While I agree that TKM might not be the *best* vehicle for teaching high schoolers about segregation, given the perfectly valid complaint that it *is* a white savior narrative, lacks strong Black characters etc, I can’t disagree with the idea that that makes it inappropriate to teach strongly enough.
Kids shouldn’t just be exposed to uncontroversial books with ‘proper’ viewpoints and values, being able to critically look at a text and see where and how it succeeds and fails, identify whose narratives are being amplified or quieted. Harper Lee doesn’t have to be high school’s starting point for talking about race, but TKM can and should at least be an object lesson.
I think the committee came to a sensible decision, there might be better ways to structure high school lessons without TKAM, but I can’t help but feel kids are going to miss out.
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While I agree that TKM might not be the *best* vehicle for teaching high schoolers about segregation, given the perfectly valid complaint that it *is* a white savior narrative, lacks strong Black characters etc, I can’t disagree with the idea that that makes it inappropriate to teach strongly enough.
Kids shouldn’t just be exposed to uncontroversial books with ‘proper’ viewpoints and values, being able to critically look at a text and see where and how it succeeds and fails, identify whose narratives are being amplified or quieted. Harper Lee doesn’t have to be high school’s starting point for talking about race, but TKM can and should at least be an object lesson.
I think the committee came to a sensible decision, there might be better ways to structure high school lessons without TKAM, but I can’t help but feel kids are going to miss out.