History isnât fiction.
There are ways to teach English without bringing up sensitive subjects like racism etc especially in such a time when itâs an extremely sensitive topic.
Racism isnât the same as being an orphan. Being an orphan is unfortunate. Being a different colour shouldnât be.
What would you say to a black kid who was upset because they heard that word being spoken aloud on class? Genuinely now, how would you deal with it?
Iâd do my best to reassure them that anyone who uses the word in anger is a cave man. Iâd try to explain that books are written in their own time and to judge them on that standard. Iâd pull up any students who giggled. Thatâs how Iâd like to think Iâd deal with it. But obviously, Iâm not a teacher.
How would you deal with an orphan who wrote to the department and was told that the book that really upset them wonât be withdrawn from the syllabus but the book that features one word that upsets someone else has been? Why is their distress not treated with the same respect?
I would respectfully suggest that the people looking to remove this book donât give two fucks about the distress young kids are under but, rather, want to be seen as woke.
Iâd ask the orphan to speak to the school counsellor. Their upset comes from deep rooted personal experience and circumstance and they need help.
The other situation. That âoneâ word youâre trying to diminish all the time has been hurtful to generations of black people. It isnât necessary to teach English to kids.
And what about the Jewish child reading about the Holocaust? Suck it up?
What about books that feature the Amish, Jews, Travellers etc?
By the way Iâm doing nothing to diminish the word and I resent you saying that I am. But that word is nothing without its context and I believe books like that can help explain why itâs no longer acceptable to use in ordinary conversation
This is pretty much it tbh.
Holocausts arenât happening in the here and now are they?
History needs to be taught.
English can be taught without kids being subjected to that word.
Youâve compared someone being distressed about hearing the word in school to someone being pregnant and someone being an orphan.
Of course they are.
Against Jewish people?
Would it not be more important to talk about them if they were happening here and now?
Maybe, I donât know. Does the word âholocaustâ confine itself that way?
Itâs the context in which yer man used it.
The point I was trying to make was that many people can be distressed reading/watching something on a syllabus, not just a black person.
You can broach the subject in the here and now without using racial slurs which are still used in the here and now.
I quoted you directly.
And you missed his context, which I was replying to.
If you donât teach children exactly why the word ân iggerâ is so offensive, they wonât know why they shouldnât use it. It is then meaningless. It should never be meaningless.
Otherwise itâs just two syllables
TKAM could be read and then Go Set a Watchman read. Canceling books is so fucking intellectually lazy.
Can they not just bleep out the word n ****r like they do with b *****s and h **s on rap songs on 2FM and like they try to do with V *******t in Harry Potter?
This is different.
This is the use of the N word in an Irish classroom to teach English to junior cert students. It isnât necessary.
Biology and History are necessary. And there are supports tmin schools to deal with issues.
I donât think junior cert english is the medium to broach the subject. It is not needed on that syllabus. Itâs a fine piece of literature. It will still be there. Kids can learn English without it
Absolutely it should. But exposing them to it by reading it aloud out of an English book may not be the best context to broach it. The subject under discussion(English) can easily be learned without this piece of literature.