's hypocrisy, pure and simple.
 
Just speaking for myself, but I also wouldn't let my daughter watch that sort of thing on TV either....
I would hope that the people who got outraged about the reading assignment are also the type that monitor their kids television watching. But you never know.
I think also parents like to be in control of what their kids are exposed to, rather than having someone else decide that something is appropriate without their consent. For example, there will come a time to expose my daughter to subjects like sex and violence but I hope to be the one guiding the conversation, not Brett Ellis. Or some random substitute teacher for that matter. :lol:
 
The students in question are 16, right? If their parents haven't had the sex talk with them yet they may be in for a surprise...
That being said I find it hard to believe that at 16 they haven't been exposed to sex either on tv or in the internet. That doesn't mean I approve of what the teacher did, I just think firing her was an overreaction.
 
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