Huckleberry Finn to be censored

Michy · Post by **Michy** » Wed January 5th, 2011, 10:47 pm

[quote=""wendy""]
Sad, sad, sad.[/quote] Not just sad, but, in the case of Germany and the Holocaust, scary. Very scary.

Susan · Post by **Susan** » Wed January 5th, 2011, 11:16 pm

[quote=""MLE""]The N-word is not disappearing at all. I live near Oakland and work with people of color, and I can tell you that it is a part of daily speech in black patois. It blares from cars in rap music, it drops from lips of high-school students. Apparently the only taboo use of the term is in a white mouth.[/quote]

But the meaning in the black patois is not the same meaning as during Twain's times and the kids don't know the original context of the word.

Susan · Post by **Susan** » Wed January 5th, 2011, 11:25 pm

[quote=""wendy""]According to two of my former students, German schools do not teach about the holocaust either (because it was a shameful period in their history).And already we have people denying that such events ever took place .[/quote]

That is not true. Holocaust education is mandatory in all 16 states of Germany. See Germany - Holocaust Education Report

When I taught The Diary of a Young Girl, I used this article in class which explains how a comic book is used in Holocaust education in Germany.
No Laughs, No Thrills, and Villains All Too Real

Excerpt from the comic book in English which I also used in class.

MLE (Emily Cotton) · Post by **MLE (Emily Cotton)** » Wed January 5th, 2011, 11:41 pm

Thanks for posting the article, Susan. Very interesting. I suppose for this time in history, the awkward subject is not WWII, but what their parents did during the communist regime in East Germany.

Michy · Post by **Michy** » Thu January 6th, 2011, 12:36 am

This was just mentioned on NPR. Apparently the scholar who "cleaned up" Huck Finn did so in an attempt to get the book put back on the curriculum in schools and libraries where it has been banned. That's an admirable motivation, but I still think kids could receive a much more valuable education by being allowed to read and discuss the original. But, I guess letting kids read a sanitized Huck Finn is better than no Huck Finn.

It sounds like there has been an outcry about it, so I guess a lot of people share the same opinions we have expressed here.

Misfit · Post by **Misfit** » Fri January 14th, 2011, 1:30 pm

Found this blog post some of you might find interesting.