And just as important, is they learning the right things?
Sometimes I wonder about the books we use in our classes. For the most part, they’re fairly normal – grammar concepts, dialogues and exercises. Pretty standard fare for an English text, really. It’s the storybooks that worry me.We use a series from Oxford Press called “Oxford Storyland Readers.” There are 48 books in this series and there are 12 levels, each getting progressively harder to read. Most of them are pretty normal, but there are a few that seem to get a bit “preachy.” And not “preacher in a pulpit” preachy, but more like “this is how we think you should act” preachy. Now, if it’s golden rule kind of stuff, I’m okay with that. But some of them have weird little subplots. There’s one about a prince that’s really about nutrition and eating right called “The Fat Prince and the Angry Man.” The Angry Man is angry because the people in his village drove him off by always laughing at him for being thin and ugly. The Fat Prince is fat because his father (the King) won’t let him go outside and play with the village children, but will let him gorge on cake and ice cream all day.
Of course, the two meet when the Fat Prince sneaks out to play with the village children. The token poor fat kid, Podd, leads them all into the forest where the Angry Man lives. The Angry Man appears and the kids run, fearing that the Angry Man will eat them. (I’m not sure how the whole “cannibal” aspect got into the story, but it’s there.) The Fat Prince is too fat to run fast, so the Angry Man catches him and forces him to work at his cabin – chopping wood, sweeping, cleaning and gardening. And every evening they eat a healthy, well-balanced meal. They become friends despite the whole kidnapping and slave labor thing and eventually return to the palace together. Everybody is happy to see them. The villagers are stunned to see the Fat Prince so skinny and the Angry Man so happy. Even Podd is impressed, and he wants to get slim too.
Now, what’s missing?
For one, how about the King calling for this fucker’s head for kidnapping his son and forcing him into a life of slavery? And are the villagers really thrilled with the Angry Man now being the Happy Man? They’re the ones who made him angry in the first place! He’s still ugly and skinny. What’s to keep the cycle from starting all over again? I don’t think that village is going to remain such a happy place for long. I see the villagers getting pissed at the Happy Man for still being ugly and skinny, driving him off once again and filling their children with newer and more gruesome cannibal stories. And then they’ll blame the Slim Prince for bringing the Angry Man back to the village, so there’s probably going to be a peasant revolt before too long. They’ll kill the Prince and King, burn the palace and then become slaves for the neighboring country after they invade, having seized the opportunity created by the death of the King.Of course, I’m reading a lot into this that the kids would never dream of. I know that. But what about the stuff that’s too obvious to miss.
What if there were pictures?
Well, there are. The ones in the preceding story are pretty tame, so we’ll use another book for this example – “Save the Animals!”
That sounds like a nice story, right? People working to keep animals from harm. Maybe it’s about a vet? Or a special “animal rescue” team that gets cats out of trees and foxes or bunnies out of snares?
Or maybe it’s about poachers…
Yes, that image is from a children’s storybook, meant to be used in schools.
What. The. Fuck?!?
No, seriously. What sick bastard thought that belonged in a book for schoolchildren? I’m not one of those “won’t somebody think of the children!” assholes, but even I think this is a bit much.
A dead rhino? Complete with bloody gunshot wound, freshly sawn-off horn and a blood pooling around it? Come on! And that’s before you add the grinning poachers, forlorn rhino’s mate and trailer with other rhino horns (implying a bloody trail of death across the savannah).
I can’t imagine who thought this was a good idea. Or who agreed with the first guy and signed off on it. Didn’t somebody, somewhere along the way think to say, “hey guys, are you sure this is the right kind of picture for a kids’ book?”
It’s stuff like this that led me to the “preachy” thing I mentioned earlier. Apparently, getting kids to learn English isn’t enough for the folks at Oxford Press. No, they want to raise “good citizens” who respect endangered species and eat right.
Whatever.
How about you just stick to telling an entertaining story that’ll get kids to retain some new vocabulary? Is that not enough for you? Do you think I’m going to try and rally the kids to your “cause?” Not likely. I’m more liable to tell the kids things you’d rather I didn’t. When they ask, “why did they cut off the horn?” I’ll mention the lucrative trade in ivory. (I’ll leave our the aphrodisiac part, though.) When they ask, “do they only take the horn?” I’ll tell them about the delicacy of rhino steaks, and how the poachers are going to enjoy a delicious dinner after a busy day of killing endangered species. And really, it’s not so bad to kill off an endangered species. I mean, if there’s so few of them left, they’re likely to get lonely, and it’d be better for them to be in rhino heaven than sad and alone on earth, right?
Okay, I wouldn’t do that. But it would be amusing (and worthwhile) to try and derail all the brainwashing you’ve spent so much time engineering into your storybooks.
^.^
(Oh, if you like the picture, and would like to have it as a desktop, you can get it here, in a 1024×768 resolution .jpg file.)