A2 RIHLA #17

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Many books are banned in schools because those who are involved in the field of education are motivated by the desire to protect children from harmful influences. This desire also leads to people restricting themselves to what they or their children read and take action to show what is appropriate for their child's age group. In my opinion, I do not agree with the reasons as to why books are being banned because people have the ability to choose what they do in terms of what they read. While I do understand that parents do whatever they can to make sure their children are safe and learning things properly and gradually over time, it does not necessarily mean that they can block certain things away from what their children will even see in the first place. Personally, the people who should be able to decide what books should be taught in school are the teachers who are even allowing and teaching whatever the students will be reading in class. If any book the teacher chooses is considered to be one that has had a "challenged history", then the teacher would have to get permission to use the book because my classmates and I have read "challenged" books in our classes many times with whoever taught us about those books probably getting some sort of permission from the school staff to let us read certain books. If an individual wants to fight book censorship, an approach one could take is work with community groups. By doing so, community groups could help students gain the right to read certain books in school that are appropriate for their class to read about. Being able to read banned books that have great meanings behind them should be allowed to students who would benefit from reading such works of literature.

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