International Baccalaureate student objects to assigned book - Page 2

Fair enough, but I'd say that with the American teenager sexual maturity in no way automatically correlates with sexual experience. Maybe this is more of a male thing (speaking just the perspective of myself and friends), but seeing as the girl doesn't seem to be coming at this from a religious perspective, I wouldn't try to par her objections down to her personal experience (which is not to say she does have much/any. I don't know, I don't care).

A lot of seemingly prude Christian girls = stealth horny.

I went to Catholic school and I can vouch for that. Also, nobody ever complained about the reading material.

Nice sig, that made me laugh.

I'd like to think that whoever reads it asks themselves, "What the fuck were they talking about?"

There's almost 100% certainty that she's not an imbecile and that she's almost immeasurably smarter than you or most of us in these boards, if you had bothered to read the article of course.

Yeah, disagree about the latter, Cap, and I'm not even talking about myself.

I did read the article. Tell me what I wrote that contradicts that? She's got offers from MIT and Harvard. Good for her, she's clearly a hard worker and talented in certain subjects. That doesn't mean she can't also be a philistine and an asshole(me referring to her as an imbecile is more just a pot shot relating to her actions, not every insult leveled at someone needs to be taken to its dictionary definition, cause you know, she's not actually an asshole either). Dick Cheney probably got good grades too.

You said she was an imbecile.

Last post edited to address that point, but to add to it: I like to think I'm a pretty intelligent guy when it comes to the subject of literature. I also freely admit to being a complete imbecile when it comes to arithmetic. One can have different facets of intelligence. In the case of the girl I'd say my disparity is reversed(though you could replace arithmetic with whatever subject she's excelling in), the difference being I never made a stink about a math problem sufficient to get media attention/disrupt a perfectly legitimate class.

Don't take this as an insult, but I'm pretty sure you were not being seriously considered for admission by either Yale or MIT, am I wrong in assuming that? Saying she could be better in arithmetic (she's probably at the very least taken calculus btw) than you but you might be better than her in literature or language arts in general is laughable. Specially considering she's already in a very advanced English class for her age.

Please.

Well, that's because you probably never got to contour integrals and their sexually explicit symbols: ∮

ETA: nevermind the sausage fest that is a triple integral: ∭

Well everybody knows that the miniscule omega, ω, is often used as a differential form because it represents mathematicians obsessions with large female breasts.

Magic jiberish. But surprisingly hot...

And no, El Capitan, I don't find comparing literary genius to mathematical genius laughable. Is John Cheever, who was known to have a C GPA not a genius when compared to some MIT graduate who works for Microsoft? I'm in no way claiming to posses the talent or genius that Cheever has and I'm in no way disparaging that hypothetical technician, but I don't think it follows that the only consideration of intelligence are the credentials of good schooling.

So you also have a problem with reading comprehension, I wrote no such thing.

I think in this particular case, it is a very good indicator as you have helped demonstrate.

"Saying she could be better in arithmetic (she's probably at the very least taken calculus btw) than you but you might be better than her in literature or language arts in general is laughable."

You're saying its laughable to compare my intelligence in one area (literature) to another person's in another area (which I'm assuming from her reaction to a piece of literature is not literature. Also, I don't think MIT has a renowned Lit. department), a tangent that you started. I'm saying how would you know? I wrote that I consider myself intelligent in that one area. I could be full of bullshit, or I could be the next Harold Bloom (I'm not), but according to your standards, unless I was considered by Yale or MIT, this girl is automatically smarter than me, presumably in every field. I don't buy that.

EDITED TO BETTER EXPLAIN THE POINT

Why are you bothering? Is it surprising to you that a dud would defend a dud?

After reading your posts in this thread, I totally buy it.

Cap is bringing the stupid damn hard tonight.

Thunderdome.

Z Vasquez versus ElCap.

Hey, it's the first argument I've gotten in on these boards, gotta start somewhere. Though I'm really not trying to malign or insult anyone, other than the student of the article, which really, I find hard to believe any one here would defend against my accusations. i called her an asshole, I didn't accuse her of being born in Kenya.

I'm Mexican (American), what's he? I won't fight a Puerto Rican if switchblades are allowed.

lol What?

The President...Lou Dobbs...ah, forget it, they can't all be winners.

Haha, oh. Don't worry, I'm sure it made sense to someone.

Because the article explains that she's in an advanced English class, that she is in the top 10 of her class, and that she has offers from the very top universities in the nation. You're Joe Random from the internet and so far you really haven't shown anything that would indicate we could even compare both of you; in any subject.

Your little "well she might be intelligent in arithmetic but I'm smarter than her in Literature" is stupid because, once again, from the article we know this is an exceptional student and we don't know if you are.

What we do know is that you don't have great reading comprehension (you still think pitting math vs literary intelligence) and that you may not know what the word imbecile means.

For a second you sounded like a Birther too, but we can excuse that as a lame attempt at humor.

Okay, apologies in advance for the bulk of this post, but I want to go through this slowly. First of all, I didn't start the tangent of 'her smarter in math, me smarter in reading'. You did when you made the claim that she's automatically smarter than anyone here, including me, based on her college options. I'm saying that the way she acted in regards to the case at hand is imbecilic, which, if I'm not mistaken, is just another way of calling someone/something dumb. No one, including me, is questioning her intelligence in any other field, I merely posited that it's possible to be smart in one area, and stupid in another. I pulled the arithmetic / literature example out as a means to showcase how I fall into this (in my own personal opinion), specifically in regards to how I can be an imbecile. You took this and turned it into a debate on whether or not I'm as smart as her, which was never in my original statements. Look back at the posts, I call her an imbecile once. You make this sweeping claim about this girl's overall intelligence without considering the immature and ignorant way in which she reacted to a piece of literature. Are you saying that's not an act of stupidity if not, then what is it?

And as to her being in an advanced English class, I brought this point up before, but I'll reiterate: I was in the same type of classes (through to graduating college). The people in there are not necessarily adept at studying or processing literature. They simply tested better in regards to the assigned level of comprehension, which by any standard is a joke in this country. This is purely anecdotal, but in my high school advanced English class, i was one of maybe only two or three students that didn't use Cliffnotes for every single assigned books. In a college graduate literature class of near to forty students I was in, no one had heard of Thomas Pynchon. So excuse me if I put more stock in the reaction of a person to individual literature than to their scholastic resume, especially in regards to this country's educational system.

And yes, that was a lame attempt at humor. I was trying to make a joke at the expense of birhters.

To be honest, the whole 'people getting skinned alive' part of Murakami's book might give readers more pause than the phone sex. I agree with MissZooey's posts in this thread, the book was going to unnerve readers, and in this case the readers are only 16, its not fair to assume all 16 year olds could handle it and its not fair to push it on them. How is that kind of attitude going to help their development? This is the problem with the education system, treating kids like cattle rather than individuals.

I dont know much about the IB program, but 16 is 16. You dont need a novel detailing graphic things to be challenged anyway. I had to read Macbeth, 1984 and To Kill A Mockingbird as a 16 year old, they were all unnerving in their own way but going by my dodgy memory I dont think they resorted to the graphic detail of sexuality and brutal murder to the level that Murakami does (not to slight Murakami as he's one of my favourite authors)

Why are people in this thread still trying to show a correlation between a person's grades and her emotional intelligence?

That's a good way to put it, probably better than how I've been trying, or if not emotional intelligence at least sophistication. Sophistication is the matter at hand, and though it may not behoove one to assume the sophistication of a 16 year old, no matter who they are, I think it's more than fair to take to task one such as the girl here (and by take to task I simply mean call out for being in the wrong and suggest she fail the assignment), as well as be angry at the kind of educational system that coddles her and her parents (who, unlike the girl, do not have the folly of age to blame for their actions).

Yep. I suspect this girl is very intelligent but not emotionally mature*. I don't think an alternative book should have been offered but there should have been a warning about content at the very least.

*This is okay, she's 16.

Apparently the IB program in this country has changed in the 20-some-odd years since I went through it. Even back then, that diploma is not the end-all and be-all of education. In my IB class of 13, every male successfully got the diploma and every female did not get it. Think about the conclusions we drew from -that-.

But at my school, the program was derived to get -everyone- through at once. There was very little individualism in what classes you took and which tests you took at higher or lower level. Basically you had a choice of which foreign language you wanted to take at the lower level, everything else was pre-planned. It was a three-year process. It sounds like that is still the case here.

My thing is, why not write a 1,500 page paper about why that book was objectionable, or turn it into a paper on pornography? Submitting -something- is better than turning in a note at the beginning of the class year. My senior thesis paper was crap. I know, I wrote it. But I wrote it, got to the word count, and I still got the diploma. A sophomore-to-junior level English summer paper can't be a huge part of the awarding of the diploma, not compared to the higher/lower level tests and the final senior thesis paper, I wouldn't think.

Ouch.

I took AP classes (I know it's not the same as IB classes, but you've seen me board here, I'm a retard), and the teacher made it pretty clear that as long as we contributed SOMETHING that showed that we were thinking on a level aside from "do the absolute bare minimum, go to the local Southern Baptist Church, become a youth pastor so that you can fiddle high-school chicks", we were gonna pass.

Either way, they didn't have much room for people to feign outrage over books, which was cool because at least 75% of the students in that class were stoners who were already reading Vonnegut/Chekhov and doing the whole tortured teenage artist thing, and they probably would have done the same thing that tcjsavannah mentioned if they had any objection to the material.

You think she should write about why a book she hasn't read is objectionable?

Name-calling? Really? Really? A sixteen-year-old's sexual naivete informs her response to a work of literature, said response is supported by her parents, and she's a philistine and an asshole? Jesus, when was the last time some of you spent any amount of time with people in their late teens? Moreover, I ask again, when was the last time the teacher spent time with people in their late teens? How did she not see this coming?

No, no, it's okay, he's probably smarter than her.

How do we know who brought the media into it?

My little brother is fifteen, and in the honors program, and you're confusing teenagers with toddlers. It's not the school's job to cater to the student's tastes or distastes, their job is to teach and expand the minds of their students. The moment she brought this up to her parents they should have been the ones to handle the situation, and maybe have an adult conversation with their daughter, instead of bullying the school.

My point- How can she write anything about a book she hasn't read?

C'mon, Eric... I work with classrooms full of teenagers every day. Don't give me that.

No, it's not, but there should be room for dissent. Thoughtful dissent is an intellectual exercise in its own right (please note: I'm not entirely convinced that this was thoughtful. The article gives us the shallowest possible explanation of the situation.) Because of my vegetarianism and thoughts on animal rights, I refused to dissect when I was 15. I took some abuse for it and had to do some extra credit to make up for it, but, in the end, my strong feelings on the matter were honored. It's pure nonsense that the school is being absolutely inflexible on this matter, when, again, there was no way this book wasn't going to cause some sort of controversy eventually. Her mind could have been expanded in other directions, with another book. I'm sure there's plenty of works on that 500-deep list that she has yet to read.

They did handle it. Not very well, granted (waiting until the day the assignment was due to voice an objection wasn't a great idea), but they did handle it.

Voicing concern is bullying? I'll remember that.

It occurs to me, in this moment, that I have had this same damn fight in one form or another more times than I can count. A kid doesn't want to read a book and the masses either rush to defend or rush to condemn based entirely upon the topic of the book. I'm shocked that people fail to understand that intellectual freedom also includes the freedom not to read something. I know it's annoying, but it's true.

edit -

I would love to see that, too. Based on what little information we have, it sounds like neither her parents nor the school were giving her any room to do just that. That's what's disappointing.

Like I said, I had to dissect a shark even though I was philosophically opposed to it or else I'd fail, and all I'm saying is she shouldn't be rewarded for having horrible parents. And because you're in a room on a daily basis with teenagers who you don't know on a personal level, or what goes on in their homes, you have a more valid opinion on this than we do?

Quoted for truth. I don't ever plan on reading any of the Twilight books, but I'm not going to honestly begrudge someone for doing so. I will object if they start trying to pawn them off as high literature, though, which seems to be another sticking point in this discussion, I think.

Are you suggesting that it's her fault that she has horrible parents?

Eric, deep breath, man. I'm not looking for a fight. That's not what I was saying at all. You accused me of not understanding younger people, and I was simply attempting to point out that I am not talking out of my ass here, in that I work with teenagers in an academic environment every day, which, yes, does have some bearing on this particular issue. Not that that makes my opinion more valid.

It should also be noted (gently, gently) that you do not know what goes on in this young woman's home. So let's slow down a little bit, shall we?

What do you mean I accused you? You were the one who came in here saying "yeah, and how many of you even know what a teenager looks like?" and I responded. I didn't even come close to suggesting it's this girl's fault for anything that's transpired, so there's that too.

And also if you would stop being so condescending then maybe this discussion wouldn't get heated, or whatever it is.