19 Nov, 2010
Caving to pressure – When ignorance trumps learning
Nathan Hale High School in Seattle recently caved to the uninformed pressure of a single parent, removing Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World from the curriculum. Sadly, this is not an isolated incident.
MyNorthwest.com ran the story about how a parent complained about the book, succeeding in having it removed from the curriculum for “cultural sensitivity” issues. From the article:
Sarah Sense-Wilson’s daughter was required to read the novel for a class at Nathan Hale. She is Native American, and her heart started to sink as she turned the pages to find more than 30 references to “savage natives.”…
The text has a “high volume of racially offensive derogatory language and misinformation on Native Americans. In addition to the inaccurate imagery, and stereotype views, the text lacks literary value which is relevant to today’s contemporary multicultural society,” she wrote in a complaint earlier this year to Nathan Hale and district administrators.
Instead of using this opportunity to enlighten Ms. Sense-Wilson on the true meaning of the book, and the context surrounding the use of “savage natives” in the text, the school decided to avoid conflict by bowing to her uninformed opinion, even going so far as to issue an apology. Not everyone agreed with the decision, however.
The chair of the language arts department, Shannon Conner, defended the merits of the book calling it a “superb warning book about our future. Huxley cautions his future readers from becoming too reliant on, and compliant with, technology.”
Had the school taken the time to educate Ms. Sense-Wilson, she may have learned that the “savage natives” in the book were the only pocket of humanity left on the planet, and the inhabitants of the dystopian “Brave New World” society, where everything is pre-determined and the government controls everything, are the real villains. The book was written in 1931 and set far in the future (AD 2540). Brave New World offers many opportunities for class discussion on such topics as reproductive technology, consumerism, alienation, the dangers of an all-powerful state, and more. But this isn’t really about Brave New World, or any book in particular.
What’s most troubling about this event is how the school put conflict avoidance above learning. The educators, like the chair of the language arts department, were brushed aside in order to placate a single parent, even though the parent was wrong in her assertions. Valuable lesson plans built around the book had to be scrapped because the school bowed to pressure instead of standing up for the curriculum and the teachers.
Brave New World resources
- Brave New World Wikipedia entry
- Brave New World reading group guide
- Brave New World themes, motifs & symbols
- Who’s Who in Brave New World – major and minor characters
The Language Police
I recently read an excellent book that deals with censorship, titled The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn, so this incident at Nathan Hale High School comes as no surprise. Principals, school boards, and textbook publishers routinely bow to pressure in order to avoid conflict, even if it means sacrificing literary quality or historical accuracy. I highly recommend this book.
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