Student says assignment was inappropriate (Write about selling soul to Devil)

Originally posted by whitewave
My son told me about this book reading assignment at the beginning of his 5th grade school year. I was very unhappy to hear that while my child is forbidden to pray in school, hear about God in school, concepts such as selling your soul to the devil is perfectly acceptable in school.

The teacher tried to pass it off as harmless because it was on some best-seller list and "highly recommended by the board of education". I bet it was.

The secular humanist indoctrination is bad enough but REQUIRED reading about selling your soul in order to gain riches was beyond the pale! Yeah, no agenda here.

The idea of selling your soul to the devil is as old as time, and most entertainment has touched on this at one point or another.

Reading a fictitious story about a guy selling his soul to the devil is not a "secular humanist indoctrination", it's a story.

And, if I am correct, most of these stories end in the person being miserable. The lesson is that if you give your life to evil, or if you give your life to physical things, you will be miserable. A good less regardless of religious affiliation.

Although, I commend you for actually being involved in what your child was reading. I know a lot of parents don't even bother to ask.

What's inappropriate about it?

Better get on to banning Faust then.

It's a literary exercise and nothing else.

Would the outraged feel better if it was about selling your soul to Tom Servo up there?

For some perspective here's inappropriate class work for you:

A biology teacher in Brazil is being sued for asking students to masturbate for a class project.
The teacher asked three teenagers to provide sperm samples (in other words: masturbate) so the class could study sperm under the microscope.

One of the students told his parents about the incident. His shocked parents immediately notified the police.

A spokesman for the police said: "It is a disrespectful and bizarre thing to ask a student, we are all horrified."

The school, located in Campo Grande, Rio de Janeiro, says it's equally appalled by the biology teacher's behaviour.

I wonder what would have been the reaction if a Muslim child was asked to write on this same question or if this was even considered?
I remember when Mark Twain was being attacked as well as Uncle Toms Cabin could not be read in schools in the 60's! Someones agenda, no matter how instructional it may be, should not attack ones belief in the deity or lack of one in a persons life.
The tearing of the fabric of one's spiritual beliefs will always cause controversy and the idea that one side of a coin is bad when one side must be allowed is already tearing at that fabric. ONLY Christian beliefs are being attacked in our schools. Muslim, Jewish, rituals and beliefs must be protected in our schools but Christianity is not. There is a cognoscente disconnect there.
It is true that this student might have tackled the problem differently but why should she? It's what she and her family believe and should hold true for her as well as the recognition of other religious beliefs.

Zindo

[edit on 2/23/2010 by ZindoDoone]

My son told me about this book reading assignment at the beginning of his 5th grade school year. I was very unhappy to hear that while my child is forbidden to pray in school, hear about God in school, concepts such as selling your soul to the devil is perfectly acceptable in school.

reply to post by whitewave


May I ask what book he was required to read?

Originally posted by smyleegrl

My son told me about this book reading assignment at the beginning of his 5th grade school year. I was very unhappy to hear that while my child is forbidden to pray in school, hear about God in school, concepts such as selling your soul to the devil is perfectly acceptable in school.

reply to post by whitewave

 

May I ask what book he was required to read?

The Bear Skinner

Originally posted by iamsupermanv2

The idea of selling your soul to the devil is as old as time, and most entertainment has touched on this at one point or another.

Reading a fictitious story about a guy selling his soul to the devil is not a "secular humanist indoctrination", it's a story.

And, if I am correct, most of these stories end in the person being miserable. The lesson is that if you give your life to evil, or if you give your life to physical things, you will be miserable. A good less regardless of religious affiliation.

Although, I commend you for actually being involved in what your child was reading. I know a lot of parents don't even bother to ask.

Actually the story ends with the man keeping his soul and all the gold that the devil allotted him as well as having a fine wife. Wonder what the lesson is in this version?

How dare that teacher try to get kids to do a little introspective thinking. And things like this backfire on the religious zealots. YOu do the paper, and you realize that you care so much about money that you would sell your soul to the devil for it. So now you and and you can start becoming a better person who learns to put less value on money and material possessions.

reply to post by whitewave


I checked out the story. Respectfully asking, but what did you take offense with?

It seems to me to be a reverse-Cinderalla type story.

Actually the story ends with the man keeping his soul and all the gold that the devil allotted him as well as having a fine wife. Wonder what the lesson is in this version?

reply to post by whitewave


Perhaps the lesson is that not everything is always as it appears. What you consider a "good deal" might not in fact be the case. Or that our actions impact others, so we should think long and hard about what we do and why?

I would have written a Dante-esque short story about the teacher burning in the Lake of Fire for all eternity and suffering various Hieronymus-Bosch style torments. We could begin with her in some hardcore satanic ritual receiving the formal Devil's Pact in some corrupt NWO compound full of psycopathic billionares and the like. Or maybe I would have set the story in the Buddhist Avici Hell.

The hell that has the most suffering is the Avici Hell. The suffering of Avici Hell is clearly described in the Ksitigarbha Sutra. The first suffering is uninterrupted time, meaning there is no rest. The suffering is continuous, there is no respire for even one minute or one second. The second suffering is uninterrupted space. In Avici Hell, space is filled with one or many persons. If there is a lot of space, a person will multiply himself until he occupies all the space. So this hell can be full with only one person. The third is uninterrupted suffering. One has to suffer all the kinds of suffering in the world. There is no hell which has more suffering than this Avici Hell. Such suffering is called unlimited suffering. The fourth suffering is uninterrupted grade, meaning this hell does not differentiate, whether one is a god in heaven, a human in the human realm, a hungry ghost within the ghost realm or an animal within the animal realm. If one "qualified", anyone can enter Avici Hell and receive the same treatment. The fifth suffering is uninterrupted life. There are numerous lives and deaths within a day and a night, and, between one life and one death, one suffers.

That might get me a little chat with the principal

reply to post by whitewave


Well, if its a public school, his praying may offend other non-christian students, right?

I think it should be allowed if its with relation to a literary piece, not a religious one. Its understandable that some people would be offended, but someone with any literary skills may have written about the ethical dilemma of why or why they wouldnt sell their soul.

However, if the teacher failed that person due to that, then I think we could say there would be a problem



[edit on 23/2/2010 by OzWeatherman]

The question would have been what was the lesson that was being taught? I mean if they were going to make this required reading, I could see having them do a book report on what the morals of the story was, the hero, and the lessons in it, but what the teacher did I believe went way beyond what would have been acceptable to anyone. The parents were correct in this, if you can not have religion in the class room, then it also means that you can not have topics as a paper like this to be written.

I believe that an assignment to explain the temptation of the devil mixed with the conflict in the characters head and why that added up to the character selling his soul would be better. Even if the topic was "Would you sell your soul to the Devil?" and not "What would you trade the Devil for your soul". The latter one has undertones of 'as long as you get something you want, it's fine'. I don't care about some possible Christian or even Satanic agenda, which I doubt was really the reason for this assignment. The fact is, the Devil does not always amount to the ram horned red monster with a pitch-fork, the opposer of God.

The truth Devils and the trades you make with them:
The Government: You trade your liberty for your safety.
Large Corporations: You trade your integrity for a top job.
Muggers: You trade your hard earned property for your well-being.

We all have the right to integrity, liberty and hard-earned property just as much as we have the right to a soul. What this assignment is saying, what do you want so much that your willing to give your soul(or liberty, or property, or dignity, etc.) for?

That's what is wrong with the assignment, it gives you a chance to give in to your temptations and lead you to believe their okay!

The Protector

This just reaks of lazyness to me, just my opinion but i cant see how this can really offened anyone. He did not ask her or her class mates to read the bible he asked them to read the story then write an essay describing what it would take for them to do what the main charector did in the story. It sounds to me like she just didnt want to write the paper not out of some moral indignity but due to the fact that she is lazy. Who here hasnt been asked to write a paper that they didnt want to? if i could get out of writing papers that i had problems with i wouldnt of written a single paper in my senior poli sci class, papers i was "randomly" assigned to write---- Reagan-our finest president (not so much in my opinion), The death penalty why its wrong (no its not kill that sob), Pro life- its a baby dont kill it (no its a fetus and its the "mothers" choice), Gun controll eliminating the threat of guns ( pry it from my cold dead hands)

Did i do these papers did i agree with the subject i was forced to write about? no as you could imagine i did not but i did them, why? I was in class at school and that was what was expected of me. I was assigned these papers to get me to think outside of my box per say to make me look at something from all angles.

is this what the teacher was trying to do? i doubt it, but im sure there was a reason for the paper other than to indoctranate these students into a life of christanity.

but i digress these are the rambles of just one small man in this very big world


good day night depending on your location in this universe

She fails as a writer. If she took her bible seriously she would know that even Jesus was tempted by the Devil to bow and worship him. In addition, Jesus even preached of people gaining the whole world but losing their souls, so she could have spun the story into a killer piece involving aesthetics and how the topic may have been tasteless. Again, she fails as a writer.

ETA: She could have written about the Devil, in the form of the teacher who actually gave the assignment, trying to get her to sell her soul by having her write the paper which turns out to be the actual contract for selling the soul.

ETA:2 I have free time on my hands so I'm going to write a short essay on that!!!! THANKS ATS!!!


[edit on 23-2-2010 by EMPIRE]

An understanding of Western culture involves reading old books, many of which had religious themes because their writers did.

Deal with it. Seems like every other cultural classic except for something written by a "dead while male" is to be drooled over, while the latter category is to be micro-picked-at for the slightest moral failing. And its very interesting to me that in such critical pickings and probings, we can see the work of a very specific, sharp, and judgemental set of moral convictions being applied that...is...never...quite...articulated. The stench of rank hypocracy hidden in such a way that it is diffcult to call the academic establishment out on specifics. They'll hide behind "subjectivity" and a bunch of emperor's-new-clothes "postmodern" therory.

The desire to keep religion out of the classroom is understandable, but you have to draw the line with the recognition that religious themes are part of a long English and Medieval Literary classical tradtion that in turn is part of Western heritage. No culture should be forced to throw out its heritage. There are ways of dealing with this and reading it that have nothing at all to do with rellgion...the kids could write about "selling your soul to the devil" in the looser, more methaphoric sense its often used in daily life: entering sketchy business situations, say, or dealing with sticky family, power, and money problems. Since most humans, be they religious or not, have to deal with difficult moral problems the kids might even learn something very useful from the exercise.

Probably the teacher could have presented it much better and framed it in terms of selliing "one's" soul rather than "your" soul. That was a pretty big screwup right there.



[edit on 2/23/10 by silent thunder]

Lot of hypocrites on this thread.

Had the story been about, "How would you give your life for God?" then everyone in this thread would be against it.

But, "How would you sell your soul to the devil?", well that's just okay, apprently?

Give me a damn break. You know, I'm not Christian, but I didn't create this damn mess in the first place, the SCHOOLS did. The schools and the "educated" started this mess.

Do you know how many damn books there are with very great stories that deal with God? Just as many as there are with the devil, if not more. And those books CANNOT be read in SCHOOLS.

So friggin' stuff it. Quit the BS double-speak. The parents involved in this story have every right to complain. It's either no religion at all, or talk about both sides equally and without punishment. Not, "No God, but the stories about the Devil are great literary masterpieces."

I can't believe it, you people are so full of it.

reply to post by silent thunder


She wasn't thinking outside the box and everything was black and white to her. I also agree that the teacher should not have said "your soul" but I can see why as the short story involved a person selling their own soul. Still, I think this girl failed as a writer, but more specifically, she failed as a college student and adherent to her faith. In college, you're going to write about, or do, things you don't want to do or agree with (especially when it comes to classes pertaining to writing, debate, sociology or philosophy pretty much anything in humanities.)

As a college student, there are so many experiences she could have used to express herself and base the assignment on. The ones you included are splendid, and I'd even go as far as to say selling your soul to pay for your books (which are insanely overpriced) would have been a good number.

As a christian, or bible believer, again, she should have gone the whole Jesus route and how the Devil tempted him, how Jesus later preached about gaining the world and losing the soul, etc.

[edit on 23-2-2010 by EMPIRE]

reply to post by SyphonX

Lot of hypocrites on this thread.

Start pointing them out.

Had the story been about, "How would you give your life for God?" then everyone in this thread would be against it.

I wouldn't. If that was the writing assignment I'd do it.

But, "How would you sell your soul to the devil?", well that's just okay, apprently?

Because the assignment was derived from the previous reading.

EMPIRE, you aren't getting it, let me demonstrate something.

The question: "How would you sell your soul to the devil?" - Not Okay
Without "How": "Would you sell your soul to the devil?" - Okay

Why does this lady find this offensive? Because she is not asked IF she would sell her soul to the devil. She is asked HOW her she would sell her soul to the devil.

"If" gives this person a choice to fall to the temptations of the Devil.
"How" does not, it simply asks them how they will fall and what for.

Someone mentioned Jesus being tempted which apparently made this question fine. Those of you who don't know about the story, in the story Jesus does not give in to the temptations of the Devil. Jesus, in the story, was given the choice to choose whether he would fall to temptation or rise above it. The assignment we're all talking about does not allow for the person to be the type to overcome.

Plus, if all of that isn't enough, here's this next thing:

In general religion, there is a God figure and a Devil figure. If the God figure is not going to be allowed in school, then why can his adversary? If God is a academic naughty word, so should Devil. Worst, the question itself implies that Satan or the Devil actually exists, but yet, if you mention God's involvement in creation your either told to be quiet or your told that God doesn't exist.

What's next? Can't fold your hands and bow your head to pray, but you can yell "hail Satan!"? I'm dead serious, it's these types of things that stack up like domino's and lead to things like that.

A few years ago I did a test. I picked two days out of a year, distanced by 2 months. One day I went in with the Holy Bible and read for reading time so everyone could see. People looked at me strangely, made comments to inappropriateness and so on. The other day I went into school with The Satanic Bible, no response.

I am not trying to create a conspiracy, I'm just saying people are acting in a backwards manner. Whether you recognize the existence of God and Satan, you still have to admit that the Holy Bible should raise less flags than the Satanic Bible..

The Protector