AJC > Sandy Springs > Blog > Archives > 2007 > June > 04
Monday, June 4, 2007
Harry Potter and the real education issues
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If you’ve been clicking over to ajc.com’s Gwinnett County news you’ll see that Harry Potter is safe and sound on the shelves of the county school libraries. This in spite of several attempts by Gwinnett mom Laura Mallory to get them pulled because they supposedly promote “witchcraft and the occult.”
I will defend Ms. Mallory’s right to her opinion and full use of the system to try and achieve her goals. That said, I wish she’d shut up.
I personally don’t know Harry Potter. I tried reading the first book but gave up after six chapters because it didn’t ignite. I’ve seen a couple of the movies and likewise didn’t get into it.
My wife and kids have read all six, however, and I haven’t noticed any gurgling cauldrons, black cats or tributes to Satan around the house and those are the kinds of thing’s I’d notice.
Nonsense issues like this rear their heads from time to time and it bugs me because it takes time and mental oxygen away from real problems, whether in Gwinnett, Sandy Springs or anywhere else in Georgia served by the public school system.
We have kids moving through our school systems without acquiring the basic skills for life. Doesn’t that need more attention than some fictional kid from a place called Hogwarts?
We have kids going to class in trailers. Isn’t that more of a concern than the absurd notion that Harry Potter will lead to a generation of witches and warlocks.
We don’t having enough teachers to fill all the open slots. Shouldn’t we be more concerned about that than a work of fiction?
Should we also take “Gone with the Wind” out of libraries because some characters supported owning slaves? Do we take out Eldrige Cleaver’s “Soul on Ice” because it advocated the overthrow of the federal government? Ever count the number of n-bombs in the works of Mark Twain? And don’t get me started on the sexual perversity and homicidal violence in Shakespeare.
And while we’re at it, those Dr. Seuss books need a one-way ticket to Dumpsterville, too. First of all, Dr. Seuss was a pseudonym — what was that guy trying to hide, anyway? And the grammar in those books was atrocious — it promoted improper subject-verb agreement.
This kind of protest is like a carnival sideshow — diverting, maybe interesting but ultimately a waste of time.
