No one is imposing it. She can opt out of the course. It’s totally voluntary.
I mean, you don’t get to sign up for ROTC and then opt out because militaristic stuff makes me uncomfortable; you don’t get to sign up for swim class and then demand an exemption from swimming because you have a water phobia; you can’t join the choir and then claim social anxiety makes it impossible for you to sing in public.
So is stamping your feet and insisting she’s a child. This is a girl who voluntarily enrolled in a college prep class to demonstrate that her intellect is already on a college level.
Exactly. She signed up to prove that she operates on a college level and has ended up proving the exact opposite. That’s perfectly fine but she should either drop the course or accept the F. I don’t know what she hopes to accomplish by whining about it, except maybe some media attention and admittance to a close-minded school that applauds her decision.
I presented the fact that she is a child. Stamping one’s foot is to ignore facts in place of personal feeling. And intellect is not related to, or is a function of, sexual maturity. I’ve met 10 year olds who were intellectually superior to most adults. They had above average IQ’s. That does not remove them from childhood.
This was a course taught to high school students, not a course that a high school student was taking in college. It should be age appropriate.
And there are Deans at some schools who would agree with you, and would also agree the same about reading about evolution or massacres during the Crusades and a host of other things that some would rather not read about.
A High School Senior is not a nine year old. And a person is not magically immature before their 18th birthday and mature the day after.
But hey, I’m a parent who encouraged his 15 year old to take figure drawing over Summer at the Art Institute knowing that it would include nudes. I think teens can handle sexual content if it is approached in a mature manner.
Though tell me, would allow her to opt out of an art class that included nudes or Zeus’s rape of Leda?
Why? I can understand saying that the school needs to offer alternatives that are age-appropriate by even the most conservative students–students, as has been pointed out, have to go to school. But they don’t have to take IB courses. So why should those classes offer only “age-appropriate” materials?
You’re trying to redirect this away from the subject of age appropriate material.
Using the same argument, a high school senior is not a mature adult upon reaching 18. We set arbitrary time lines to provide a buffer.
Your example doesn’t involve a school. If your child objected to the course you would find yourself on the wrong end of child services.
Just so you know, this completely cracked me up.
Thanks for linking to my blog post; lots of interesting discussion here about this whole topic. The St. Petersburg Times reported today that the school will allow Mari to read another book, although we don’t know yet which one.
Any ideas for her?
Because the school would be discriminating againts students who wish to excel. Consider a film class that uses A Clockwork Orange as a required movie critique. It’s a movie with iconic references that show up in cartoons like the Simpsons. It’s not appropriate IMO for a high school class yet I’m sure many kids have seen it and their heads didn’t explode.
Don’t interpret my view of what’s appropriate in this situation because I haven’t made one beyond the observation that the material discussed is, in fact, sexually explicit. My position here is that we have drawn a line that delineates child from adult. It doesn’t mean one is either depending on the age. What it means is that adults should defer to the age so as to protect those who wish to be protected. You do not ask a child to forward their sexual maturity. This is something that happens when it happens. I know woman who married as a virgin. I found out many years later that her sister was involved with an adult neighbor long before she turned 16.
I understand that you feel a 16 year old should be up to this book. I’m not disagreeing with you. However, I would consider it in the arena of literature to be sought out and not forced upon.
As a sidenote to this I meant to point out that none of my college literature books had anything graphic like this in it and it was anything but a conservative school. They were showing the movie Deep Throat as an after hours movie.
But they aren’t “forced”: they can take another, regular, English class. One advanced course more or less won’t make or break a college resume, and “Why I left the IB program” could be a great college essay. I mean, when my school schedules AP Euro up against AP Physics, meaning no one can take both, are we discriminating against those who “wish to excel”? When we require students in the musical to come to practice 20 hours a week, effectively excluding those that have jobs, are we discriminating against those who “wish to excel”? I really don’t see how this is any different–schools aren’t obligated to make all available opportunities equally palatable for everyone.
Once again, I can really reccomend this author. He’s very good. Nice to see something Japanese translated that’s modern, well written, and not manga.
… still fucked up, but that’s Japan.
Where did you get that idea? The vast majority of high school students are NOT adults.
It isn’t the age of the student that matters, it is the class level. A 10-year-old genius could skip to being a senior in high school, but that doesn’t mean high school seniors should only read material appropriate for 10-year-olds.
In this case, it is a senior class of advanced students about to go to college. They should be able to handle this material.
I don’t think the same book would be appropriate for a class of high school freshmen.
I admit it’s not going to go far as a factual argument, but when it comes to appreciating art and life, I don’t think “Eww, gross!” is going to get us very far. that’s all I’m saying.
I acknowledged this earlier.
Having read the thing in question - not the racy first chapter, the actual work itself - I don’t agree.
And I thought Potter Stewart was vague!
Your standard is far superior. “I know pornography when it makes other people uncomfortable.” Porn’s usually defined by the intent to titillate. I assure you this book, which in general is about, I don’t know, the entirety of postwar Japan, is not intended to arouse.
I suggested a few upthread. 
Manga aside, yes. I haven’t read anything else he’s done, but I was very impressed, and I’d put Wind-Up Bird Chronicle in the list of the top ten books I’ve read.
Different times and different schools. I read The Bluest Eye in high school - I don’t remember how graphic it is, but there’s definitely sex in there. I read Lolita in college and I think it’s incredible. Just a year or two ago my high school age brother was assigned Lucky by Alice Sebold. He didn’t read it, but my mother did and she just called it “horrible,” and “the most fucked up inappropriate book I ever read and worthless besides.” It’s about Sebold’s own rape in college. Of course, whether or not it’s explicit or inappropriate is all in the details…
Have you read Connie Willis’s short story “Much Ado About [Censored]” It’s a hoot.
The book I mentioned earlier wasn’t Lucky, it was Breath, Eyes, Memory.
Just so you know my current college freshman watched A Clockwork Orange as part of a High School class.
And no, I am not trying to “redirect from the question of age appropriate material”. I am discussing the very direct issue that I raised in my very first post in this thread: this is a HS class designed to be college level, designed to give these students a chance to prove that they can, already, rise to college level thought processes. True 'nuff that some 21 year olds cannot do that, hell, some 50 year olds can’t*, but this class is the chance to show that they can handle difficult material, material that challenges them. That they can approach these challenges with an open mind and come to independent judgments that they can support. Someone whose approach to material that on a superficial perusal (or by someone else’s word) is something that (s)he disagrees with is to refuse to even expose him or herself to it at all, fails that test.
*The same kid who took figure drawing was part of our family vacation with the grandparents to a Club Med in the Dominican Republic when he was eleven. A Club Med frequented by many from France which meant lots of topless bathing on the beach. The eleven year old was nonplussed, really more interested in his sand castles (no, he’s not gay, he is now a 23 year old bringing his girlfriend home to meet the folks from where he currently lives in Japan); Sixty-something Grandpa was tongue out and saying (loudly) “Boy look at those ones!”
Personally I think it takes big brass balls for a student to stand up to the administration like she did. I don’t really agree with her stance but I think it took some courage and it’s something she thought about. In the interest of promoting a diverse environment (which lots of colleges want to do these days) I might want her at my school. Besides, who is to say she doesn’t display intellectual curiosity in other areas of the curriculum? Just because other students jumped through the hoops their instructors told them to doesn’t make them any more curious.
Odesio
PS: I’m not bagging on those who jumped through the hoops. I certainly jumped through my fair share.
No, she’s not. And she’s not an adult either. She’s a teenager.