Reading 'Banning books in schools'

Let me make it clear: I understand them. I know why they do it. They want to protect their children. It’s human nature. However, let me make it equally clear: I think they’re wrong to do it. I’m talking about parents in the US who push schools to ban books; books that they consider unsuitable for schoolchildren to read. They think it’s wrong for teachers to set certain books as class texts. They believe these books do not belong in classrooms or school libraries. 

Last year there were almost five hundred attempts to ban books in US schools. Most cases concerned high school students aged from fourteen to eighteen. In the UK head teachers control which books are on the school curriculum and which are not. But in the US this control is often exercised by school boards, and parents can convince the boards to tell school principals, teachers and librarians to get rid of unsuitable books. 

The books the parents object to contain ‘bad’ language or references to vampires, violence, drugs, suicide, religion, racism or sex. They include respected works of literature like ‘Catcher in the Rye’ by JD Salinger or Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ as well as more recent popular ‘teen’ fiction such as Stephanie Meyer’s ‘Twilight’ series.

Other parents, of course, fight to preserve the freedom of their children to read those books in school. They agree that parents have the right and the responsibility to guide their children through the world of books as well as through the real world, but they don’t agree that they have the right to control what other people’s children can or can’t read.

So why do I think it’s wrong for parents to ban books in school? Firstly, because they are not specialists; teachers are. If a teacher thinks a book has educational value, why should a parent’s opinions stop a child from reading it? After all, Shakespeare’s plays are full of swear words, violence and sex and nobody is suggesting we ban them.

Secondly, children live in the real world. They hear ‘bad’ language every day in the playground; they see ‘unsuitable’ things on TV and the Internet. So why shouldn’t they read ‘dangerous’ books in the safe, controlled environment of a school with the guidance of their teacher? Anyway, banning books is totally ineffective. Children, especially adolescents, love what is forbidden. If a book is banned, it just becomes more popular and more children will read it. The only people who win when parents try to ban books are the authors and publishers of those books who will sell more copies.