Of Mice and Men: Classic US novel taken off GCSE course in Wales
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cge922jn1z8o
Posted by UnlikeTea42
Of Mice and Men: Classic US novel taken off GCSE course in Wales
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cge922jn1z8o
Posted by UnlikeTea42
26 Comments
[deleted]
Let’s add an extra layer of cotton wool around those kids. We don’t want them reading anything challenging do we, otherwise Tarquin will throw another fit.
I wonder what they’ll replace it with since it isn’t mentioned, but I’m there’s plenty of other options out there that could no doubt easily replace it. I wonder if the people who’ll get upset over this got upset when it was removed in England in 2014.
The only reason it was ever on the list in the first place is that it has obvious themes and is easy to write about.
There’s plenty of British stuff they could add instead anyway (*The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner* comes immediately to mind).
>It employed an anti-racism consultant “to help us ensure our qualifications reflect a modern and inclusive Wales” and consulted with a broad range of organisations, the spokesperson added.
No doubt that consultant made a killing on Welsh taxpayer money too…
In reality, they have chosen new works to reflect the modern world. The article even mentions ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ is also not in the new selection.
This same story gets rehashed every few years so some right-wingers can claim the left want to burn books or some shit.
One of the few bits of GCSE English I enjoyed and remember, the rest was a waste of time.
Replace Of Mice and Men with Watership Down. It’s got rabbits. Everyone likes rabbits
> Wales’ Children’s Commissioner Rocio Cifuentes welcomed the move and said that having to discuss the book in class had been “psychologically and emotionally” harmful for some black children.
Well we certainly wouldn’t want black children learning about historical injustices, would we? No let’s wrap them in cotton wool and pretend it never happened. /s
Isn’t this whitewashing?
A story that culminates with a man who ultimately has to make the decision to “put down” his mentally disabled best friend before he is captured by police or vigilantes.
“Are we banning it because this sort of content might be a bit too grown up for children to understand?”
“No. Children are perfectly capable of having complex emotions and can understand these nuanced scenarios”
“Why ban it then?”
“They might get upset because it’s got racist words in it?”
“Won’t the children understand that this is a product of its time and society’s ignorance towards people like Lenny with mental disabilities could also indicate a society that is ignorant to black people? Does it not give more context to the story?”
“But it has racist words”
I honestly don’t believe OMAM did anything to my class’ understanding of race relations and tolerance. Only that it’s ok to write the N word in quotations.
This was 10 years ago. I think, generally young people are more aware of these things (and wilfully intolerant now, maybe, but that’s a different discussion), this particular text isn’t of so much benefit now.
Still my favourite booked. Loved reading it at school
Not one black person is offended by this. But a white person decided to ban it for these imaginary offended black people. White privilege god complex much.
Presumably the same people who said dogs are a barrier to BME people going to the welsh countryside?
It’s not been on the English course in England for years. We studied it in y10 but then did a different book for the GCSE’s
That was the only book I’ve ever read that I enjoyed. I’ve told everyone I know over the years to read it. This just makes me sad
“An’ have rabbits. Go on, George! Tell about what we’re gonna have in the garden and about the rabbits in the cages and about the rain in the winter and the stove, and how thick the regulations is on books like you can hardly let a child have a feeling anymore in case it hurts them. Tell about that, George.”
It’s a shame, it was my favourite book when I studied it and people make references to it all the time
Remove this, replace it with the grapes of wrath.
Oh wait, depictions of extreme poverty and corporate avarice would probably be considered “terroristic”.
Remove this, replace it with the grapes of wrath.
Oh wait, depictions of extreme poverty and corporate avarice would probably be considered “terroristic”.
A commenter on this thread thinks preventing discomfort is a good enough reason to get rid of the book. They particularly emphasize black kids because of the book’s use of the n-word, perhaps unaware that the book presents it either as vicious bullying or as an ordinary expression, and certainly doesn’t celebrate it.
Causing discomfort, with a point, is the purpose of all good serious literature. That’s not a ‘good enough’ reason, or even a reason at all.
Some of these comments baffle me coming from presumably literate adults.
In the novel even ‘good’ characters call Crooks the n-word, while being otherwise sympathetic to him, and Crooks himself conducts himself with literate dignity, but also with a nasty streak, as he viciously torments Lennie, a child-like victim of a society with no effective provision for conditions like his.
Similarly, Curley’s wife is clearly a victim herself, of misogyny, but weaponises her white womanness to threaten Crooks with lynching with a mere word. If that discomforts white girls, so be it?
The book is at pains to paint a grey picture of flawed humanity, relevant for all times and places, and does so at an accessible level of vocabulary and structure for Year 8-9. It’s got a great combo of easily understandable main points with some potential for deeper analysis.
While it isn’t set in the Welsh valleys in 2024, some commenters may be surprised, even shocked, to learn that kids are capable of learning about things which aren’t in their immediate sphere of reference. Amazing.
That’s the exact same cover and version that I used in school.
Good, I found it offense, offensively boring,that is.
Teacher here. As the kids say “it’s not that deep”
Lot of people getting all het up over this when probably the teachers at the school were thinking: “thank god, I’ve been teaching this for years and now I get to teach something else”.
I loved teaching Of Mice and Men, but wasn’t sad to see it go at my school a few years ago. Funnily enough it was because another teacher would insist on saying the n word out loud and kept getting complaints. We’d been increasingly uncomfortable about it for a number of years because of Lennie and the portrayal of metal illness and that teacher gave us the push we needed, although for a different reason.
There are thousands of potential books to teach.
A lot of angry people here who haven’t read a book since their own English course not reading the article as per usual.
Being removed from the course because it tends to lead to other kids singling out black students and using it as an excuse to say racial slurs outside reading the book, not because the book has been deemed racist. Don’t know if anyone actually remembers school but having the entire class start shooting you stares when they see the N word coming up and it being the topic of discussion for the next few days probably isn’t a great experience for statistically the ~1.8 black teenagers in your average classroom of 30
Nothing to stop kids who want to read it, picking a copy up at the library.
I hated it in school, so I’m glad about this. The issue isn’t that it features racism. My biggest issue is that there are no female characters worth mentioning. None that are referred to by name and have dialogue anyway.
I found the characters to be little more than caricatures and very thin. There’s no real insight into them as complex human beings.