Le Bas Bleu

Critique

2005-05-11T13:58:00.000-07:00

This is my critique of Laura's paper:

Laura –

I really enjoyed reading this! All three of the books are ones that I love and it’s very interesting to think about the common themes they share. There are so many universal archetypes and so much symbolism in children’s literature; those literary devices are so common that I think they reveal a lot about our culture and the ways we think about children.

Your analysis is very strong; there are lots of details to support your arguments. You obviously spent a lot of time reading and searching out little facts in all three books; that attention to detail is really important. I would have liked to see more about criticisms of the books – some of them are very revealing, especially the ones about Matilda. I would be curious to see if there were any other specific criticisms made against the books. The idea of an adult-child conflict shows up in so many classic kids’ books, and it’s interesting how adults sometimes take offense at that. They don’t seem to realize that they’re doing exactly what the author is making fun of! I’m also glad that you touched on the religious objections to the magic in Harry Potter. Almost all great kids’ books have at least a little element of fantasy.

As far as gender goes – I know you couldn’t possibly have found room to cover it, but in some of the later Harry Potter books, it’s interesting to see how Rowling characterizes female villains, especially members of the Slytherin Quidditch team. They’re nearly always stupid, slow, cruel, and usually physically unattractive – even a little butch, for lack of a better word.

The discussion of materialism is also significant – villains in kids’ books are almost always rich, unimaginative, self-centered, etc, and the heroes are usually smart, creative, poor, and socially isolated underdogs. I wonder if that says more about the ways we think about children in our society or about writers and the ways they think about their childhoods!

The only real problem I see is in the mechanics. There are a few problems with verb tense, sentence fragments and minor grammar issues, but for the most part they don’t hide your meaning. The organization is mostly strong – you have a clear introduction and compare the same issues in all three books, but the conclusion seems a little weak. I get the impression that you didn’t want to just restate the thesis but weren’t sure how to go about it. I always have trouble with conclusions, too, so the only advice I can give you is to go to the Writing Center if you get stuck. They can usually get you out of a rough spot.

Hope this is helpful – kudos on the detailed analysis, but work on those grammar issues. A great paper! I’d give it a B or a B+ based on those two balancing factors.

- Sarah

Draft 2...or is this the final? Eep...

2005-04-28T16:38:00.000-07:00

I just emailed my second draft to Prof Petrik, along with Ann's critique of my first draft (which had some very useful comments about clearing up my thesis, which I hope I've done).

First Draft

2005-04-18T07:21:00.000-07:00

Prof Petrik has my first draft; I switched papers with Ann for the critique. The citations and conclusion still need some work, I know, but otherwise it's in more or less its final form.

My ridiculous 2-page single-spaced outline

2005-04-09T09:44:00.000-07:00

I don't really write in a very organized fashion, so there are a few places in here where I just started throwing quotes around and writing paragraphs. The introduction is about halfway done, but lacks formal references.

Outline

I. Introduction
Thesis: The second half of the twentieth century witnessed the rise – and by some accounts, the fall – of publicly funded sexual education. Classroom methodology changed relatively little from the beginning of World War II to the end of the Clinton era; it might be said that “[t]he chief message of almost all twentieth-century sex education amounts to ‘Just Say No.’(Carter)”.

Prior to the post-World War II era, most sexual education was undertaken privately and in the home, if at all. The earlier part of the twentieth century witnessed the rise of the intertwined public hygiene and birth control movements, both of which sometimes called for universal and publicly funded education. Heavily influenced by the eugenics movement, the earliest sex education advocates sought to eradicate venereal disease and prevent the reproduction of hereditary defects more than any personal fulfillment for young people.
Lesson plans and curricula tend to reflect regional moral ideals and authorial bias as much as larger historic and cultural events. The field’s responsiveness to political shifts was also sometimes hampered by an immobilizing caution: fearful of anti-sex education activists, teachers provided outdated biology and espoused long-discredited philosophies. As late as 1968, H. Frederick Kilander’s textbook for future sex educators lists “uneugenic marriage” as a “pathological aspect” of post-adolescent development (Kilander 9).
Reference: Carter, Kilander, Moran, Campbell

II. 1941 - 1968: Public Hygiene, Eugenics, and Changing Ideals

A. The earliest government-approved sex education appeared in a perhaps unsurprising form – the education of the United States army against the expected onslaught of European venereal disease.
Reference: Irvine, Campbell, Moran

B. Post-war America perceived a need to provide children with a sanitized version of “the birds and the bees” – often literally, with textbooks explaining animal or invertebrate reproduction but making no connection to the human version. Even these faltering early attempts were considered rather daring and did not become widely available until well into the 1960s. As the Boomers came of age, their push against traditional sexual mores made sex education both more vital and more visible.

“‘We are all in a period in which the sexual mores are changing,’ Kirkendall told the Association for Higher Education in 1964. ‘We have, therefore, a choice to make. Will the changes occur through a war of attrition, a sort of guerilla in-fighting, with youths engaged in a kind of civil disobedience campaign and the adults in essence refusing to acknowledge that any issue exists?’(Moran 166)”
Reference: Glassock, Campbell, Moran

C. 1963 founding of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) by Mary Calderone – “claimed that sex education’s purpose was not to force sexual standards on anyone but merely to make information available to help young people and adults reach their own decisions” (Moran 162).”

D. Current course materials: reference Kirkendall and Campbell

III. 1968 – 1981: The Sexual Revolution and “Education for Love”

A. 1968 as a watershed year in public discourse on sex education –
1. “‘America seems to have suddenly discovered an urgent need for sex education,’ John Kobler reported in 1968, ‘and is galloping off in all direction at once to meet it.’” (Moran 168 - 169)
2. The year 1968 also represented the beginning of the conservative backlash
Reference: Griffin and Schneiders, Campbell, Moran

B. Current course materials
Reference: Schulz, Gendel

IV. 1981 – 2000: Confronting AIDS and the Moral Majority

A. 1981 Adolescent Family Life Act (“Chastity Act”)
1. The first federal gag rule for sex education programs discussing any options besides abstinence, the AFLA “mandated abstinence education and units promoting ‘self-discipline and responsibility in human sexuality’ in the sex education programs it did fund (Moran 204).”
Reference: Tatum, Moran 204-205, and the AFLA legislation
2. Privately sponsored “chastity movement”
Reference: Kirkendall

B. AIDS:
1. Changing public discourse about AIDS and sex education – Anti-sex education activists altered their language to recognize the necessity of sex education, but only on their terms.
Reference: Planned Parenthood opinion survey, Guttmacher Institute opinion survey, Haffner, and Moran 205 - 211
2. Changing course materials
Reference: Burt and Meeks, Bruess and Greenberg

V. Conclusion

A. By the late 1990s, children’s sexual education had come full circle with a return to explicit promotion of chastity and disease prevention.
Reference: Moran, Irvine, Carter

A Bibliography...kind of.

2005-04-07T11:47:00.000-07:00

This is what I assembled so far; the only things I'm short on are journal articles - most (but by no means all) of them deal with political analysis of sex ed rather than its history. I also cannot find any information anywhere on citation of public opinion surveys and legislation - I have several instances of these that I just left floating around in the text of the bibliography.

The other problem, sadly, is that one of my main sources just came in the mail yesterday. I have a preliminary outline but it will need to be reworked with some of the juicier tidbits from the new book.

I will be very, very happy if I never see the Library of Congress again.

Primary Sources:

Griffin, M. D., & Schneiders, A. A. (1970). Manual on Sex Education For Elementary Grades 5-6. Commonwealth of Massachusetts Division of Communicable and Venereal Diseases,
Public Attitudes About Sex Education, Family Planning, and Abortion in the United States. Conducted for The Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. Project Director: Louis Harriman, Chairman 1985

Dailard, C. (2001). Sex education: politicians, parents, teachers and teens. Alan Guttmacher Institute: Public Opinion Survey

Bruess, C. E., & Greenberg, J. S. (1988). Sexuality Education: Theory and Practice (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Company.

Burt, J. J., & Meeks, L. B. (1985). Education For Sexuality: Concepts and Programs for Teaching (3rd ed.). USA: CBS College Publishing.

Adolescent and Family Life Statute of 1981

Secondary Sources:

Irvine, J.M. (2002). Talk About Sex: The Battles Over Sex Education in the United States. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Campbell, P.J. (1979). Sex Education Books for Young Adults 1892-1979. New York, NY: R.R. Bowker Company.

Tatum, M.L. (1981). Sex Education in the Public Schools. In L. Brown (Ed.), Sex Education in the Eighties: The Challenge of Healthy Sexual Evolution (pp. 137-144). New York: Plenum Press

Kirkendall, L.A. (1981). Sex Education in the United States: A Historical Perspective. In L. Brown (Ed.), Sex Education in the Eighties: The Challenge of Healthy Sexual Evolution (pp. 137-144). New York: Plenum Press

Kilander, H. F. (1970). Sex Education in the Schools. Toronto, Ontario: The Macmillan Company.

Moran, J. P. (2000). Teaching sex: The shaping of adolescence in the 20th century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Journal Articles:

Carter, J. B. (2001). Birds, Bees, and Venereal Disease: Toward an Intellectual History of Sex Education. Journal of the History of Sexuality, 10(2), 213-249.

Glasscock, J. (2004). Blackboard jungle: a hundred years of school,
government, and military lessons on the birds, the bees, and
venereal disease have led to a mishmash of information--and the
terror of seventh-graders everywhere. Print, 58 (4), 76.

Haffner. D. W. (2004). 1988: the AIDS epidemic implications for the
sexuality education of our youth. . SIECUS Report, 32 (2),
10.

Schulz, E.D. & Shimmel, G. (2004). 1968: a need in sex
education--teacher preparation of our youth. . SIECUS Report, 32
(2), 21.

Gendel, E. S. (2004). 1970 sex education lawsuit Kansas--impressions
and implications. SIECUS Report, 32 (2), 31.

Progress Report

2005-03-10T13:01:00.000-08:00

At the risk of sounding a little dorky, I am having *so* much fun with my topic. I found a ton of material at the Library of Congress, including teaching manuals, course materials, informational books for adolescents, and even a Planned Parenthood survey of attitudes towards sex education from the eighties. I was able to pull a few books from the Interlibrary Loan as well.

I’ve had to return to the LoC once already with a laptop since taking copies is so prohibitively expensive, and I’ll probably be back at least a couple more times. Nick and I talked last Friday about the possibility of another group outing to the LoC since most of us are probably in the same predicament. I’ll probably be there all day on Saturday if anybody cares to join me.

So far I’ve gathered a good four pages of quotes and references, out of only three books, so I might need to weed them out a little bit. Most (but not all) of the material I’ve found correlates with my topic statement. It’s a little tough to find a consistent pattern since sex ed books apparently tend to lag about ten years behind other cultural changes. For instance, the sexual revolution wasn’t felt in sex ed until well into the seventies and early eighties, and the conservative backlash of the eighties doesn’t really show up in educational materials until the early nineties.

One of the more interesting things I noticed: my other class this semester is Prof Gillette’s class on eugenics, and apparently the earliest vestiges of public sex education were undertaken by eugenicists (most famously, Margaret Sanger) attempting to halt venereal disease and provide birth control to the lower socioeconomic strata. Public hygiene was initially a privately undertaken project of progressive eugenicists, and it was well into the sixties before most school systems offered any kind of systematic sex education program.

I also found some pretty awesome manuals from the twenties, mostly directed towards working-class adolescents, which were still espousing nineteenth-century physiology and morality. The best one claimed that working long hours and even standing up too much would cause “twisted ovaries” that would require operations later in life.

Topic Statement

2005-02-23T16:16:00.000-08:00

I hope this isn't written in stone, but it's a pretty good approximation of what I want to do:

With few exceptions, Julian B. Carter is correct in his claim that “[t]he chief message of almost all twentieth-century sex education amounts to ‘Just Say No.’ Thus, the history of sex education can be seen as the story of shifting strategies aimed at discouraging people from having sex outside of marriage”. Publicly mandated sex education in the United States can be divided into four roughly defined time periods: 1920 - 1964, 1965 - 1984, and 1985 – 2000, with different strategies and rationales applied in each period.

The quote above is from the Journal of the History of Sexuality 10.2 (2001) 213-249

Primary Sources

2005-02-22T19:32:00.000-08:00

Some of these are only marginally applicable to my topic (the history of sex education, in case you didn't notice my little revelation in class), but actual research is coming along pretty well.

www.flickr.com

More of Dour McKilljoy's photos

- S

I've got a theme emerging here...

2005-02-09T17:26:00.000-08:00

Once again, this week I found myself reading articles dealing with childhood autonomy as a history distinct from that of adult perceptions. This is becoming something of a theme, but I’m struggling to find a paper subject that will let me explore this topic. The best period I could think of were the witch trials of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, where women and children had the dubious honor of active participation as accusers, victims, and suspects. Prof. Petrik suggested that a better option might be looking at crises when children were witnesses or otherwise peripherally involved. I’m still fishing for ideas, so if anyone has feedback, I’d love to hear it.

Mary Ann Mason points out the universally hierarchical power structure of the colonial era by examining the similarities in the relationships between fathers and children versus those of masters and servants. “Fathers/Masters: Children/Servants” suggests that in an era when virtually all children performed some kind of labor, parents were expected to feed and clothe their children, and also to teach them a useful skill. When this arrangement became untenable, as in the case of bastards, orphans, or poor or neglectful parents, an unrelated adult was contracted to teach the child a skill in the form of an indenture or apprenticeship. During the course of this relationship “courts often described the master as serving in loco parentis (237)”. The blurring of adoption and apprenticeship further reinforced the contractual nature of the relationship. This tendency corresponds to the colonial perception of childhood - as an illness from which children could be cured by introduction into the adult working world - that I referenced in my previous post.

In “Confections, Concoctions, and Conceptions”, Allison James identifies the “entirely British phenomenon (396)” of childhood appropriation of cheap candy, known as “kets”. According to James’ analysis, children simultaneously rebel against the adult ordering of the world (in which “natural [398]” foods or candies are preferred over the “inedible” kets) and seek to define their own preferences in opposition to those of adults. “Rubbishy” candies like kets are perceived as cheap and inedible by adults but are cherished by children for those same properties. This mild rebellion against adult order is part of a larger “alternative system of meanings through which [children] can establish their own integrity (404)”.

Searching for Muted Voices

2005-02-03T08:21:00.000-08:00

Both of the selections I’ve chosen to review for this assignment have made me consider the dearth of events and periods in which children have acted as independent entities, rather than extensions of adults’ wills or social concepts. I hope to pinpoint and study such a period for my research paper.

Carl N. Degler's analysis of corporal punishment, "Introducing Children into the Social Order", suggests that the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries saw a gradual liberalization of child-rearing methods, and specifically links a reduction in the application of corporal punishment with a growing acceptance of and respect for children as independent entities. Earlier forms of corporal punishment sought to make a child fit to enter society, while later parents and educators used whippings and beatings "as much for the future benefit of the child as for any other consideration (212)". By the late nineteenth century, Degler asserts, corporal punishment became a last resort to be used only after the failure of loving remonstrance and reasoning.

Sermons, child-rearing pamphlets and manuals, and private correspondence reveal a shifting approach to discipline in the three centuries discussed in this selection. Earlier sources, such as the anonymous minister referenced in the second paragraph of the selection, recommend physical punishment as a method of breaking and controlling a child's willpower in order to "subdue the child's self-assertiveness (211)". This ideology "persisted well into the eighteenth century (211)", but had subsided to the point of becoming "outmoded (212)" by the 1830s. Parents of the early nineteenth century had largely abandoned the belief that "children were innately depraved"; the letters Degler turns to in this period make a point of noting children's individualities, but most parents still sought to "subdu[e] the will of the child and govern...it properly (213)".

By the middle of the nineteenth century, parenting was predictably influenced by both earlier Romantic "appreciation of children and…sentimentality toward them (213)", as well as the newly feminized homes created by the separate spheres doctrine. Physical coercion became the last in a descending order of persuasive methods: "the first, significantly, was 'love', the second 'reason', and the third 'authority' (213)". Appealing to the child's newly recognized sense of reason, "the Victorian aim was to develop in the child early in its life a proper sense of self that made further correction unnecessary (215)". Degler concludes by recounting a scene from a nineteenth century novel in which an "impetuous" young boy develops self-restraint after a punishment that forces reflection upon "the enormity of his deed (215)".

Karin Calvert’s “Children in the House: The Material Culture of Early Childhood” suggests that while childhood itself has always existed as a relatively constant continuum, cultural perceptions of childhood, and its specific paraphernalia, have fluctuated measurably over the last several centuries. Such fluctuations are displayed most prominently in the form of material artifacts such as “forms of costume, furniture, toys, [and] books...(76)”, which reveal three primary paradigms from the Colonial through the Victorian period.

The earliest era examined here begins in the early seventeenth century, when childhood was “such a precarious existence that parents regarded it as essentially a state of illness (77)”. Children were hurried through a brief, protected infancy before “gaining sufficient autonomy to be able to take care of (77)” themselves. Extant artifacts suggest this drive: “swaddling bands, standing stools, and tiny corsets (78)” were among the abandoned devices of the era. The second period, occurring from roughly 1750 to the 1830s and 1840s, viewed childhood as a phenomenon during which children would “grow into healthy adults if the natural process was not interfered with (78)”. Excessive protection was associated with the decadence of the Colonial period and was frowned upon as “overbearing (78)”. Parents in the Victorian era once again sought to protect children from the harshness of the outside world, but these adults viewed childhood as a state of moral innocence, rather than physical frailness, to be cherished and prolonged.

Where Degler mines documents for adult attitudes toward children and child-rearing, Calvert examines material artifacts to gain a sense of the same adult concepts. Both approaches are necessary, of course, due to the relative lack of direct commentary from children, but I would like to find a period or event which has preserved direct testimony from children.

2005-02-01T08:52:00.000-08:00

Historic ruminations will be following shortly.