Florida Department of Education includes Jane Austen novel in 'American Pride' recs

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'Pride and Prejudice' apparently is being used to 'impart a sense of American pride on our students during the month of July.'

July is a month for patriotic celebration, particularly during “Freedom Summer.”

But the Florida Department of Education (FDOE) is stretching that just a bit with its book recommendations rolled out this week, with one recycled recommendation serving as a callback to colonialism.

FDOE announced this week that among the recommended offerings is Jane Austen’s classic “Pride and Prejudice” from 1813, published some decades after the United States achieved freedom from British tyranny.

Students between grades 9 and 12 are recommended this volume, which tells a decidedly un-American story of protagonist Elizabeth Bennet’s courtship with the aristocratic Fitzwilliam Darcy, which is backdropped by the gap between Bennet’s relatively modest means and Darcy’s upper class standing.

“As we look back upon our nation’s history and recognize the efforts of the founding fathers to build a country based on the values of freedom, it is paramount that we impart a sense of American pride on our students during the month of July,” said Commissioner of Education Manny Diaz Jr. in explaining the month’s picks.

“With this book selection, I encourage students to continue to celebrate American pride month and reflect on the unyielding spirit and heroic patriotism of the many Americans throughout history who fought in the pursuit of liberty and freedom.”

What Austen’s work, however laudable, has to do with a celebration of heroic patriotism, liberty and freedom is unclear.

However, her 19th century novel is on a hot streak, as “Pride and Prejudice” was also showcased back in January.

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16 comments

Frankie M.
July 11, 2024 at 3:45 pm

Manny has clearly never read it.
Let's Privatize FDOE
July 11, 2024 at 4:32 pm

So they just saw the words “pride” and “prejudice” and like, that’s it! ROFL. Johnny Tremain is a great book for teens and would have been an appropriate choice, as would many thousands of other novels (A Tale of Two Cities!!). But sure, let’s go with 19th century aristocratic England where all they do it change outfits and go to dances and get caught in the rain. They could have at least made it Jane Eyre.
QUESTION: Do these midsummer “recommendations” get pushed to the schools/students somehow (wait, that would be public schools, right? What are those?), or is this just a personal blog list for an Agency which doesn’t seem to have a real function in government since everything is being shut down, outsourced, and privatized for private profit with taxpayer dollars? I can’t keep up.
- Michael K
  July 11, 2024 at 6:17 pm
  
  I think Manny saw “pride” and “prejudice” and thought it was all about persecuting LGBTQ people, and began salivating.
- Chris
  July 15, 2024 at 7:31 pm
  
  Oh please, that is your take on Pride and Prejudice? “All they do it (sic) change outfits and go to dances…” that’s as laughable as the Florida DOE choosing it in the first place…tell me you never read it….
  - Let's Privatize FDOE
    July 16, 2024 at 8:05 pm
    
    No, I just don’t this Diaz should have a job, because he ruined our School Board and our local A schools are getting shut down because of the drain on funds their charter plan has created. And this was stupid. Loved P&P, read 20x. Jane Eyre is better. But I also read a library’s worth of books as a kid, which is what I would like the kids to do now. It’s not happening. I don’t understand why they’re rolling this out in summer like it’s gonna hit, anyway? If somebody had had the brilliant idea to force the kids in detention or summer school to read to each other, as my mother the English teacher made them read Shakespeare, and poetry, things might have gone differently.
My Take
July 11, 2024 at 4:59 pm

To Kill a Mockingbird
Huckleberry Finn
Darrow for the Defense
Babbitt
Elmer Gantry

Some fiction, but real America.
Michael K
July 11, 2024 at 5:13 pm

Ah yes, Jane Austin. Didn’t she sew the original Confederate flag?

/s
fsavpe
July 11, 2024 at 5:20 pm

Manny Diaz is as stupid as his father. The corruption that overtook the previous corruption in Miami is staggering: from rednecks to Cubans. Diaz is not qualified for garbage mnan.
- MH/Duuuval
  July 12, 2024 at 5:30 pm
  
  Who was his father? because junior is a nincompoop and suck-up for the worst elements in south Florida. And, like so many MAGA, a grifter. (The failed Jefferson County school takeover and his ties to Academica.)
Phil Morton
July 11, 2024 at 5:38 pm

British author as a symbol of American pride seems quite appropriate for the Florida Department of Education that won’t even let schools teach real American history.
MH/Duuuval
July 11, 2024 at 9:59 pm

The “Narrative of Frederick Douglass,” original edition which is relatively short and focuses on FD’s early life up to his escape North.
Ima Person
July 12, 2024 at 8:10 am

This is what a state controlled curriculum looks like! We must take back local control of our schools. Job 1! If we lose an educated populace we will have also lost democracy. Schools have always been intended to produce self-governing participant citizens. Americans absolutely have an obligation to sustain democracy well into the
future. We owe our future generations the skills and ability
to think deeply and critically.

and education as we know it will
collapse. Take back our public
schools! Democrats in mass
need to serve on local school boards, councils
… whatever. Just run for office to
keep democracy alive and to
protect our children from
becoming puppets. Florida is
beginning to look like what will
happen if we don’t! We are far too smart for that because prior
generations did not allow the
curriculum to be co-opted by state or federal mandates that
hurt or otherwise delegitimize important school curricula. Want
to know more? Read Michael
Apple! That should be the
required reading for the summer.
Bwj
July 13, 2024 at 12:41 am

It’s not even American Literature. Stupid people
Silly Wabbit
July 20, 2024 at 12:35 pm

Manny kwazy.
Dick Olsen
July 20, 2024 at 1:56 pm

I’m gobsmacked the Florida Department of Anything would allow a book with “Pride” in its title on the shelves of any state office or institution.
Jim Stark
July 20, 2024 at 3:07 pm

Florida Department of Education, Florida Surgeon General. I wonder how many more Florida state services DeSantis will destroy before he’s out of office?