MOE Responded on Why They Allowed Book with Vulgarities for Reading Programme

People love to complain.

And when these people become parents, complaining becomes something of a pastime for them.

Remember the parent who complained that her son’s pre-school was releasing him “too early”?

And what about those parents who complained that their child’s PSLE Maths paper was too hard? (To be fair, some of those questions would stump nuclear physicists)

Well, they’re at it again, and it’s about a novel this time.

MOE Responded on Why They Allowed Book with Vulgarities for Reading Programme

On Saturday, a Facebook group called Singaporeans Defending Marriage and Family criticised Mark Haddon’s book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, which contains vulgarities.

The novel features a 15-year-old protagonist with Asperger’s syndrome who is exceptional at maths.

Haddon’s book won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book and was named 2003 Whitbread Book of the Year. So, clearly, it must have some literary merit.

Not according to these parents though.

In their post, the group said the book uses “foul and blasphemous language” and claimed it “breaks Singapore’s racial and religious harmony laws”.

Woah, this author must have used some incredibly vile language. What were the offending words?

“Holy F**king Jesus” and “F**king”

Uh, wait, that’s it? Those are the words that could supposedly ‘break’ Singapore’s racial and religious harmony laws?

Now, these are secondary 2 students, by the way. And if you’ve ever heard 14-year-olds speak, you’d know that they use more vulgarities than prepositions.

The post also said, “Do Parents need to inspect EVERY single school material and sit inside EVERY classroom to ENSURE our children are free from unacceptable immoral indoctrination and corruption?”

I’m not sure why they felt the need to capitalize every word starting with the letter E, but this is clearly an overreaction.

MOE later responded.

MOE’s response

Mr Jeffrey Low, director of English Language and Literature at MOE, said the book was chosen for its “literary merit, and how the story teaches good values such as honesty, perseverance in the face of difficulties, love between parents and children, and appreciation of youths with special educational needs”.

He said that teachers are careful with the texts they select for their students and that they have a literary value that “often [deals] with complex human conditions and [reflects] the imperfections in societies”.

That sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Fiction is a reflection of life, and if it happens to contain a few swear words, that just adds to its realism.

“The reading of this particular text has been closely guided by the teacher through class discussions, where the teacher sets out the context of the piece of writing and engages students on drawing positive lessons from the book”, Low added.

Schools have the autonomy to choose texts

While MOE has a recommended text list, lower secondary levels have the autonomy to select these texts or recommend texts that are not on the list.

MOE provides a set of criteria for selecting texts outside of the recommended list, which includes its literary value, appropriateness and accessibility, its values, and careful consideration of social and cultural sensitivities.

Singaporean parents not alone

Parents in Singapore weren’t the only ones concerned about the vulgarities in the book, however. In 2015, the book was withdrawn from a Florida school’s summer reading list after parents raised concerns about swearing.

But, as the book’s author points out, these parents are completely missing the point; Haddon told The Guardian his book was “not just a novel that contains swearing but a novel about swearing.”

The author added that his protagonist is “completely unaware of the offence that swearing is intended to cause”, presumably because of his condition.

Maybe these parents should take some time to read and analyse the novel before getting outraged at a few swear words.

You can’t shelter your child from everything you perceive to be immoral. Let them decide for themselves.