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Hands off poetry!
Over 700 teachers, students and parents have signed the petition. Read and sign the petition.
I am a student aged 15, and I strongly oppose the ban on the poem education for leisure. The poem deals with one of many issues that need to be brought to light, in a grabbing and interesting way. It does seem that anything slightly out-of-joint or politically incorrect, is suddenly banned, or kept from prying eyes. And to be frank, it infuriates me. Helen Jones Professionals have got to stand up for themselves and not accept interference from people who have no idea what they are talking about. Lucy Nankivell I spent 24 years as HM Inspector of schools. English was my specialist subject. A ban on a poem because someone does not approve of its subject matter is fundamentally wrong. It is also based on a stupid view of teaching literature. One of the reasons for teaching literature is to enable pupils and students to experience controversy and to encounter aspects of human experience that are new to them. The pupose of an examination board should be to encourage good teaching and to raise standards, not to dictate what can and connot be read in the course of literary education. David Halligan No understanding of the purpose of poetry. No understanding of teenagers. No understanding of teachers. No understanding of classrooms. No understanding. Alban O'Brien Education for Leisure Today I am going to kill something. Anything. I have had enough of being ignored and today I am going to play God. It is an ordinary day, a sort of grey with boredom stirring in the streets I squash a fly against the window with my thumb. We did that at school. Shakespeare. It was in another language and now the fly is in another language. I breathe out talent on the glass to write my name. I am a genius. I could be anything at all, with half the chance. But today I am going to change the world. Something's world. The cat avoids me. The cat knows I am a genius, and has hidden itself. I pour the goldfish down the bog. I pull the chain. I see that it is good. The budgie is panicking. Once a fortnight, I walk the two miles into town For signing on. They don't appreciate my autograph. There is nothing left to kill. I dial the radio and tell the man he's talking to a superstar. He cuts me off. I get our bread-knife and go out. The pavements glitter suddenly. I touch your arm. Mrs Schofield's GCSE [the poem which Carol Ann Duffy penned in response to the banning of 'Education for Leisure'] You must prepare your bosom for his knife, said Portia to Antonio in which of Shakespeare's Comedies? Who killed his wife, insane with jealousy? And which Scots witch knew Something wicked this way comes? Who said Is this a dagger which I see? Which Tragedy? Whose blade was drawn which led to Tybalt's death? To whom did dying Caesar say Et tu? And why? Something is rotten in the state of Denmark - do you know what this means? Explain how poetry pursues the human like the smitten moon above the weeping, laughing earth; how we make prayers of it. Nothing will come of nothing: speak again. Said by which King? You may begin. |
Teacher and Manifesto Club member, Michele Ledda, launched a petition against the banning of Carol Ann Duffy's poem, 'Education for Leisure'. The exam board AQA has removed the poem from its GCSE anthology, and has asked schools to destroy old copies containing the poem, because it supposedly glorified knife crime.