Swearing in school literature

Best avoid Shakespeare in schools: seething with sex, violence, swearing, bawdy innuendo and all manner of inappropriate goings on .

I honestly can't envisage the wedge that has young peoe reading and critiquing, in an educative setting, a brilliant book like Curious Incident at one end and mass rape of underage girls at the other. Nor a continuum between said reading experience amongst teens and sexually abusive adults with warped views about children.

Agree with titchy.

Likewise if they were creative writing, and wanted to use it in dialogue, thats fine too.

OFSTED Fart Thread

Scone- I didn't see that thread but it only proves what we already know- some OFSTED inspectors are loons...

Year 8 are 12/13 though? And the book in question is about a teenager. Yes, I expect it could have waited til later in the year or even year 9 but it isn't THAT out of the way ifyswim.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Did anyone see the thread a few days ago in which the OP, a teacher, was talking about being told off by an OFSTED inspector because of a swear word (inspector's term, as I recall) in a piece of yr. 7 student writing in which the student quoted another student; the assignment was to write about an embarrassing incident.

The word was "fart."

Lottiedoubtie's point about being confronted with taboos and challenging material 'in an appropriate way'. I agree with this in principle.

The key word here is appropriate. That sort of material is not age appropriate. This is arguable I know but I have knowledge of child development and psychology (and criminology) and I can tell you straight that giving children of under around (probably older and yes it is elastic) 13 years referring to sexual content is not age appropriate.

It is sexualising children at too young an age and that is all part of a bigger problem which at the other end of the continuum leads to adults thinking 12 year old girls in crop tops are asking to be sexually exploited.

DoolallyM. I hope you have complained to the school. I don't think it is right that children not of an age to be able to contextualise or understand should be asked to speak or read words that many people consider deeply offensive.

My DD is in Yr 9, and she refuses to read out the swear words when she's reading aloud in class. The teacher tells her she shouldn't miss words out, but she's really uncomfortable with it.

She's not bothered? And yet you think it's the thin end of the wedge?

OP I agree with the majority here. Secondary school pupils can't be protected from the real world- education must educate them to live in society. So they need to be confronted with taboos, and challenging material in an appropriate way so that they develop understanding and resilliance.

My DD is in year 11. Came across this thread as in despair about gcse prep. and browsing topics.

Grief I am horrified!

I haven't read any of the books mentioned and neither has my DD (although possibly in class). She is proud to say she has never read a book but that is another story! It seems for GCSE English lang. and lit you are not actually required to read a book anymore.

I digress. If she came home with a book containing swearing to the degree mentioned and masturbation references/discriptions, I would complain to the school.

It's the thin end of the wedge in my book. The other end of the wedge is what is/has been happening in Manchester with child abuse. There is a loss of boundaries and concepts of what is acceptable and what isn't and people just let it go and think it is ok if you ignore it.

DD is studying (more like learning snippets by rote than studying actually - they haven't even read the whole play) Macbeth and WWI poetry and some of that is pretty strong stuff for 14 yr old girls. She is not bothered of course.

Mine both read that in primary: I didn't think it was a problem and it didn't prove to be one!

Curious Incident was on my son's recommended summer reading list in yr7.

I didn't think it was a big deal.

Well all I can say is wait until schools start teaching 'Pigeon English', a new GCSE text as approved by Gove, a replacement for To Kill a Mockingbird. I trialed it this term with my year 10's, they adored it, able pupils, I read it blushing. Even the woodpecker farts reduced them to hysterics and as for the playground game 'Suicide Bomber'.......

Aww. Disappointed. I thought this was going to be a thread where a headteacher is quoted in the school prospectus as saying something like, "this school is fucking amazing!"

Realistically, secondary school children are going to hear swearing - probably on a daily basis - so it wouldn't bother me if they were reading an excellent and age appropriate book that happened to contain swearing, IYSWIM.

Should be fine if used in context - eg 'when narrator says he's 'fucking scared' it shows x, y and z and the use of swear words serves to emphasise that.'

Saying 'narrator is fucking scared of the dog.' not ok as the word 'fuck' does not serve any purpose.