To be honest, I'm not quite sure where I stand on this issue. Banning books seems to be a slippery slope. It is understandable that individuals would prefer certain books to be removed from children's or school libraries due to issues of appropriateness. However it seems as if by doing so we are merely taking away opportunities of growth for these children. The reason why many books are banned from schools today is due to content controversies in which the book is considered risqué or crude. Yet the removal of books, I feel, is doing the youth a disservice. It is deciding for them what is inappropriate, rather than allowing them to form their own decisions and stand points. I feel that we should allow books, appropriate or not in schools, given some restrictions. Obviously inappropriate books should not be given to an eight year old, who would not fully comprehend the content of the book, much less the deeper meanings intended to be learned. However, for older children, books that are banned could successfully be used as teaching tools for children to examine the controversies surrounding the book. Therefore the children themselves are able to discern the appropriateness of the book. It allows room for children to engage in critical discussion about the context in which this book was written and why it should be considered appropriate or not. I think that its important that we allow children to figure out issues like this on their own rather than deciding for them. Many times the reason children perceive something as right or wrong is because we tell them it is a certain way. I feel that it is somewhat crippling a child's ability to be dependent on their own reasoning. Children generally have an understanding of what is good or bad and I feel like we overly try to sugar coat things for them in attempts to protect them from what we think to be harmful, when in actuality we are the ones hindering them.
1 comment:
First of all, it's never individuals that ban books, it's groups of people -- parents, or other concerned citizens.
What, really, would be the difference in principle between removing a book from a library, and restricting its access (to use your example, to children over a certain age)? And how would those restrictions be regulated in theory and in practice?
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