Monday, 23 January 2012
Stratford's Sayyid Qutb
I suppose everyone else in the world is already aware of this latest piece of evidence that the world has gone stark raving mad - somehow The Tempest has fallen foul of a law that is designed to prohibit teaching that promotes the overthrow of the United States:
Any education system that promotes the avoidance of discussion of any topics is a faulty education system, I reckon. Of course, 'discussion' is the operative word - that is, all possible points of view should be aired, rather than simply one doctrine. Rather than banning things, however, wouldn't it be better if the authorities involved ensured that the teachers they employ are dedicated to seeing that issues are discussed in a thorough, uninhibited, unbiased way?
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Strewth. I haven't read the whole article, but the phrase "increasingly radicalised Mexican-American studies" jumps out at me. I'd rather like to see a radicalised Mexican version of The Tempest, though, and with the greatest respect to our tequila quaffing cousins, I'm wondering how seriously I could take it.
ReplyDeleteI spent a New Year's Eve in Kiev many, many years ago with a bunch of vodka quaffing Mexicans and we had a whale of a time. If their production of The Tempest could be as much fun as that, I'm all for it.
DeleteAlthough a court did recently rule against some race-specific school curricula, reports of "book banning" appear to be exaggerations or hoaxes. The Tuscon school system says it's simply not true:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.tusd1.org/contents/news/press1112/01-17-12.html
Thank you for pointing me to that article. It is really intriguing. How on earth did the school system get to this complicated position? I wonder if things will really change, while the staff who were willing to teach a seemingly very biased course remain working in the schools. From the outside, without access to all the facts, it does seem to me that, rather than banning 'Mexican-American studies' (even though I'm pretty suspicious of most subjects that are called something or other 'Studies') it might have been better to turn the course into something that genuinely examined every side of each argument in the area. If it wasn't possible to persuade the teachers to do that, then I would assume they will also continue to try to teach The Tempest, or anything else that takes their fancy, in a biased manner. That seems to me to be the root of the problem - the attitudes of the staff willing to teach a programme like Mexican American studies in the form it was, it seems, taught, (but, as I say, I am commenting from an almost completely uninformed position.)
DeleteBans on any literature should not be taken lightly. Most of the demand for banning The Satanic Verses for example, has come from those who have never read it. What about Othello? The works of Walter Scott? The Bible and the Qur'an have some unsettling passages in this regard.
ReplyDeleteThe call for banning usually stems from prejudice rather than genuine fear of corruption by the literature. When power is in the hands of the ignorant, the result can only be the perpetuation of ignorance. As you say, it's about how to teach these subjects, not the literature itself.
Agree with all you say but it appears from the article Jeff supplied that the books aren't being banned - although the situation still appears murky. Teaching from a certain point of view is the real problem I'm beginning to think.
Delete