RIHLA #19

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"High School Banned Books"

Some of the reasons as to why books are being banned in some high schools are because they may include sex, profanity, or racism. Often, challenges are motivated by the desire to protect children which may include parents, teachers, librarians, etc. Although some children should not be exposed to such topics or any other issues that the general public may disagree with due to lack of maturity and even self-control, I strongly believe that no book should be banned from a high school student. They should get to know what is the world around them, major issues, experience a variety of genres, and have a wide range of different books and different authors they have read by the time they attend college. Overall, I don't agree with banning books from others' eyes because a variety of books, vocabulary, and reading different books from a wide range of authors comes with a lot of benefits as well. Different perspectives on issues or even historical events as well as knowledge on what the world, greater than the one that teenagers think they might be living in, has to offer can allow for a lot of discussion and thinking "outside of the box", expecially before going to college which allots for lecture&discussion.

I'm not quite sure as to who pressures teachers on what they should or shouldn't teach. I think it may just be what they have been taught in the past, what teachers in the next grade level may expect their students to already have read by the time they get to that grade-level, maybe even media, and the reading level of a certain (english)class.

If anyone were interested in fighting against book censorship, a few ways in which they could do so would be by attending and participating in public hearings, sending letters or an op-ed article to local news organizations, write letters to public officials, form a coalition to oppose censorship in your community, seek assistance from national groups, and by supporting your loacal schools and libraries.

After reading through the entire article, "Books Challenged or Banned in 2010-2011" by Robert P. Doyle, of why certain books have been banned and ways to prevent these sorts of things from happeneing, I didn't notice what we had talked about in my englsih class as to why another reason for banning books. My class and I spoke about the canon of books that teachers seem to follow most of the time, which are simply books that they believe students in the U.S. should be exposed to before they reach college: and it's a collection/list of books that most schools/teachers bring up to point out certain issues or important topics to discuss during class. Another thing that should also be taken into consideration are books by authors that are not American, so like reading a book by a south American, African, European author, etc., that gives their perspective on issues and historical events, that of course may always be told differently from different sides. So not only are there certain topics or issues that parents, teachers, librarians, etc. may question, but there is also the question of should we, Americans(or any other country, for that mattr)even have a canon for our students? This question may even include what types of books and what types of authors should students be exposed to.

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