Banned Books

Discussion of banned books over at Pen.org:

596 Books Banned by Department of Defense Schools Include Titles on Democracy, Feminism, Racism

Dear John Letter: In Which Leo Klein Turns Down 'History' in Favor of 'Multimedia' (Circa 1997)

I came upon of slew of emails I had written while at NYU in the mid-to-late 90's. I hadn't seen them for years. Here's one from 1997. In it, I'm telling the Grad Adviser from NYU's History Dept. that I'm dumping him in favor of the far more attractive "Multimedia" Program at NYU's 'Interactive Telecommunications Program" (ITP):

Dear Mr. W*:

You were assigned as my adviser, so I guess you're the one to whom I should address this message.

The gist of it is that I am a new grad student in the History department. Over the summer however I had a moment of epiphany while taking an intense course in multimedia. It was something I found intensely rewarding and when the course ended (a week ago, by the way) I felt like a kid at the amusement park when a really good ride is over. In other words, I wanted it to continue or at least for me to pursue something similar. Since then, I heard that Tisch offered a program in this area called the Interactive Telecommunications Program. So I ran over there and spoke with a Mr. G* who told me to come back on Friday, Aug. 29.

I'm not exactly sure what's going to happen on Friday except I think he may be able to sign me up for two courses. I won't be an official student there of course since I've succeeded in missing every deadline for application possible and will have to wait till next year to be officially entered into the program.

I know this is rather pathetic--much like being engaged to be married and then falling in love with another woman. It's particularly awkward since I don't know exactly what I am supposed to do or how to go about doing it other than I want to somehow be involved with that program at Tisch. After I meet with Mr. G* again on Friday, I'm sure I'll have a clearer idea.

Sincerely, LEO

Sun-Times on Solutions to Failing Schools

The Sun-Times gets school reform right in this editorial:

There are lots of ways to improve failing schools. Charters are one way, but so is investing in traditional schools by offering smaller class sizes, better teachers, financial incentives for teachers and a longer school year. There is no single solution. Pretending otherwise is just as harmful as pretending that scores have gone up miraculously when we know they have not.

[h/t CapitolFaxBlog]