There has been so much talk of book bans in school districts in the US lately and I’d like to share my thoughts, and really have an open discussion, on the practice.
Lately, I’ve been talking a lot about how we are not prepared by the authority figures in our lives as children for the complications that are inevitable in life and how to cope with them. As I was reviewing the Pen America Website’s list of banned books in the 2022-2023 school year – it raised the question for me about how we are serving our children.
First, I could be wrong about this, but it appears the bans are district-wide, across the board regardless of the grades of the children. For the most part, I would agree that the majority of these books probably don’t need to be in elementary school libraries. But without having read even the synopsis of any of them, I can’t be 100% sure of my own opinion on this. But anything having to do with violence, or sexual violence should probably not be available to kids who are that young. But part of me even thinks maybe some of this content, written in an appropriate way, may not be bad. Maybe this is how a young child could learn that something happening to them at home is wrong. So…. I’m slightly conflicted here. I recall in elementary school we watched a video on inappropriate touching – I can’t remember if they split up the boys and girls or not, but my friend confided in me on the way home that afternoon that her grandfather had been touching her inappropriately – and she and her Mother lived with her grandfather. I told my mom, she called the police and the situation was, as far as I know, taken care of. Unfortunately, I never saw the girl again after that. I assume they moved out of the zone for my school. I hope that is what happened anyway. But my point is, sometimes the kids don’t know until they are told or learn it outside of their home environment.
The majority of the content for the banned books seems to be LGBTQ related. Again, I have not read these books that have been banned. And I don’t know if there are still books in the libraries with this type of content or if they are just banned across the board. And really, for the purposes of this discussion, I’m not sure it matters. My point is that as I was reviewing the PEN.org site, my gut feeling is that we are taking away content that could help our children in the long run.
We can’t protect our kids from the real-world forever. Whose job is it to prepare our children for the tougher things in life; parents? Teachers? Peers? I feel like not all parents are equipped to give these life lessons, and it appears a lot of parents don’t even want their kids to be exposed to stories about situations that don’t align with their personal believes or values. So, then, should it be the school’s responsibility? I don’t know – I don’t have the answers. I’m interested in hearing what others have to say on the subject. On the one hand, some parents may shelter their kids which could cause them to be confused, or even scared and anxious, when they become adults, of the real world. So, if left up to parents some kids may not get what they really need. On the other hand, schools may teach concepts that go against what the parents believe which can cause parents to become angry – which seems to be what is happening.
Personally, I think kids need to be exposed to all things, in an age-appropriate way, so they know what really goes on in life – AND how to cope with the challenges that come with it. Everyone is going to be thrown curveballs in life, there is no way to avoid it. But that’s not really told to us, especially not with coping mechanisms, as children. We’re fed a dream that probably doesn’t mesh with what we are seeing at home. So, there is confusion, cognitive dissonance, and a feeling of shame, like there is something wrong with us when what we’re experiencing is way more common than we think. So maybe reading a book with some uncomfortable subject matters isn’t such a horrible thing – age-appropriate of course. (But then again, who determines what is age-appropriate???)
These are all tough decisions and noone is ever going to agree 100% – likely not even the so-called “experts”. So where do we go from here? Please let me know your thoughts in the comments. I welcome differing opinions, but lets keep it nice!!!!!!
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