This page takes both a general and specific look at the issue of
censorship in schools and this librarian's experiences with it. |
Please Note: This page is intended as part of an ongoing professional dialogue with fellow librarians and faculty. It is NOT intended as a student resource.
Thoughts and Experiences of a School Librarian in the aftermath of a Book Challenge
by Jane Snowberger • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Lakeview Specific • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • • • Forms pertaining to the challenge of the novel Sold by Patricia McCormick • • • •
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Other forms • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
In the final analysis, the challenge for all educational professionals is not to avoid censorship at all costs, but to meet it head on with adequate policies and procedures that provide an open and meaningful forum for deciding what materials should, or should not, be used in your district's educational curriculum and libraries. The final step to any censorship challenge in our district would be to appeal the committee decision (see 'An Account of My Censorship Experiences' above) to our Board of Education. Often times a challenge is charged with lots of emotion. Such emotion can be used to either support the level of one's conviction and passion or used to hide the lack of rationale or substance that lies beneath a challenge. But either way, let's face it, people respond to emotions, and sometimes in the face of an individual's strong feelings it can be difficult to maintain your professional posture and stand solely on academic principals. So as a counter I was prepared to also add a little of my own 'passion' and play "You Do Not Speak for Me" at our School Board meeting if the appeal was taken that far, which fortunately in the case of Sold, it wasn't. Nevertheless, below is both the text version and the audio version (there is also a video version) of my favorite response to censorship of young adult books by an actual student. This video essay by Alexis Opper took 3rd place in the 2012 Youth Free Expression Project (YFEP) Contest. Kudos, Alexis!
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Quick Links"Censorship is to art as lynching is to justice." "Censorship reflects society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime." “Toleration is meaningless without tolerance for what some may consider detestable.” The Basic Creed of "Obscenity is not a quality inherent in a book or picture, but is solely and exclusively a contribution of the reading mind, and hence cannot be defined in terms of the qualities of a book or picture." “Restriction of free thought & free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.” |
"The primary social fact which blocks and hinders the success of our experiment in self-government is that our citizens are not educated for self-government. We are terrified by ideas, rather than challenged and stimulated by them. Our dominant mood is not the courage of people who dare to think. It is the timidity of those who fear and hate whenever conventions are questioned."
~Alexander Meiklejohn
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~Mrs. S.
~Mrs. S.