Too Graphic: Sex, Literature, and Our Schools

Britannica Blog:

Nate Fisher isn’t teaching English any more at Guildford High in Guildford, Connecticut. The untenured teacher resigned under pressure after being accused by a ninth-grade girl’s parents of giving her a graphic novel, Eightball #22, by Daniel Clowes, an acclaimed artist who recently drew a cartoon series for the New York Times. The book, also known as Ice Haven, depicts or discusses sex, partial nudity, and a man watching a woman in the shower.

2 thoughts on “Too Graphic: Sex, Literature, and Our Schools”

  1. Lacking complete information on the incident, I still have to wonder if her parents are talking to her about sex or would they prefer that she learn about life from strangers on the street or her equally uninformed peers with no opportunity to have an open conversation about the issues?

  2. The problems of the current student generation is overshadowed by the limitless stupidity of these kids’ parents and grandparents, which this incident well illustrates.
    When I was growing up in the 50’s and 60’s, I certainly noticed this inanity in my parents generation, but not seemingly as bad as the current crop of “mature” adults (ignoring bigotry, McCarthyism, Vietnam, etc).
    I have this sense, back 50 years ago, that there was some idealized grasp within my parents’ generation, which I thought had made its way into my generation, that education, thinking, using one’s brains, and guts, together, would allow us (U.S.) to overcome challenges and make the right decisions.
    I do know that my parents’ generation, and their parents, each having lived through the Depression, and WWII, had a strong sense of pride and determination and earned confidence that I think is sorely lacking the current generations, including my own.
    Now, one wins arguments by merely having an opinion, unencumbered by logic or facts, made all to easy by the currently empowered generation’s meager intellectual prowess, and its Pavlovian susceptibility to talismans.
    This is the nature and result of our generations’ love affair with the Cult of Personality rather than Substance.
    How one can reasonably expect an improvement in Education when those demanding, defining, and implementing such “improvements” have never modeled educated intelligent behavior themselves.

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