"The “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” has been called the most censored book in American history. Here is another example with a 2015 twist: the book is not inclusive.
Not again.
The constitution is kind enough to use “other Persons” in place of the N-word, and continues in this same vein by judging slaves to represent 3/5 of a human being. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn uses the N-word, and goes on to offer a scathing critique of Southern attitudes towards slaves and former slaves. You tell me which one is “not inclusive.”
shrug private schools are allowed to do whatever.
I’d fight tooth and nail if it was a public school though. Several years ago, my high school made national news when Beloved was challenged. It was all political BS brought by our local chapter of the Tea Party after they didn’t win seats on the board.
A few years after that, another parent whined at another local school about The Diary of Anne Frank. The school district ignored her.
Censoring books makes my skin crawl- but it does have the wonderful effect of encouraging kids to read them. Best way to get kids interested in something is to tell them it’s banned 
“Banned” is a silly word here. It was taken out of the curriculum as a required book. I doubt there’s any book that’s been “banned” at Friends Central.
I am ambivalent about the move. As of about five years ago, Huckleberry Finn was on a very, very short list of American novels from the three hundred years before Faulkner, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald that everyone had read and everyone had to read to understand American literature. But increasingly that won’t be true, precisely because it’s not being taught everywhere anymore. I suspect it’s hardly being taught anywhere anymore, outside of high-level college courses. And it’s not as though understanding the history of American literature is something everyone cares about.
It’s a stupid, anti-intellectual move, but this is a stupid, anti-intellectual moment on this issue. At least it’s stupidity in a good cause. Kids can learn to read and to think critically without reading Huckleberry Finn. If sacrificing Huck Finn did any actual good, it might even be worthwhile. But it won’t do any good, and it’s just another example of treating teenagers like morons, and encouraging them to demand to be treated that way.
I just dislike the notion that students, whether high school or college, should not have to be exposed to anything that makes them feel uncomfortable, thus creating the “safe space” that some are demanding.
Anti-intellectual, short-sighted and stupid decision.
Another likely reason they dropped it is that there is significant opposition to have “URM” stories told by dead white men. Our school seems to have replaced HF with Things Fall Apart and The House on Mango Street. While neither is as well written as HF, at the least authors are of the politically correct race and gender.
I’m not into the drop, but as a Quaker school grad, I also know that the community likely made this decision inclusively. The book also wasn’t banned, it remains in the library.
Again, private schools are allowed to do whatever, but I don’t like the idea of schools removing books simply because it makes students uncomfortable.
Racism, slavery, etc SHOULD make you uncomfortable. 11th graders should be mature enough to handle these themes. If we don’t talk about things that make us uncomfortable, nothing will ever change.
It’s just my opinion.
HF is about recognizing personhood and humanity in the “other.”
This sort of news is cyclical. There always some school/library somewhere “banning” Huck Finn.
If taught properly HF is an incredible, albeit uncomfortable, learning experience. While HF may still be available in the school library, it has been “banned” from the required reading list.
Yes, just like all but three or four of Shakespeare’s plays, and 90% of Henry James.
Do they still teach “Merchant of Venice” in any schools or colleges?
Replacing HF (lexile level: 980) with The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (Lexile level: 1040) is not avoiding the question of slavery. It’s not “anti-intellectual,” it’s just a change in curriculum.
No book is sacred. Teachers need the power to change curriculum from time to time, if for no other reason than to vary the essay topics they’re required to read and grade.
Online, the curriculum at Friends Central is described as:
That aligns fairly well with the recommended reading list for AP lit. As for AP US History, the course description on the AP site cites an example based on an excerpt from Douglass.
As a private school, Friends’ Central doesn’t have to align to the Common Core, but the AP has aligned itself with the Common Core. Here’s a list of recommended authors for the AP:
Authors in bold are listed in the Friends’ Central course description.
There aren’t as many authors listed under Expository Prose. Dropping a work of fiction for a work of expository prose which will come in useful on multiple AP exams is not anti-intellectual.
But they aren’t changing the curriculum for the sake of variety–they’re doing for (in my opinion) a very bad reason. That makes a difference.
It’s probably true, though, that Huckleberry Finn has been quietly dropped by lots of schools with no reason being given.
once upon a time HF was banned because it showed the friendship between a black man nd a white boy. Not a popular idea in the segregation era.
I never liked it for its limited representation of women.
I’ll admit I’ve never read it.
In high school I remember reading:
Shakespeare
Steinbeck
Faulkner
Melville
Joyce
Woolf
Thoreau
Hawthorne
Boccaccio
Frost
Dickinson
Dante
Conrad
Dickens
Waugh
F. Scott Fitzgerald
I read Twain, Austen, Alcott and others on my own during the same period.
If I were a high school student preparing for the AP exam today, I’d have to read something other than male authors of European extraction. I’d also spend much less time learning to spot phallic symbols or learning about Joseph Campbell’s theory of the Hero’s Journey. And that’s ok. Change is good. I never liked the Freudian approach anyway; there was a vein of silliness in playing find-the-phallus.
I notice the list of expository writers is much shorter. The following are English men of the 18th and 19th centuries: Addison, Arnold, Boswell, Hazlitt, Johnson, Lamb, Macaulay, John Stuart Mill. Looking at the list, I’m not convinced Michael Pollan belongs on it. I would have placed Christopher Hitchens and Joseph Epstein on the list.
Any other worthy expository writers?