Petitioning the "RFH Reading Assignments, Rumson NJ 07760" Petition

I just can't. Seriously?? Have some faith in the maturity of your high schoolers ... And better yet, if you're worried about the provocativeness of the curriculum, talk to them about what they are reading.

This is disgusting and those in charge should be ashamed of themselves. There is no clear positive outcome for accomplishing this, only negatives. thr words and actions found in those books are seemingly everywhere in hundreds of form of other media. If you truly believe that withholding these books from your kids will help them or protect them, to keep them "clean", then maybe you need step outside the bubble. Next thing you know they'll start banning Sex Ed due to sexual themes and language. Grow up people.

Banning books is just a step behind burning them and I can easily think of one group in recent history that burned books, hint end of the 1930's.

As an alumni of RFH, the crusade of some parents to ban books is laughable, abd makes a mockery of what education is supposed to be. Literature is the expression of the culture that bore it, and to attempt to "ban" books is to misunderstand their nature, and the nature of students as well. This is a technological age, so banning physical books from reading lists and libraries isn't going to do much when the internet has every book possibly imagineable available for free, for your consumption. One book I read that really affected me was Baise-Moi by Virgine Despentes. I think her novelization of radical feminism in 1990's France is an excellent example of contemporary feminist thought.

1984, George Orwell

"Ban" is only one letter away from "bad". That's no coincidence.

I really don't want to comment because of how inferior whatever I say will seem next to the novel Devin wrote. So I'll just say to Devin that you misspelled Soviet and good job fitting in our greatest president into your comment. You should fire your editor.

Rumson and Fair Haven kids are already considered to live in a pre-collegiate bubble. Further restricting the material they are introduced to at RFH will lead to more shell shocked children in college. RFH is suppose to prepare its' students college and adulthood. It would handicap itself greatly to do ban certain reading do to language or content.

It is so disheartening to learn that people in my home town would choose ignorance over the education of classical novels taught in RFH. To argue that the vulgarity of literature is not age appropriate is completely benign when considering texts in different contexts. Many religious affiliated text also contains suggestive material, but no one seems upset about that. RFH taught me that all language has intention and meaning behind it. Although the words and suggestive content in some novels I read in high school may have been shocking at first, it was always talked about or referenced in class. I would consider these conversations about diction in class some of the most valuable information I took away from high school as a whole. RFH's curriculum prepared me for college by exposing me to these texts in a way that provided support and elaboration from the staff. I can only hope the future students of RFH will also receive the amazing education I got.

Having now moved on from RFH, I tell people all the time how lucky I feel to have attended such a wonderful high school with the most thoughtful, passionate, and educated teachers. Never once did I feel uncomfortable discussing what may be seen as a "vulgar" or "explicit" subject, and never once did I feel like it hindered my learning. RFH is always trying to teach it's what it means to be mature and professional, lessons I am forever greatful for...but how are students supposed to learn these lessons when they are sheltered from things that they are going to have to be mature about in the real world? I can honestly say I am appalled at the fact that parents do not want their children to have this same learning experience that I was lucky enough to have as a student of RFH. I also think it's wrong that the parents do not trust their children's educators to handle these "sensitive" topics with respect and in a mature and proper way that will facilitate their learning, and not hinder it...you are insulting their intelligence, and the teachers of RFH are some of the most intelligent people I have ever met. Turning a blind eye is never the answer, and if you think it is then you are part of the real problem, not the subject itself.

Banning books is practically prehistoric. Please, let the written word still shape future generations.

There is no need to ban these books; many literary pieces that can be viewed as too "sexually active" or "explicit" carry a layer of meanings that provoke and initiate conversation from the students. By banning these books, one is not only silencing the words within the work but also the words from the student. Literary pieces are meant to stimulate and interest the mind; it's a form of expression that should not be restricted nor censored.

Having read both of these books in my Junior Regular English and Senior SUPA English classes, taught by the excellent Suzanne Sweeney and Dana Maulshagen, respectively, I can easily say that working with these texts helped open my eyes to experiences outside my own, limited culture. The "vulgarity" expressed in each, alongside other "banned books" read like "A Clockwork Orange", isn't to the detriment of the reader's morality but rather act as contextual vessels for much more complicated themes. As I strive for my literature-based passions in college, I realize how these challenging texts have informed my ability to grasp newer and more complex works. These books not only authentically introduce topics including depression and rape, but also provoke meaningful discussion in a welcoming classroom environment. Vulgarity isn't what's permanent, ideas are. Like one of the comments on the original petition says, "Give your teenagers more credit for the maturity they can muster when treated like adults." Preventing your children from this discourse at such an impressionable age sets them up to fall short as they grow up in a world with far worse and more "vulgar" things to worry about.

Wouldn't you rather have your snowflakes be exposed to these things in a structured class rather than in the usually misinformed mess of pop culture??

Catcher in the Rye

The suppression of literature is the suppression of free speech. It is a suppression of thoughts and ideaologies, regardless of their controversy, they ought to be respected or at the least left alone. To ban literature is to ban free thought. In George Orwell's masterpiece 1984, they eliminated words and literature to disenchant the minds of the proletariat and brainwash rebellion and free thought from their beings, creating beings of synonymous minds and utterly without the ability to think freely. Literature is meant to challenge and be controversial! As Richard Nixon once said, "If you are not controversial, you never stood for anything." This quote stands as a keystone to the necessity of free thought, no progression of any kind would come to pass without the allowance of free thought and free literature. Works of art are meant to be displayed not buried, and the societies that have chosen to suppress literature have been atrocious in nature; they include: Nazi Germany, the Dark Age civilizations, Sovier Russia, and in nations suffering through imperialism. If we were to destroy the works of controversy, we would lose too much of our history and free thought. Where would democracy be without Rousseau's Social Contract? Where would our dissenters of imperialism be without Conrad's Heart of Darkness? Where would American Literature be without Huckleberry Finn and Uncle Toms Cabin, the latter of which drove the nation to end slavery after inciting the civil war (Abraham Lincoln acknowledged the Harriert Beecher Stowe as the little woman who started this big war). Finally I ask where would we as a people be without literature dissenting and daunting us? If we are to burn all controversial literature we would be burning and editing history to become obedient and will-less. If you are to burn Wilde's Dorian Gray, or McCarthy's Blood Meridian, or even Rushdie's Satanic Verses, then you may as well burn me too. For a world without free thought and free literature is no

The curriculum was fine as it was. There was not one single book in AP Lit that I did not enjoy. Just because a book has some language and sexual content does not make the values and knowledge that book can bring any less. I guess the adults cannot think their kids can handle it, which by the way kids are not stupid, they know and talk about these subjects 24/7.

People are entirely too sensitive these days. I read some of my all time favorite books in RFH's English classes. My favorite: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Deeply disappointed (but not surprised) by this news. While I am forever grateful and extremely privileged to have received the education I did, I am frequently shocked at what I DID NOT learn at such a great public school. Censorship in this day and age is dangerous. Favorite banned book : "Howl and other poems" by Allen Ginsberg.

This shows so clearly that some of the parents in our town did not receive the excellent education that we all did at RFH. What's truly unfortunate is that they would try to pass down their own ignorance to their children.. My favorite: Anthem by Ayn Rand