Why there should be no such thing as 'banned books' in schools

[ck4829]

"For her thirteenth birthday, Anne Frank's parents gave her a diary. "I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support." Just one month later (July 1942), Anne and her family went into hiding to escape from the Nazis. For the next two years, living in a cramped Amsterdam annex, Anne's writings filled two notebooks. To date, more than twenty-five million copies have been printed in fifty-five languages. Various reasons have been used to justify banning Anne Frank's acclaimed diary. In one 1983 incident, four members of the Alabama State Textbook Committee called for its removal because it was a "real downer." "

http://channels.lockergnome.com/windows/archives/20050926_banned_books_week.phtml

[WindRavenX]

1. seriously? Because it's a "downer"?

Well fuck that noise. Let's just pretend the world is full of kittens and rainbows.

fucking shit. I hate this.

[Joanne98]

2. banning books would be too obvious

[pdxmom]

3. My father was an elementary school principal, and I remember

having to read books that some parents deemed as "offensive", to give him my input. This was when I was in elementary school. The one I remember most vividly was "Harriet the Spy". It had the word "hell" in it. He was always VERY careful to not remove books from the library, and if there was a great uproar, generally, he put those "questionable" books aside, and they had to be specially requested and you had to have a parent's note to read them.

My parents taught me at a very young age that censorship was a bad thing, and never once kept me from reading whatever I wanted. For that, I thank them, and hope I have passed that same strong respect for freedom of expression to my kids.

[PublicWrath]

4. There was an attempt to ban "The Handmaid's Tale" in a San Antonio

school district not long ago.

[knitter4democracy]

5. Banning them won't stop the kids from thinking.

That's what scares these parents--their kids might actually think for themselves and question things. The more they read difficult literature, the more likely they are to do that, but they're also likely to do that just from paying attention in school and remembering to stay curious.

I had so much fun my last year in teaching Brave New World. :evilgrin: The kids fought it, as it was towards the end of their senior year and all, but they did start wondering and questioning, which was my main objective all along. :D