ALSO, if you disagree with this, I highly suggest checking out and signing the response petition over here. It's already gained 97 signatures--- and 32 comments and testimonials-- in less than 24 hours: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/petitioning-the-rfh-reading-assignments-petition
E
elena roig
10 years ago
i am a recent RFH alum. the effort to ban certain books from RFH's english curriculum is, frankly, embarrassing. we look back on the banning of books and the obscenity trials of the 1950s-60s in awe and in disbelief that literature would really be censored from the people because of its content. history, on some scale, really does repeat itself, and here we have come full circle.
one targeted book, Ariel Dorfman's "Death & the Maiden," remains one of the best plays i have ever read and opened my eyes to the comprehension of literary symbolism. i'm deeply disappointed by the effort to remove this incredible work, among others, from RFH's curricula.
i study history in college, and read about some pretty atrocious stuff every day. this content offers me a better understanding of the world around me and where we've come from, and is invaluable to my education. this "petition" is robbing students of a universal education and i couldn't be happier that i left rumson when i did. i hope this """movement""" never catches steam, and hopefully the brighter members of the RFH faculty will see what's really going on here.
and i can't reiterate this enough: this is embarrassing.
A
Andy Waldron
10 years ago
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 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 represent 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 this 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 grapple with.
S
Sarah Scott
10 years ago
Featured
While I am usually opposed to censorship, I think this material is far too sexually explicit for a high school classroom. I support this petition.
V
Victoria Stapley-Brown
10 years ago
I am proud of the education I received at RFH, particularly in the English department, and it has served me well. My favorite banned book is Their Eyes Were Watching God. The books we read and the discussions we had about them have stayed with me. Please continue to trust educators to pick thought-provoking works and have faith in students' ability to digest and learn from them.
S
sarah jane
10 years ago
if your kid has a smart phone of any kind, an xbox, a playstation, a laptop, or hbo you have far more pornography worries than RFH literature.
C
Carolyn desena
10 years ago
Thousands of books to choose from, why this ...
A
Anonymous
10 years ago
The first book I was assigned in college was "story of the eye" by Georges Bataille. You idiots read that and then tell me the high school books are vulgar....and then I guess tell your kids not to apply to top 10 colleges.
C
Concerned Parents and Students 2015-2016
· petition starter
10 years ago
Leave troll, please find your utopia elsewhere.. Thanks
A
Adam Schildge
10 years ago
I read both of those books at RFH in 1996 and still recall them as some of the most thought provoking literature I've ever been exposed to. I don't remember any vulgar scenes, but I do remember the moral lessons and deep insights that came from reading challenging works. That experience made me a better college student and ultimately a more thoughtful and successful adult. Give your teenagers more credit for the maturity they can muster when treated like adults.
C
Concerned Parents and Students 2015-2016
· petition starter
10 years ago
Kindly start your own petition and stop trolling on ours. If you wish to disagree, start your own petition. And one more thing; take a breath and design your own thoughts, these are weak and losing ingredients to a discourse that has been tried for 47 years you ass kettle.. sorry i run out of patience with these self important deviants..
M
Macbeth
10 years ago
This is craziness! If you think that your 14 and 15 year olds haven't heard the "sexually explicit and vulgar language such as Fuck, Twat, Tits, and Dick" before they get off the bus (or out of the benz) in the morning, then you need a reality check. While parents everywhere are fingering through books like 50 Shades of Grey, Rumson-Fair Haven is teaching literature: food for thought, discussion, and knowledge. You all should use your seemingly well-intended passion for organizing against injustice toward a more worthy cause.
R
Rosemary Murphy Bell
10 years ago
There is wonderful literature to choose for our children to read, we can do better than these choices.
S
Stacey Becker
10 years ago
I graduated from RFH in the late 1990s and remember the literature/English curriculum with great fondness as being one of the best learning experiences I had in high school. Death and the Maiden, in particular, I still remember as a transformative reading experience both for the importance of the book itself and how it was taught in class. The materials and class discussions were entirely appropriate to our age and experience and my educational experience would have been sadly diminished by having the curriculum watered down to include only non-challenging topics and language. The students and their educations would be the losers if the suggestion here were implemented.
J
Joe S
10 years ago
Oh, the field says "COMMENT"!
N
Norm Dannen III
10 years ago
?
This is sad. My favorite book, The Grapes of Wrath, was once banned. See the petition to this petition below. List your favorite book too. Books are fun and make you think
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/petitioning-the-rfh-reading-assignments-petition
C
Charlotte Kelly
10 years ago
The WORD of GOD:
http://www.openbible.info/topics/vulgarity
C
Concerned Parents and Students 2015-2016
· petition starter
10 years ago
START YOUR OWN PETITION. THANK YOU,
J
Joe S
10 years ago
Not trolling as this concerns my community. When this issue comes to Red Bank you can deal with it as you please. In fact I am not sure what your point is other than to call me sophomoric! Not going away so long as this kind of censorship exists.
A
Anonymous
10 years ago
This material is totally inappropriate for school! As an adult, I was offended and embarrassed reading these short passages!
ALSO, if you disagree with this, I highly suggest checking out and signing the response petition over here. It's already gained 97 signatures--- and 32 comments and testimonials-- in less than 24 hours: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/petitioning-the-rfh-reading-assignments-petition
i am a recent RFH alum. the effort to ban certain books from RFH's english curriculum is, frankly, embarrassing. we look back on the banning of books and the obscenity trials of the 1950s-60s in awe and in disbelief that literature would really be censored from the people because of its content. history, on some scale, really does repeat itself, and here we have come full circle. one targeted book, Ariel Dorfman's "Death & the Maiden," remains one of the best plays i have ever read and opened my eyes to the comprehension of literary symbolism. i'm deeply disappointed by the effort to remove this incredible work, among others, from RFH's curricula. i study history in college, and read about some pretty atrocious stuff every day. this content offers me a better understanding of the world around me and where we've come from, and is invaluable to my education. this "petition" is robbing students of a universal education and i couldn't be happier that i left rumson when i did. i hope this """movement""" never catches steam, and hopefully the brighter members of the RFH faculty will see what's really going on here. and i can't reiterate this enough: this is embarrassing.
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 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 represent 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 this 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 grapple with.
While I am usually opposed to censorship, I think this material is far too sexually explicit for a high school classroom. I support this petition.
I am proud of the education I received at RFH, particularly in the English department, and it has served me well. My favorite banned book is Their Eyes Were Watching God. The books we read and the discussions we had about them have stayed with me. Please continue to trust educators to pick thought-provoking works and have faith in students' ability to digest and learn from them.
if your kid has a smart phone of any kind, an xbox, a playstation, a laptop, or hbo you have far more pornography worries than RFH literature.
Thousands of books to choose from, why this ...
The first book I was assigned in college was "story of the eye" by Georges Bataille. You idiots read that and then tell me the high school books are vulgar....and then I guess tell your kids not to apply to top 10 colleges.
Leave troll, please find your utopia elsewhere.. Thanks
I read both of those books at RFH in 1996 and still recall them as some of the most thought provoking literature I've ever been exposed to. I don't remember any vulgar scenes, but I do remember the moral lessons and deep insights that came from reading challenging works. That experience made me a better college student and ultimately a more thoughtful and successful adult. Give your teenagers more credit for the maturity they can muster when treated like adults.
Kindly start your own petition and stop trolling on ours. If you wish to disagree, start your own petition. And one more thing; take a breath and design your own thoughts, these are weak and losing ingredients to a discourse that has been tried for 47 years you ass kettle.. sorry i run out of patience with these self important deviants..
This is craziness! If you think that your 14 and 15 year olds haven't heard the "sexually explicit and vulgar language such as Fuck, Twat, Tits, and Dick" before they get off the bus (or out of the benz) in the morning, then you need a reality check. While parents everywhere are fingering through books like 50 Shades of Grey, Rumson-Fair Haven is teaching literature: food for thought, discussion, and knowledge. You all should use your seemingly well-intended passion for organizing against injustice toward a more worthy cause.
There is wonderful literature to choose for our children to read, we can do better than these choices.
I graduated from RFH in the late 1990s and remember the literature/English curriculum with great fondness as being one of the best learning experiences I had in high school. Death and the Maiden, in particular, I still remember as a transformative reading experience both for the importance of the book itself and how it was taught in class. The materials and class discussions were entirely appropriate to our age and experience and my educational experience would have been sadly diminished by having the curriculum watered down to include only non-challenging topics and language. The students and their educations would be the losers if the suggestion here were implemented.
Oh, the field says "COMMENT"!
? This is sad. My favorite book, The Grapes of Wrath, was once banned. See the petition to this petition below. List your favorite book too. Books are fun and make you think http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/petitioning-the-rfh-reading-assignments-petition
The WORD of GOD: http://www.openbible.info/topics/vulgarity
START YOUR OWN PETITION. THANK YOU,
Not trolling as this concerns my community. When this issue comes to Red Bank you can deal with it as you please. In fact I am not sure what your point is other than to call me sophomoric! Not going away so long as this kind of censorship exists.
This material is totally inappropriate for school! As an adult, I was offended and embarrassed reading these short passages!