Stop Book Banning
Stop Book Banning! Should school administrators be allowed to ban books? Of course not! They are abusing their power of having the right to teach children. They want to ban a book just because it shows the true past of America, which some students cannot handle. They should not shield the past; if anything they should tell everything about the past and explain to the students why the events occurred. They should understand why America did the things it did so that they will not be ashamed of the country that they live in and they can then defend their country to anybody trying to put it down.
One reason administrators should not be allowed to ban books is because it takes the right and freedom to choose what is read, away from the parents and students. Doesn’t it say in the first amendment that all people have the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press? By writing a book you are expressing and sharing your opinions which is exercising the freedom of speech, and by putting your words down on paper, you are exercising your freedom of the press. Why then are the school administrators trying to take our rights away from us?
What makes them think they have the right to take away our freedoms given to us from the first amendment of the Constitution? The article “Book Banning Efforts are Up, Poll Finds” by Hillel Italie, says, ‘“It all stems from a fearfulness of well-meaning people,” said Michael Gorman, president of the library association. “We believe in parental responsibility, and that you should take care of what your children are reading. But it’s not your responsibility to tell a whole class of kids what they should read. ’ This is saying that yes you do have the right to decide what your kid reads, however you cannot decide what other kids should read. This also applies to the administrators. They can decide what their kid can read, but they cannot decide what an entire school can or cannot read. Another reason to not ban books is because it prevents kids from learning. How can we learn about the past and the way America was back when the great American authors wrote, when the administrators take away the books that teach us this, preventing us from learning?
How can we learn of the language of the olden days when we cannot read this language? How are we supposed to learn the history of our ancestors and their ancestors when there is a possibility that administrators will ban the book that will help us do so? Why are the people of America letting these administrators get away with this cruel and unjust act? The article “Let Me Poison My Mind with Books” by Craig Pearson states, “Just like muscles, the brain requires pushups.
The more ideas we expose ourselves to the more we devise our own. That’s why education, and thus reading, is so essential, even if by some people’s account what we read is dirty. ” People should be able to choose for themselves what they read, and nobody else should be able to tell them differently. One person reads a book and learns something from that particular book. However, another person can read the exact same book and learn something completely different from what the first person learned.
Why should this fact of life and learning be taken away because one person reads a book, learns something they don’t like from it, and then proceeds to take that book away from others, even though they will most likely learn something different then what the person trying to ban the book learned? The reason for the first person trying to ban the book could be something that another reader does not even notice or care about and it therefore does not impact them. So why are people so worried? One argument to my case could be that some people feel that these books should be banned to protect students from indecent and controversial material.
But why should books be banned to protect one student in a school of hundreds, when none of the other kids or their parents feels that they need that kind of protection? You can not protect one kid from material if it means preventing others from that material. Instead, the kid who needs “protecting” should learn to protect themselves and choose not to read that material that could be harmful to him/her. Students need to learn to make decisions for themselves and banning material from a library is in no way helping them learn for themselves.
If they are sheltered their whole life then what is going to happen when they embrace the real world? In the article “Did You Ever Meet a Book You Didn’t Like? ” by Sharon Coatney, she says, “That being said, books are meant to be chosen carefully. Some titles are appropriate in one situation and not in another, for one child and not another. ” I think she says it beautifully. Every kid needs to look at the book, asses it, and make sure it is something that they can and want to read. Each book that is made has a purpose.
This could mean that that book is meant to be read by a certain kid at a certain point in their life so as to help guide that kid through life. All books have the chance to influence a kid’s life, so why would administrators want to prevent the book from somehow helping someone? Why can’t the administrators put themselves in our shoes? If the roles were reversed they would feel the same as we do. Why then do they have no compassion? Why can’t they do for us what we would do for them? The saying goes, “Treat others the way you want to be treated. ” Young children can do it. Why can’t we?
