Concerns over sex content leads Florida schools to pull Shakespeare
By: Tampa Bay Times
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The big story: After Florida adopted its Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking standards in 2020, the Department of Education distributed recommended reading lists it said included "top of the line literary works with world renowned titles."
Authors on the high school list included William Shakespeare.
Three years later, some Florida school districts are shying away from Shakespeare, along with other classic and popular materials. They say they're attempting to comply with new state law restricting books with and instruction about sexual content.
Hillsborough County became the latest to take this step, telling teachers they could assign excerpts of plays such as "Romeo and Juliet," but not the full text.
"I think the rest of the nation — no, the world, is laughing us," Gaither High teacher Joseph Cool said after learning of the directive. "Taking Shakespeare in its entirety out because the relationship between Romeo and Juliet is somehow exploiting minors is just absurd." Read more here.
The availability of books has become a regular flash point for Florida's public schools. Groups of parents have pushed to get some materials removed, while other groups have pushed just as hard to keep as many titles available as possible.
In Lake County, the removal of "And Tango Makes Three" landed the district in a lawsuit earlier this year. This week, the Lake district said the book is no longer banned, making the lawsuit challenging its removal moot, News Service of Florida reports. District officials said they returned the book after learning the state Department of Education explained that laws restricting instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation do not apply to independent reading material.
Meanwhile, a growing number of titles are under review in Northeast Florida school districts, WJAX reports.
School districts are spending tens of thousands of dollars reviewing and cataloguing books to meet the state laws, Politico Florida reports. Media specialists have been scrutinizing millions of books, WKMG reports.
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Ron DeSantis has succeeded in turning himself into a national laughingstock.
There are those who say different about Shakespeare but that's a whole other seed.
Sure hate to see DeSantis do to the U.S.A. what he's been doing to Florida.
Shakespeare is much too deep for DeSantis and his minions and that reminds me of Shakespeare quote.
"Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown."
Cassius asserts to Brutus that they have allowed themselves to sit at the feet of a colossus, and it is up to them to effect the necessary change. Much like those who kowtow to DeSantis, the would-be Caesar.
And thus it has ever been.
And the clown show rolls on. Now, if a kid wants to use a nic name, such as Tom for Thomas he has to have his parent's permission before the school will allow it.
Perhaps we can force Dimwit DeSantis to get mommy's permission to use ''Ron'' instead of Ronald or Ronaldo.
''Show me the permission slip Ronald''...LOL
One day my granddaughter woke up and found herself living in the Soviet Satellite country of Florida.
She cannot refer to herself as she/her or any of the many nicknames she goes by in the family or at school.
She's not allowed to like Disney or admit to any Disney movies she has seen or been gifted.
Half of her wardrobe is now verboten in favor of hot pink Barbie BS.
She asked me if I understood this curious collision called the First Amendment free speech clause
which an ex President claims as a defense to say anything he pleases while her current Governor
makes "woke" illegal and threatens teachers and students alike with fines and penalties for speaking their minds.
How on earth do we elect these clowns time after time?
Are you confusing Russian with German?
It's a wonder but we do and do it again and again.
Having majored in English Literature in university I am becoming astonished by what is happening to the education system in the USA. I am going to beg my son who lives in Wyoming with his young family to send his young kids to private boarding schools in Toronto, where they will be watched over by their aunt and grandmother who live in Toronto. If I could afford it, but limited by having to survive on my pensions, I would have paid for it to make sure my grandchildren can obtain a proper education.
Now they're going after Shakespierre? Let's keep them dumb and down on the farm?
Of course it's only Romeo and Juliet today (that's to ward off my fan club) but tomorrow it will be MacBeth because of the witches.
Sex is one of the strongest instinctual urges that people have. Denying it does not prevent it. In fact, there's pretty strong evidence that denying it creates sexual predators.