May
2008
Dangers of censorship2
As we saw in class, censoring literature and books in schools can lead to students missing out on some of the best authors, thoughts, ideas and stories of our lifetime, and of those lifetimes before ours. Maya Angelou? Of Mice and Men? Come on!
How can we encourage our students to seek out different perspectives, critically evaluate them and then forge their own, when half the different perspectives are MIA from the school library? We can’t.
Censorship creates intellectual and emotional dependency in students. It contributes to “good” little automatons who wait patiently and quietly in a single file line for some authority figure to tell them what to think.
Personally, I’d rather let even the most offensive and hateful ideas and concepts come into our schools, where (hopefully) responsible adults will be available to discuss them openly and honestly with curious young minds, than shut out that one great story that changes the life of a child.
I don’t agree, but I respect your opinion.
I agree. However, it seems to me that teachers and administration get upset when parents do not get involved and they get upset when parents do get involved. I ultimately believe that it is truly the parents responsibility to make the final rule on what their children are exposed to.