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Re: Surrey schools pull To Kill a Mockingbird and other books from recommended reading curriculum.

There is no logical reason to remove Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird from Surrey school district’s list of recommended books. While novels such as Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Colson Whitehead’s Nickel Boys are excellent, why can’t classics and contemporary books coexist on the same curriculum?

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Nickel Boys and To Kill a Mockingbird both deal with racial-profiling and injustice, and include graphic language and mature subject matter. In a senior English class, students could do a comparative study of the two books, examining the historical/social context in which they were both written. They would note the absence of a white saviour in Whitehead’s novel, and this could result in a meaningful discussion.

Let’s not deny classroom teachers the opportunity to draw from a diversity of authors and texts, enriching their students’ learning experience.

Natalie Hryciuk, Surrey

Twenty years ago I taught To Kill a Mocking Bird to students who had no idea regarding the racist history. Before teaching, I explained how hurtful and damaging language like the ‘N’ word is and this language had no place in any classroom.

I simply don’t understand how this book that is clearly anti-racist could be construed to be harmful.

Patti Milsom, Vancouver

The argument for removal of the classic novels like Mockingbird, and Of Mice and Men and others, is that it is to avoid trauma in reading offensive messages. These standards keep shifting, which limits necessary exposure in the expected protected environments of school.

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My view of such censoring of potentially difficult topics is it shouldn’t go ahead, but such reading should be reasonably open in schools for proper discussion of modern thinking in context of past standards.

The reality of negative life events and future experiences needs to be drawn out in safety, discussed fully and options brought forth in dealing with them. How else will one face the challenges of the future?

No matter what we try, there are always going to be difficult subjects and experiences, and we need to inculcate in the developing students healthy ways of coping with such.

John de Couto, Burnaby

Get vaccinated

Re: One in six Canadian parents against vaccinating their kids: Poll.

Re: Complacency fuels measles’ return. The only reason cases are rising is that vaccination rates are down.

Dr. Christopher Labos pointed out that too many people are complacent about vaccinations for infectious diseases because effective immunization has removed the disabled and those with diseases from our immediate experience.

The entry in The Canadian Encyclopedia for “disasters” notes that: “Before modern immunization programs and vaccines … thousands of deaths resulted from outbreaks of smallpox, cholera, typhus, influenza and other contagious diseases. In 1953, polio affected more than 8,000 Canadians, killing 481. The next year, with the Salk vaccine … the death toll fell to 157. Such progress has sometimes been difficult; compulsory vaccination for smallpox was bitterly opposed in Montreal until an 1885 outbreak claimed 5,864 lives and made vaccination respectable.”

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My mother contracted polio in the late 1920s and was lame and progressively more mobility impaired for the rest of her life. I was spared from polio by vaccination in 1954.

Get vaccinated.

D.B. Wilson, Port Moody

Re: Toxic drugs killed 198 in B.C. in January

Although the release of these monthly statistics is no longer surprising, what puzzles me is that with over 14,000 deaths from toxic drugs in B.C. in the past eight years since a public health emergency was declared, there hasn’t been a single charge of manslaughter laid against an importer, a manufacturer, a distributor, a dealer or a supplier of these poisonous substances.

Why not?

Richard Hoover, Delta

Canucks finally fall back to earth

I was wondering when the high-flying Canucks would come back to earth. Well, they finally landed last Thursday with a resounding thud. I have enjoyed so much watching them for the last five months; competitive and entertaining even when they lost. They’ve been slipping for the last two weeks, but last Thursday was a disaster.

There was nothing entertaining about their performance last Thursday unless you like tragic comedy.

Hope springs eternal and I’m hoping they recover from this devastating loss and get back on track, but knowing the Canucks I’m skeptical.

Garth M. Evans, Vancouver

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