School to pull Ann Frank for 'explicit material'

[Srelex]

http://www2.starexponent.com/cse/news/l ... ext/51217/

Yay for harebrained fundie censorship!

[RedImperator]

You know, what the school is doing is fuckbrained enough. You don't have to try to make it seem worse with a misleading thread title.

“What we have asked is that this particular edition will not be taught,” Allen said from his office Wednesday morning. “I don’t want to make a big deal out of this. So we listened to the parent and we pulled it.”

Apparently, Anne’s father, Otto Frank, the sole survivor of the “Secret Annex,” felt the need to censor his daughter’s most intimate thoughts as well, eliminating about 30 percent of the original diary published in 1947.

He omitted parts where Anne criticized her mother and other Jews living in the confined quarters as well as some sexually suggestive references.

However, during the 50th anniversary of her death in a concentration camp, the Anne Frank Foundation published the unedited definitive version in 1995.

They're pulling the Definitive Edition. The edition that most of us have actually read is presumably what they will use from now on.

[Invictus ChiKen]

You know we never read that in my school, well the honor students did not the rest of us.

[Lonestar]

You know we never read that in my school, well the honor students did not the rest of us.

That's because you are in a craphole of a state.

[Alyrium Denryle]

You know we never read that in my school, well the honor students did not the rest of us.

That's because you are in a craphole of a state.

Yeah I agree. We read it back in the 7th grade...

[Lonestar]

Yeah I agree. We read it back in the 7th grade...

More to the point, I read it in middle school in two different school districts(The Defense Department school system, and the VA Beach school system) while my little brother read it in middle school in the San Francisco school system. How absolutely broken does your school system have to be that the Anne Frank Diary is considered "Honors"?

By the way, Culpeper(I assume that this is the school district in the OP, I didn't follow the link but I heard about it on the radio a few days ago), while considered on the edge of the DC Metro area, is pretty Rednecky. And they teach it.

[Invictus ChiKen]

Community College wasn't much better. My English and Grammar teacher spent more time trying to convert me to Christianity than teaching me what I needed to know...

[Alyrium Denryle]

Community College wasn't much better. My English and Grammar teacher spent more time trying to convert me to Christianity than teaching me what I needed to know...

You realize that is illegal right?

[Invictus ChiKen]

Community College wasn't much better. My English and Grammar teacher spent more time trying to convert me to Christianity than teaching me what I needed to know...

You realize that is illegal right?

Yeah I considered making a deal of it, but in this area well it would mean a lot of trouble for me.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Community College wasn't much better. My English and Grammar teacher spent more time trying to convert me to Christianity than teaching me what I needed to know...

You realize that is illegal right?

Yeah I considered making a deal of it, but in this area well it would mean a lot of trouble for me.

Not really. You buy a digital recorder. You record probably a months worth of this happening, and then you take action.

[Invictus ChiKen]

This was years ago. Today I'd record and youtube it on an anon account, might do that when I go back if it hasn't changed.

[hongi]

Who's read the full version? I have a few years ago, and I couldn't remember any bit that really stood out as explicit.

Can I just say that it struck me as incredibly strange that I was reading someone else's private diary. It was enough for me to almost not read the book after the first couple of pages.

[bobalot]

Citing a parent’s concern over the sexual nature of the vagina passage in the definitive edition, Allen said school officials immediately chose to pull this version and use an alternative copy.

Obviously, the scourge of teen pregnancy can be laid at the door of Anne Frank.

What state was this? Ah Virginia. What a surprise.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Who's read the full version? I have a few years ago, and I couldn't remember any bit that really stood out as explicit.

I never had to read it for school (you can only hit so many classics, and we did 'Night' by Ellie Wissel) but I've seen excerpts. There's some passages about her exploring her 'blossoming adolescece' as well as some erotic dreams.

[Ilya Muromets]

Well, as stupid as it all is, at least they won't be replacing it wholesale. The fundie school I teach in (out of pure financial necessity, and I hate it here), based on the so-called "Accelerated Christian Education" system from the USA, actually replaces it with this. I don't think they even acknowledge Anne Frank's book at all, as they call the linked book the "definitive look at the horror against Jew's in Nazi Germany."

Because it stars a nice Christian woman oppressed by the Nazis (proving that they were atheists :rolleyes: ) who showed true Christian courage by helping hide Jews. Y'know, instead of some Jew girl with dirty sexual fantasies. Okay, fine, she really did hide Jews in real life, good on her. However, I work in a fundie school where that book is used along with an accompanying lesson spiel on how the Nazis were evil atheists, so it always leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

[Darth Holbytlan]

Who's read the full version? I have a few years ago, and I couldn't remember any bit that really stood out as explicit.

Ditto here. Thanks to the wonders of the Texas education system, I never read the edited version, so I don't know exactly how it differs from the modern version. I honestly couldn't identify anything in it I would have expected to be edited out even then. Which goes to show how out-of-touch I am with American prudishness.

[General Zod]

The real hair-brained thing is they're changing it on the complaints of seemingly just one parent. Just fucking one. Apparently the school is managed by such spineless fuckholes that's all it takes. You'd think they would have asked other parents if they felt this was a concern at least, or given the student some sort of exemption instead of changing the fucking curriculum outright.

[Anguirus]

^ That's all it takes ANYWHERE in many places. I think one complaint led to the recent "dictionary banning."

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, the unedited diary is not necessarily the work one wants to use to introduce children to their "blossoming," as many 7th graders will not be at that stage of development yet, and even if they are they may be made very uncomfortable (I probably would have been).

On the other hand...I dislike that, as long as Otto Frank was going to share his daughter's most intimate thoughts with the world (Ms. Frank herself might have violently disapproved...but on the other hand it is the only work of a potentially great writer), that he chose to edit all of the references to sexuality in order to make her more pure. I find the restored passages (I'm not sure I've read them all, but I acted in a version of the play in high school that used a few of them) add to the completeness of her character and drive home her frustration with being trapped. At any rate, censorship to deliberately change how a work is viewed always sits ill with me, no matter who did it or what the intentions are.

Today I think the uncensored version is better, but if it hadn't been censored in the late '40s and '50s then it might never have become as popular in America (routinely assigned to 7th graders and all that) as it did.

It's not like we're talking about incredibly racy stuff, just a barely-adolescent girl talking about her body and her desires just as she talks about her views and day-to-day life. She is naive, yet her perspectives on everything seem to underscore her intelligence and maturity. But in America "we" like to keep our "sex" walled off from everything else. Blarg.

[Stark]

Why is this considered essential for grade 7s anyway? If censorship is bad, don't teach the book. What do kids lose in this scenario? I've sure never read this, and have no interest in doing so. Schools force kids to read a lot of shit that is dated, horrible, of little use to kids, whatever (trying to teach my 9th grade class Byron was a stupid idea).

[Serafina]

Why is this considered essential for grade 7s anyway? If censorship is bad, don't teach the book. What do kids lose in this scenario? I've sure never read this, and have no interest in doing so. Schools force kids to read a lot of shit that is dated, horrible, of little use to kids, whatever (trying to teach my 9th grade class Byron was a stupid idea).

I wouldn't regard it as essential. It is quite a good book to teach about a specific part of the Holocaust (which involved more than just jews, but lets not digress).
You can do that in a lot of other ways, but it should be done (IMO, at least).

I do not actually see this as "evil censorship". There is no need to use this particular book, not using it does not necessarily keep knowledge away from the kids (since it can be done in other ways) and it is quite possible that they will just use another edition anyway.

[Stark]

Well I'm with Angurius; the idea of using an abridged or censored edition rubs me the wrong way. But I'm surprised that the US is apparently addicted to Anne Frank; it's quite possible to learn about the holocaust without reading it, and if it's not suitable for children (lol) don't make it a required reading. The idea of cutting the book for the precious children because god knows Anne Frank was a perfect asexual angel is bizarre, since I wouldn't consider it a great historical resource anyway.

[TC Pilot]

From my experience, the school system has an obsession with teaching either the Holocaust or Civil Rights. I'm pretty sure I read Anne Frank in 5th grade and was assigned Night twice.

I'm also of the opinion that "inappropriate material" is a bullshit excuse, and indicative of a glaring incongruity in American society. It's ok to teach 7th graders about the greatest atrocity in human history, but not ok to have "sexually suggestive" language?

[loomer]

I remember reading an I think non-censored version of this for school back in like, maybe year nine, so more than a decade ago. Except we weren't reading it for history, we were reading it in English as an example of authorial perspective, and it never really came up in history at all.

[Zac Naloen]

Well I'm with Angurius; the idea of using an abridged or censored edition rubs me the wrong way. But I'm surprised that the US is apparently addicted to Anne Frank; it's quite possible to learn about the holocaust without reading it, and if it's not suitable for children (lol) don't make it a required reading. The idea of cutting the book for the precious children because god knows Anne Frank was a perfect asexual angel is bizarre, since I wouldn't consider it a great historical resource anyway.

We've been using the abridged censored version since it was originally released. The edits were done by her father when the books were first published.

I'd be surprised if anyone saying they've read this book unedited, actually read the unedited version.

[hongi]

I'd be surprised if anyone saying they've read this book unedited, actually read the unedited version.

The one I read was the definitive edition, meaning that it included the original bits.