books and teachers

[phinnia]

I fail to comprehend why Where's Waldo is on the banned/challenged books list. I mean, what is wrong with Waldo?
Seriously, I have no idea why half of them are on there.

I had a computer science professor who we shall call Phil Ventura (because that was his name) who had several fundamental laws about the world as he saw it.
I loved this guy. I remember one random day when people kept coming into class late and it was obviously pissing him off, and he turned to the class and said, "the next person that comes in that door is getting a great big hug".
And of course, some poor ESL student walks in, and Ventura stops lecturing, walks over to him and gives him a huge hug.
...
I just realized that a portion of the character of Ross Matthews was probably based on this weirdo.
But anyway, Ventura had fundamental laws about life.
1. Other people suck.
2. We are all fundamentally lazy.
3. Our stuff is always better than anyone else's stuff.
I've found them often true over the years. Not always. But often. Too often for my own comfort.
Phil rocked. Anyone that used headless snowboarders to demonstrate concepts is cool in my book.
I had a math teacher once that used sheep to demonstrate types of numbers. It got interesting when she got into fractional sheep or negative sheep. (They got eaten. Or died and they had to borrow more sheep to get their breeding stock back. Just so's you know.)

Comments

[ratlyn.livejournal.com]

I know that Waldo sometimes had to be spotted among some rather un-PC settings, like the Crusades. Maybe that was it.

[jillsmyth.livejournal.com]

That is a repulsive list. I just read through the entire Anastasia Krupnik series and I fail to think of any reason why someone would want to ban it.

Now I'm all huffy and upset. Grrrr stupid people.

[dawnstar.livejournal.com]

Anastasia is banned?? I knew there was a reason I haven't read through that list. I loved those books as a kid. She and Ramona Quimby were my literature-based heros up until I found the Sweet Valley High series! :)

Re: unconventional teaching methods (from original post)... I love those. I think anyone who can take a subject and revamp it in such a way as to make people understand it or make it less boring or whatever needs to be done has an amazing gift.

[jillsmyth.livejournal.com]

Not banned. This is a list of the books that are most often challenged (people think they should be banned). Fortunately, there are more sane people in the world and most of these challenges get knocked down.

[kareila]

We actually discussed this at my housewarming party, I think someone googled and found something that said there was a topless girl on a beach or something like that hidden in one of them.

[janinedog]

Yup, that was the (apparent) reason for its banning.

[phinnia.livejournal.com]

Is there actually a website somewhere that lists the reasons? I can't find anything on the ALA site.

[janinedog]

There's a bunch on http://solonor.com/bannedbooks/

That's where I found the reason for Where's Waldo:

http://solonor.com/bannedbooks/archives/001808.html

[phelyan.livejournal.com]

Good Gods... half of those would go on my list of books I'd recommend anyone should read...

[sarvodaya.livejournal.com]

I looked at that list-wow!
Are those in order, like number one being the most challenged??

Well I am surprised, I shouldn't be, but I am.

Thanks for posting that.

ANd yeah, quit suppressing WALDO! We want to find him-ha ha