Almost a whole month?!

Has it seriously been almost an entire month since I've written anything?? Holy crap. I am blaming school, work, and the fact that I am now hooked on Grey's Anatomy and I have been watching pretty much nonstop. Thanks, Emily :) If you don't watch the show and you like drama, watch it. Even if you don't like drama, watch it. It actually tackles a lot of good issues, political and personal. I love it.

Speaking of political issues, I read something that I find slightly disturbing today. NewSouth Books, a publishing company, is essentially rewriting Huck Finn. They are replacing the N-word with "slave". Now, don't get me wrong, I hate that word. I think it's awful and anyone that uses it is completely ignorant. However, in this context, I think it's important. It really paints a picture as to what life was like during that time. Not only that, but Mark Twain didn't use that word for kicks and giggles; he had a point.

Now, I don't think 5th graders should be reading it, but I certainly don't see any problem in high schoolers reading it. I think that it can spark some really good conversation and Huck Finn, in it's original context, can be a great teaching tool for students. It tackles such an important issue, race at a time when it was at it's worst (well, overt racism was at its worst anyway). Teachers aren't just handing out books and saying, "here read this" without discussing it. The whole point of their job to to teach their students about stuff like this.

I guess my biggest issue is book banning in general. I am sick of people coddling kids and shielding them from bad things. They think they are protecting them, but they are doing so much more harm than good. By not allowing kids to see the bad in the world, they won't know how to deal with it when it does happen to them. By not introducing them to the problems of the world, they can lose critical thinking skills; they won't know how to solve problems because they've never had to do it before.

Now look, I understand that they may just want to be politically correct and sensitive, which I appreciate. But I don't think that's the way to go about it. I think that having a discussion about the word in classrooms is what is needed. Pretending that it doesn't exist does such a disservice.

I am sorry if that seems jumbled; I feel like it's jumbled. Oh well, I am going back to Grey's :)