Comments on: An Ode to Teachers of Banned Books

By: I like banned books, and I cannot lie! « The Book Lady’s Blog

I like banned books, and I cannot lie! « The Book Lady’s Blog — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:39:19 +0000

[...] a long history of attempting to ban books that challenged their personal values and beliefs, and I even saw my high school lose a wonderful teacher because a parent disagreed with one of his selections. But now that I have spent more than two years [...]

By: Chris@bookarama

Chris@bookarama — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 02:58:29 +0000

Seriously? Romeo and Juliet? A 500+ old play written in iambic pentameter? Good grief! What does he let his kid read? It can’t be the Bible, too much sex and violence in that one too.

And yeah, they were married (with a priest and everything). Duh.

By: Dawn

Dawn — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 01:55:09 +0000

Great essay, Rebecca! The incident about R&J is horrifying … this stuff still goes on (argh!)

Are the 3 teachers you mention at the beginning of your post still at the school? You might consider sending them a copy of your very public thank-you note.

By: Ladytink_534

Ladytink_534 — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 06:09:45 +0000

I had great teachers too, especially Mrs. Harris (so glad I had her twice- 9th & 12th, she moved up two grades). We read To Kill a Mockingbird, Hucklberry Finn, Flowers for Algernon, & Romeo and Juliet in high school as well. I love it when an idiot like that gets embarrassed. Great story! We were pretty laid back in PC when I was in school (my little brother’s class in reading The Giver right now).

By: chartroose

chartroose — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 22:46:39 +0000

Hey, I love this! How come I haven’t heard about you before now?

You’re going on my blogroll as soon as I get around to it.

By: Amanda

Amanda — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 21:16:51 +0000

O wow…what a great post. I agree that it’s fear and ignorance that make people behave this way. I can’t believe he’d never read R&& either and was making a big stink. I remember reading R&J before high school on my own. And of course I’d seen the movie with my mom when I was younger. So I took R&J for what it is, a great play and piece of literature and a “look what happens when you go behind your parents’ back” type of thing. And I do remember that Baz Lurhman R&J version came out when I was a freshman in high school and I was with h.s. seniors who were surprised by the ending. HA!

I was blessed with awesome teachers growing up. I am still good friends with one of them. My junior/senior year literature teacher was awesome. He took us out to coffeeshops sometimes to talk about literature…he was in his late 20s and his wife was great too. He decided that instead of picking books for ALL of us to read…he gave us the list of books Cliff Notes has books on and said pick ten that sound interesting. Then we had to read the books we picked, write papers on the books, and give speeches/presentations about our books. So not only did we get to chose books we actually might like, but we also go to hear about other peoples books. It was SUCH a good experience.

By: writemeg

writemeg — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 19:05:29 +0000

It’s awesome that you had a teacher like Mr. Hunsley… but unfortunate that both he and his students had to go through a mess like that. When I was reading your entry, I was actually thinking about how I read “Romeo & Juliet” myself in the ninth grade and my teacher — who also chose to show the classic version with the very brief nude scene! — stood up with a piece of paper to cover the “offensive” action. She said if she fast-forwarded (yes, it was a VHS tape!), we would all still be able to see — and it was blink-and-you’ll-miss-it.

I’d forgotten about that until just now! It’s a fun memory for me — Mrs. Chalmers was a great teacher. She was one of the first people to really encourage my writing when I became a young adult, not just a kid scribbling out random stories on napkins during recess. I still run into her from time and time and try to thank her for inspiring me. Great educators really make all the difference!

By: elysabethreichman

elysabethreichman — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 18:44:24 +0000

That is a great (albeit unfortunate) story…and I think the crappy thing is, it happens all the time. I am glad that it was dismissed and not pushed on and harped on.

Last fall, I lost a dear professor of mine, who died suddenly. Peter was brilliant, hilarious, awkward, thorough, and pretty much everything you’d want in a professor. I think about him often and I know that he changed my life.