| Girl, REALLY Interrupted |
|
|
| Written by the editrix | |||||||||
| Wednesday, 10 December 2008 | |||||||||
|
Sexually explicit pages from a best selling novel were ripped from the texts given Seniors at New Rochelle High School
by the English Department Chairperson who considered them "inappropriate." A special session of the New Rochelle Board of Ed has been called for Tuesday night, December 16 to deal with the situation. Local Blog newrochelletalk.com reports she personally tore out seven pages of the book "Girl, Interrupted" - a book about a woman's time in a 1960s Massachusetts mental hospital- from each student's copy.
The book was turned into an Academy Award-winning film starring
Angelina Jolie and Winona Ryder. The students, generally 17 and 18 years old, were reading the novel as part of a High School Film course. Included in mutilated pages 64-70 is a scene where Lisa (played by Angela Jolie in the movie) encourages Susanna (played by Winona Ryder) to circumvent hospital rules against sexual intercourse by engaging in oral sex instead. "The material was of a sexual nature that we deemed inappropriate for teachers to present to their students," said English Department Chariperson Leslie Altschul, according to the blog. "Since the book has other redeeming features, we took the liberty of bowdlerizing." Wednesday, School officials were distancing themselves from the censorship, which has drawn attention around the world. "This action was not authorized by the Board of Education and absolutely is not condoned as sound teaching practice," the Board of Education said today in a statement. update from New Rochelle Talk: The crisis over the censorship of Susanna Kaysen's memoir "Girl, Interrupted" ended 12/16 when the school board formally acknowledged the serious nature of the "lapse in judgement" which led to pages being torn from dozens of copies of the book. The books have all now been replaced with new, unexpurgated copies. At an unusually crowded school board meeting, a series of public speakers including students, teachers, parents, as well as, the president of the local teachers union, the president of the high school PTA, and a likely candidate for the upcoming school board elections all roundly condemned the decision to censor the book, expressed regret for the unfortunate incident with many declaring it was time to move on.
Set as favorite
Bookmark
Email This
Hits: 1275 Comments (4)
Robert Cox
said:
|
|||||||||
Subscribe to this comment's feed|
... The head of the English Department admitted she did NOT read the book before approving it. |
Vocal Local
said:
|
... What's wrong with oral sex? It's not like it constitutes "sexual relations" right Mr. Clinton? Are we supposed to think that none of these young adults ever watch CSPAN? And really, tearing pages out of a book only invites a 17 year old imagination to conjure up images that are far racier than anything the author intended. How very puritanical of the Chair. Something very ironic about being able to get condoms from the school nurse and having a scene like this censored from a book in english class. Yet again our children must think we are joking with our attempts at "educating them". |
male librarian
said:
|
... Why not all gather round the bonfire next time? "Bowdlerizing"? Try "mutilating". And that's it? The Bd of Ed "..distances themselves.."? No further action? No tar-and-feathering from the highest yardarm for the CHAIR of the English Dept.? Instead of a stupid bake sale or car wash, why isn't the PTA all over this? Shameful, just shameful. |
lori
said:
|
... so if they had a problem withthe book WHY did they put it in the curriculum in the first place??? sounds like the teacher(s) didn't bother to read it before they assigned it. |
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
