Book Banning
Many parents believe that banning of books only affects the learning of their students when in fact, banning of books affects the learning of other students as well. There are a lot of parents who believe that what students read about in class may not be appropriate because of its content. When a parent tries to interfere with his/her child's right to read, I think it affects that student as well as other students, which I feel becomes censorship. Censorship has become a major problem in many schools throughout the United States. In the 14th annual report Attacks on the Freedom to Learn published by People for the American Way, there is an annual survey of censorship, and also attempted censorship, in national public schools that has statistics on the number of books being banned. For the 1993-1994 school year, the survey reported there were 462 challenges to curriculum and texts, which is the most in the 12 years the report has been published. One hundred fifty-seven of those challenges against curriculum and texts were successful (Gartner A13). One of the most controversial books, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, written by Mark Twain, is a good example of a book that was challenged in 1994.
Books stimulate growth better than anything, so when parents try to protect their children from the contents found in a book, they are taking away a child's right to learn. Anyone can say that one time or another they read a book, and learned a lot from it. When I was in school, I read many of these books that have been attacked. I feel that if that had happened in my school system, I wouldn't have been as willing to learn from books and textbooks. It is alright for parents to get involved in their students school work, but it is not alright when parents interfere with what is taught in the classroom, it should be considered censorship. Some more books that are among the USA's 10 most banned or challenged books include the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, and, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. These books where challenged because of their content including profanity, sexual harassment, and anti-Christian themes (" Harry Potter Faces" A22). What some critics don't think about is that even though these books have this kind of content, there are real life situations discussed in each book. For example, how Huck didn't see Jim as a slave but as a good friend. This teaches students to not be afraid to have friends who are of different race. There are also many r
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Approximate Word count = 893
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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