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Slide 8 of 11
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Slide 8 of 11
“Hopelessness” is a worrisome topic. As you can see it can be measured by the degree of a book’s involvement in these topics: 1) A protagonist who is a victim of his circumstances but never in control as if to imply there can be no rational control over his own life. 2) A lack of ability to distinguish fact from fiction and therefore a lack of ability to act on fact or react to facts. 3) Demonstration of irrationality but never rational thinking which by nature or definition is problem solving. 4) The creation of irrational fears which have no solution. 5) A protagonist who demonstrates only self-isolation and never demonstrates community or family living. 6) A protagonist who is so devoid of coping mechanisms that his only solution is suicide. These themes of hopelessness are abundant in each of these seven books, although not every theme is in each book.
Policy 1710 entitled “Board of Directors” and tells us the goal of public schools: I quote from the policy “ The board recognizes that the primary mission of the Washington common schools is to assure learning experiences to help all children develop skills and attitudes fundamental to receiving individual satisfaction as responsible, contributing citizens.” (See excerpts of District Policies and District Curricula)
Hopelessness is one of the most dangerous and damaging attitudes to be promoted. If it is adopted it leads only to destruction and often times it ends in the destruction of both the hopeless individual as well as members of his community.
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Before we wrap this up, we need to guide you back to a flawed document that was produced through a flawed process, which resulted in the adoption of some unacceptable texts into our Language Arts curriculum. The document is the Language Arts High School Teacher’s Instructional Guide. In this guide, on page 2, the 3rd reason “why” it is important for our students to study literature is because “IT PROVIDES VICARIOUS EXPERIENCES BEYOND THE POSSIBILITIES OF ANYONE’S LIIFETIME TO SEE OTHER HUMANS IN OTHER TIMES AND OTHER PLACES.”