A friend of mine is a teacher who’s in the middle of some fight in her school with the school board. In a nutshell, a bunch of conservative parents/community members want to have a bunch of books removed from the library, and a bunch of liberal teachers and liberal parents/community members are fighting to keep them.
What I find most interesting about society in 2023 is that who is for or against free speech and or censorship depends largely on what the medium is. If it is written text, then conservatives want to ban it and liberals want to protect it. If it is spoken out loud, then then sides flip.
Ultimately I don’t see what difference it makes. Banning a book from the school library isn’t going to keep a kid from getting it online.
What I find most interesting about society in 2023 is that who is for or against free speech and or censorship depends largely on what the medium is. If it is written text, then conservatives want to ban it and liberals want to protect it. If it is spoken out loud, then then sides flip.
The subject matter also seems to differ. Conservatives are deathly afraid of anything they think might turn a kid gay or trans, liberals don’t want to allow any debate that challenges far left woke ideology.
Banning a book from the school library isn’t going to keep a kid from getting it online.
That’s not really a good barometer.
Deciding not to stock hardcore porn in the library isn’t going to prevent kids or anyone from finding it online. That isn’t a good argument for having hardcore porn in the library.
Ultimately I don’t see what difference it makes.
For better or worse, it makes a difference in messaging what the community (in the case of public schools or libraries) is going to endorse or tolerate. If a kid finds books with X content at their school library, then the kid can assume the school and the community is fine with them reading those books.
School libraries are interesting, especially in communities with separate public library systems. In those cases, it would seem like school libraries should be mainly stocked with books that support the curriculum. Public libraries should carry a wider selection, because they serve a wider audience for a broader set of purposes. That said, encouraging reading for pleasure is a good thing, so it makes sense for school libraries to have enough selection to support students who don’t have easy access to their public libraries for some reason.
Generally speaking, I don’t support “banning” books. But libraries can’t have every book ever written, so there’s inherently some degree of selection already in play. Some of that selection is based on availability, some based on interest from the public (i.e. if a book is requested a lot), and some would seem to be likely based on content. Public libraries have the luxury of separating children’s and adult sections, which is not always doable in school libraries (not every school can separate by age or grade level).
What I find most interesting about society in 2023 is that who is for or against free speech and or censorship depends largely on what the medium is. If it is written text, then conservatives want to ban it and liberals want to protect it. If it is spoken out loud, then then sides flip.
The subject matter also seems to differ. Conservatives are deathly afraid of anything they think might turn a kid gay or trans, liberals don’t want to allow any debate that challenges far left woke ideology.
Just curious, what exactly is “far left woke ideology” ?
What I find most interesting about society in 2023 is that who is for or against free speech and or censorship depends largely on what the medium is. If it is written text, then conservatives want to ban it and liberals want to protect it. If it is spoken out loud, then then sides flip.
I think there’s a little more nuance to it in many cases.
I’m all for keeping Mein Kampf in libraries. Let’s say Middle School on up. It’s history. But if some budding youth Nazi wants to do a library reading of Main Kampf in a proselytizing vs. literary effort, I’m going to pass on permitting that person to use the school library’s auditorium. Of course there’s a gray area in between, e.g. allowing instructors reading Huck Finn passage out loud in a literary reading to say the text as written. But I think after a few years of turmoil, the academic community has mostly settled on having verbal warnings, “I’m going to say the n-word. If you don’t want to hear the n-word, you are permitted to leave.” Of course practices vary by school and community.
this issue has been incredibly divisive in my school district (Central Bucks). it is a generally very politically moderate place to live. Voted for Clinton and Biden by reasonable margins over trump, but keep electing a GOP congressman, Fitzpatrick (who has easily defeated MAGA primary challenges). Then, in the wake of Covid, and the parents protests about kids being out of school, the crazy far right managed to win a majority on the school board and start banning books, banning safe spaces, classifying a rainbow flag pin as political extremism etc; and spending $300K a month on expensive politically motivated lawyers to defend these practices against challenges from the ACLU.
i think/hope this has been a real wake up call for our community. It was inclusive, tolerant, affluent and moderate with great schools, until the far right were given an opening. We have school board elections in 2 weeks and that is the one getting much more focus than who runs the town or county. Hopefully the moderate folks will show up and vote out the extremists.
this issue has been incredibly divisive in my school district (Central Bucks).
Yeah, it’s an issue one district over from me, Douglas County, NV. The school board didn’t like that their counsel opposed some transgender restrictions they passed, so they replaced him with combative, politically outspoken injury law attorney, even though he has zero experience in the issues that come before school boards. And just started handing him gobs of money to act as all around fixer. That lawyer has now almost completed the job of pushing out the Superintendent who still has three years on his contract. Now they’re working on changing board bylaws to give themselves more power. Not my district (though just a few miles away) and I have no kids, so I’m just following at the popcorn-eating level.
School libraries are interesting, especially in communities with separate public library systems. In those cases, it would seem like school libraries should be mainly stocked with books that support the curriculum. Public libraries should carry a wider selection, because they serve a wider audience for a broader set of purposes.
Deciding not to stock hardcore porn in the library isn’t going to prevent kids or anyone from finding it online. That isn’t a good argument for having hardcore porn in the library.
Sorry I wasn’t clear. I was thinking about it from the other perspective. If a group of conservatives didn’t want “these 12 books” to be in the school library, I don’t see where that’s really stopping a kid from accessing the information.
Say for example, the book is, “Hey, look at my boobs.” The conservative group says, “I don’t think this is appropriate for the middle school library.” They aren’t banning it from society. If a parent really wants their kid to read a book on boobs, provided that it isn’t outlawed, they can get that book. It just won’t be sitting on a shelf in the school library for the kid to go browsing through.
I pretty much agree with everything else you wrote.
School libraries are interesting, especially in communities with separate public library systems. In those cases, it would seem like school libraries should be mainly stocked with books that support the curriculum. Public libraries should carry a wider selection, because they serve a wider audience for a broader set of purposes.
This
Why should they be that limited? How many kids will actually make a trip to the public library?
I’m not advocating for books that are sexually explicit. But I am definitely for books that have a very wide spectrum of ideas.
“I’m going to say the n-word. If you don’t want to hear the n-word, you are permitted to leave.”
Side note: I just heard my coworker say the n-word and my jaw dropped. She’s Irish and it was in reference to how a sect of Irish people used to be called “red n!@@&r’s.” She was just telling me the terminology that was used, but I’m not used to hearing it anymore.
If a group of conservatives didn’t want “these 12 books” to be in the school library, I don’t see where that’s really stopping a kid from accessing the information.
As I said, it’s not absolutely stopping them from accessing it. It is, however, stopping them from accessing it in a public school, where accessibility might imply endorsement, and it might make it more difficult to access, even if only a little bit.
School libraries are interesting, especially in communities with separate public library systems. In those cases, it would seem like school libraries should be mainly stocked with books that support the curriculum. Public libraries should carry a wider selection, because they serve a wider audience for a broader set of purposes.
This
Why should they be that limited? How many kids will actually make a trip to the public library?
I’m not advocating for books that are sexually explicit. But I am definitely for books that have a very wide spectrum of ideas.
I used to do so a lot as did many people.
Maybe I’m just projecting the books available in the school libraries I had growing up. I’m thinking along the lines of availability of free reading books. There was a diversity of topics and themes but no sexual stuff and honestly I’m wholly opposed that being in school libraries. You can get it at the public ones.
School libraries are interesting, especially in communities with separate public library systems. In those cases, it would seem like school libraries should be mainly stocked with books that support the curriculum. Public libraries should carry a wider selection, because they serve a wider audience for a broader set of purposes.
This
Why should they be that limited? How many kids will actually make a trip to the public library?
I’m not advocating for books that are sexually explicit. But I am definitely for books that have a very wide spectrum of ideas.
Most schools don’t have the space, budget, or capacity to have the same selection as a full public library. They have to limit what they keep on the shelves to some extent just based on that, and the primary focus should be having what students might need to support their school work. That’s not to say that school libraries can’t have anything additional, just that their first priority should be supporting the curriculum.
If a group of conservatives didn’t want “these 12 books” to be in the school library, I don’t see where that’s really stopping a kid from accessing the information.
As I said, it’s not absolutely stopping them from accessing it. It is, however, stopping them from accessing it in a public school, where accessibility might imply endorsement, and it might make it more difficult to access, even if only a little bit.
Obviously some books are not appropriate for some ages.
But the issue here with many of these bans is that the bans are not being applied in a reasonable way at all. You can’t ban a book about two gay penguins raising a chick and not ban Bernstein bears. That is what happens over and over. Gay relationships are seen as inappropriate or legally risky so schools ban to be safe, but similar hetero relationships are not banned. That is not an accident. It is the exact intent of the people behind the bans.
Then you have the whole race part. If you are the same age as ruby bridges in the book, that is appropriate for that age. Those bans are clearly way over the line.