In this Orwellian time of Trump, Stonington schools drop Animal Farm

It is troubling to me that, at a time when sales of books by George Orwell are spiking nationally amid fears of Donald Trump's totalitarian inclinations, that Stonington has dropped his "Animal Farm" from the eighth-grade teaching curriculum.

More troubling is that a group of parents that tried to get it restored, supporting a teacher who has been using the book in classes for the last 20 years, got little traction with public school administrators.

Most frightening to me was the response from those administrators, when I called to ask about the fate of the literary classic in Stonington schools.

What they told me could have come right out of Orwell's typewriter. I felt like I was talking to the pigs who expelled the humans from the farm in "Animal Farm" and were running the show as they pleased.

Read more: http://www.theday.com/local-columns/20170131/in-this-orwellian-time-of-trump-stonington-schools-drop-animal-farm