Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Not PC, I think, in this case. Not to expose young children to this type of material is justifiable. Would you want young children to read books which were blatantly antisemitic or homophobic? There's all the rest of the Sherlock Holmes canon available to them, and they're free to read this book when they're old enough to understand it's cultural context.
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Why not? We teach them about slavery. And Nazi Germany. And McCarthyism.
They're middle school kids. They are old enough to be taught that this is how some people thought in the past, and here's why it's wrong. We don't worry about them becoming Nazis when we show them Nazi propaganda posters.
We really need to stop treating kids like they're stupid. You are old enough at 12 to understand cultural context. Maybe not to its complete extent, but well enough that you can understand that ignorance leads to fear/hate, and these people were ignorant.
We keep coddle and condescend to childrens' intellect on an ever-greater scale, and it really does them a great disservice. Trying to create a Barney Fun Land bubble around them until they're 20 does not prepare them for reality, and it does not help them develop their critical thinking skills. It does nothing but stunt their intellectual growth.
And the fact of the matter is, they're exposed to worse whether you like it or not, and you can't stop them. You might as well intellectually prepare them.