Comments of a Frustrated Teacher and another Suggestion for Educational Reform

Today's post on Knee Jerk Reactions is by a teacher who is frustrated by the frequent push for educational reforms. Check it out.

Banned Books Week, a Celebration against Censorship

Librarians and others celebrate the freedom to read during the Banned Books Week, reports the American Library Association on its website. Mining the site takes one to the list of nearly 50 most challenged novels, with links to sources for a list of 100--and the reasons the books were challenged. The reasons span from foreign governments banning a book for political reasons to the inclusion of profanity or other unacceptable words, sex, or violence that would make the book unsuitable for high school library use. The 50 listed on the web page are, for the most part, American classics: To Kill a Mockingbird, Slaughterhouse Five, Animal Farm, etc. Surprisingly, Lord of the Rings is on the list, as is Call of the Wild.

Librarians and other groups and citizens fought to keep the books available in libraries, even high school libraries in many instances. So they are. It is the American way to read provocative, controversial books and to reflect on our lives and future through the lens offered by such amazing authors.

Let's Keep Moving Forward, America!

Election time is upon us. Since this blog is monetized with merchants that prefer not to be identified with political views, I wish to invite you to read the blog comments posted elsewhere.

I also post comments on Facebook.

The Need for a New Grammar

I want to change the English language to make it easier for me to type. I want to spell Web as web; Web page as webpage; Web site as website; estore should be capitalized as eStore--as should all words with an e prefix that references something online; dates are more easily written as 23Aug10 or even 23aug10; caps should be seldom used; and sentences ending with URL's and email addresses should be allowed a space behind the .com . Think typing for the new age will change more than just the addition of emoticons?:)

While we're at it, why not put parenthetical info between comment tags so we can just cut and paste?<!- - why not? - ->

You've Been Warned, a video on Facebook

I have strong opinions about lots of things, but this blog is not politically- oriented. However, I have taken a political stance. To that effect, I invite you to read the latest posting on Knee Jerk Reactions.