Arguments Against Censorship In Schools

Censorship of Children’s Literature – An argument against

Some of the greatest novels for children and young adults are under attack. Due to what some deem as “inappropriate” language or certain topics, countless books have either been censored or banned entirely from schools and libraries. This is not just something that happens abroad, but in America as well. That’s right. America. This is home where freedom of speech is one of our oldest and most highly held ideals. An all too common pastime in the United States these days is banning books. This is truly unfortunate and happens far too frequent. Angry letters and pressure from objectionable parents have forced libraries, schools to ban certain types of “harmful” literature from
This is a different kind of censorship however, and is essentially done by a teacher simply not including a certain book in his or her curriculum. One view is that the teacher is in fact practicing self-censorship, and thus imposing his or her viewpoints onto their students. Teachers are also afraid they are going to be challenged by angry parents or even communities as a whole. What happens is, instead of allowing a book into the classroom to begin with, a lot of teachers are simply not including them in their curriculum for fear of backlash by parents, or even the community at large (Simmons 96). But even books that teachers allow in are being censored for fear of backlash by disapproving parents. For example John Simmons writes “I once walked into a third grade room after school hours and found the teacher drawing on a book about Benjamin Franklin—a book that I knew she planned to use in a literature-study group the next week. The teacher is an extraordinary artist, so I thought perhaps she was embellishing on one of the illustrations in the book. When I asked her what she was doing, her reply really surprised me. One of the illustrations portrayed Benjamin Franklin as a young boy swimming naked in a river. The teacher was drawing swimming shorts on little Ben in each of the thirty-five student copies because she did not want to risk any repercussions from parents” (Simmons 96). If that example doesn’t prove just how ridiculous all this censoring is getting I don’t know what will. And do we really hold our children in such a low regard that they won’t be able to see that they’re being treated foolishly? I remember when I was reading Huckleberry Finn and Catcher in the Rye in about 5th grade and all the swear words were etched out with a ball-point pen. It absolutely insulted my intelligence. If we don’t respect our children, they tend to lose their respect