Why are you speechless? There are racial slurs in the text

Aaarrrggghhhhhh! Next it will be To Lill a Mockingbird. Or have they already banned that too?

I didn’t understand this until I heard a black student talking about how horrific it was to be made to read it. I removed it from our curriculum, as it was being taught at KS3. I’m white: I don’t get to say what’s racist and what’s not so I listen to people who do.

There are plenty of books without racism, how about studying those?

It was written in 1937, I’m sure there have been other suitable novels in the intervening years that can be used. If anything it’s an opportunity to shake up the curriculum.

The thing is, because it's been dropped from GCSE by Government ages ago, most schools just dropped it down to ks3 - the issue there is level of ability to engage with the subtlety of a writer depicting of-its-time racism/sexism/agism/ableism in a way that doesn't appear to *obviously* challenge it, and is overly confronting for their age. It's relentlessly miserable; extracts will do. I absolutely think students need to be challenged and think widely but repeated slurs isn't it.

Did you read the article? Black pupils felt intimidated and embarrassed by racial slurs - including where one was the only black pupil in class. I don't agree with censorship nor hiding the past but in this situation, especially where kids can be mean it is appropriate. Listen to the pupils.

Because it's such an old book, it is isn't relevant in time or place to the kids studying it. You can deal with the issues around racism without the slurs and uncomfortable language in that book.