If you’re an actress or a coed just trying to do a man-size job, a yes-man who turns a deaf ear to some read full description
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Apr 16, 2008
Maurean
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"I sit with Shakespeare, and he winces not. Across the color line I move arm and arm with Balsac and Dumas, where smiling men and welcoming women glide in gilded halls. From out of the caves of evening that swing between the strong-limbed earth and the tracery of the stars, I summon Aristotle and Aurelius and what soul I will, and they come all graciously with no scorn nor condescension. So, wed with Truth, I dwell above the Veil" -W.E.B. DuBois
(great quote)
While I re More...
(great quote)
While I re More...
Dec 17, 2009
Toby
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Good points about the sanitizing of literature, but would have been better if she didn't make the same points over and over and over, to the point of writing almost identical sentences three or four times in succession.
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Mar 08, 2008
Kirsti
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"As a student in the Houston public schools, I had firsthand experience with the political pressures exerted by extreme right-wing forces. When I was a senior at San Jacinto High School in 1955–56, I worked one class period each day in the library. One day I discovered a pile of books stashed under the main circulation desk, all of which were about Russia and the Soviet Union. When I tried to replace them on the shelves, the librarian stopped me and said that they had been removed from circ
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Jun 13, 2011
Angela
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Before Anton Chekhov and Mark Twain can be used in school readers and exams, they must be vetted by a bias and sensitivity committee. An anthology used in Tennessee schools changed "By God!" to "By gum!" and "My God!" to "You don’t mean it." The New York State Education Department omitted mentioning Jews in an Isaac Bashevis Singer story about prewar Poland, or blacks in Annie Dillard’s memoir of growing up in a racially mixed town. California rejected a r
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May 24, 2011
Stargrave
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It was hard for me to accept her conclusions when I didn't find the beginning examples to be very clear. In most cases I could see where the sensitivity panel was coming from.
On the other hand, while it's admirable to avoid topics which may trigger emotional responses in students (and therefore poorer relative performance), sheltering students from the world (or at least history) may not be the best goal for schools either. And the exposure to particular unsettling issues in the classroom coul More...
On the other hand, while it's admirable to avoid topics which may trigger emotional responses in students (and therefore poorer relative performance), sheltering students from the world (or at least history) may not be the best goal for schools either. And the exposure to particular unsettling issues in the classroom coul More...
Mar 20, 2011
Jason
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I found this book to be fascinating. I've actually participated in a workshop on test passage analysis, which, looking back on it, was basically censorship. We were told if any of the passages could be upsetting to any student, we should eliminate it. I remember one of the passages we were left with that would actually end up on the test was a dumb rhyming poem about a slice of lemon pie.
Diane Ravitch traces the history of censorship on K-12 tests and textbooks in this illuminating b More...
Diane Ravitch traces the history of censorship on K-12 tests and textbooks in this illuminating b More...
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Aug 27, 2010
Lize
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Awesome, frightening book about censorship in education, coincidentally one of the few things that both sides in the 'culture war' manage to agree on--they both favor it, although for different reasons. The appendices alone made it a must buy, and I've worked through several of the works she cited since then.
Quote: "The goal of the language police is not just to stop us from using objectionable words but to stop us from having objectionable thoughts. The language police belie More...
Quote: "The goal of the language police is not just to stop us from using objectionable words but to stop us from having objectionable thoughts. The language police belie More...
Nov 10, 2009
Emily
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It was The Language Police, by Diane Ravitch. The matter it discusses will be familiar to New Yorkers because of a recent Regents Exam scandal: the systematic "editing" of test and schoolbook materials to excise any theme, word or implication that might offend anybody. Ravitch presents a searing analysis of publishers' bias guidelines and shows how they became more and more rigid and nonsensical, and how they are the product of publishers and school systems caving in pre-emptively to i
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Jan 01, 2012
Frederick
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This book is about censorship of school achievement tests and textbooks. The author decries pressure from both the right and the left that results in depriving school students of literature with content and meaning. On the right, the censors want to avoid exposing students to anything that does not present a Leave It To Beaver world. No sex, no violence, no witchcraft, no communism. On the left, they try to avoid sexism, racism, disabilityism or anything that might offend any minority group. As
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Dec 17, 2009
Cyndi
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It's scary how we are controlled so much in school. I liked this book but I'm considering that ignorance is bliss.
This book discusses how the American government and pressure groups changes things or deletes stuff in our history curriculum to make things more likable and politically correct. What ever happened to learn from the past? Many more topics are covered in the book that make me want to get up and go fight the whole messy process.
This book discusses how the American government and pressure groups changes things or deletes stuff in our history curriculum to make things more likable and politically correct. What ever happened to learn from the past? Many more topics are covered in the book that make me want to get up and go fight the whole messy process.
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Jun 16, 2009
Karen
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Long Story Short: This book makes some excellent observations and arguments about bias, sensitivity, censorship, and textbook publishing, but it makes them in a semi-hysterical and sloppy way.
Why I Chose This Book: I used to be a teacher and I currently work within educational publishing, so the topic interested me personally, and I am always curious to read arguments from both sides of the political correctness movement.
The Book’s Strengths: If the author’s intent was to More...
Why I Chose This Book: I used to be a teacher and I currently work within educational publishing, so the topic interested me personally, and I am always curious to read arguments from both sides of the political correctness movement.
The Book’s Strengths: If the author’s intent was to More...
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Sep 27, 2009
Kayla
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An interesting, eye-opening book. This account was full of great whistle-blowing information, but the presentation was lacking in a way. I am not sure if Diane Ravitch had a word count, or not, but a LOT of what she presented seemed repetitive. Most of the book presented the same information in different ways. Granted, the information NEEDS to be hammered home, but perhaps using a variety of methods, as opposed to just restating the information in varied syntax. On the other hand, I found h
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Jul 17, 2010
Colleen
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I expected this to be about linguistics, but instead it turned out to be a very eye-opening insider look into the censorship of standardized tests and textbooks used in our public schools. What started as a good intention--eliminating archaic, sexist, and racist language in these tests and texts--has snowballed into nothing less than a complete bowdlerization of the language to which children are exposed. In short, the few powerful publishing houses left after countless mergers calling the shots
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Jan 28, 2010
Leah
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I think what Diane Ravitch writes about in this book is so important for everyone in the United States to be aware of. Ravitch tells the story of how the textbooks and tests our students encounter every day have been sanitized by pressure groups (from the left, the right and everywhere in between). Our children read "cleaned-up" versions of classical literature and edited versions of history. Bias reviewers comb through everything, finding any and every reason to cut or change text so
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Jan 17, 2010
Zahreen
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This was an interesting book, though it didn't tell me anything I didn't know already. Of course, this is probably because I am reading the book many years after it was released and its findings have now become well known. As someone who doesn't really use textbooks for their teaching (aside from science...), this phenomenon seems far for me. However, I am currently reading Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry to my students (and I read it last year), and I could see a parent throwing a fit over the
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May 08, 2011
Kristen
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The subject matter of this book is fascinating, thought I found the writing somewhat dry.
Pressure groups from both the left and the right object to content that schoolchildren encounter in textbooks and standardized tests. To preserve their contracts, the companies that publish these materials bow to the pressure groups - all of them - leaving material that is boring and dry, but completely safe from any and all actual critical thought.
The appendices in the back are startli More...
Pressure groups from both the left and the right object to content that schoolchildren encounter in textbooks and standardized tests. To preserve their contracts, the companies that publish these materials bow to the pressure groups - all of them - leaving material that is boring and dry, but completely safe from any and all actual critical thought.
The appendices in the back are startli More...
Nov 03, 2011
Michaelanne
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This could have been a 100 page book. Quite possibly the hardest book to stay interested in that I have ever read in my life. Interesting topic, one that everyone needs to know about for sure; just wish there was a way to present that material where it was not quite so boring!
Apr 19, 2008
Rae
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The author sat on textbook and curriculum content committees and shares her experiences. These committees have the overwhelming tendency to be politically correct, multicultural, revisionist, and non-offensive...thus removing all semblance of reality from the content our students use in school. I liked the fact that Ravitch was evenly balanced in her approach, showing the negatives from both conservative (the religious right mostly) and liberal (PC, multicultural, diversity) sides. The appendix
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Mar 24, 2011
Found this in my development's office of all places. Apparently the people in here ARE literate and have started a book swap.
Nov 14, 2009
Marsha
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Read for online class - interesting info about censorship in textbooks and testing but overkill on the info
May 25, 2010
Susan
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Can't believe I missed this one when it first came out. Ravitch is repetitive it bears repeating.
Sep 15, 2009
Rebecca
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I don't doubt that there are some censorship issues out there that need to be addressed in education. This book doesn't do much to help the problem though.
Sep 28, 2010
Marines
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A real eye opener to what textbooks have to go through to reach our classroom.
Dec 17, 2009
David
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A potentially fascinating subject, whose interest is leached out completely by the pedestrian writing and deathly prose of Diane Ravitch. Enormously disappointing, because I've heard this woman interviewed on the radio a number of times, and she is by no means as humorless and devoid of intellect as this book would suggest.
Feb 01, 2011
Connie
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so far it is making me angry, a nice treatise on "sanitizing" literature for political ends and not to offend anyone on this planet
