Is Censorship Harmful For School

The word censorship is from the Latin word root of censere, which means to give an opinion or expression to be judged upon. Censorship is the restriction of certain material, and due to its expression it is seen offensive to someone else. The origin of expression of censorship can be tracked back to the Roman Empire when Roman officials assessed the conduct and attitudes of other Roman citizens. The Roman government viewed that in order to have a strong government, the behavior and conduct of the peopled had to be changed according to what they thought was correct. Censorship continued to be a controversy over time. It remained a controversy over time, through many empires, the age of Enlightenment, World War II, and even today. As censorship progressed through the ages it still continues today. Today, censorship occurs at schools. It occurs in libraries, classrooms, and even in student publications. Even though censorship can occur to a certain extent at schools, students’ First Amendment rights are still protected at school. The First Amendment protects freedom of expression, speech, press, religion, and assembly. Students are allowed to express themselves freely at school as long as they do not affect the education and as long as it is not an activity supported by the school system.

Knowledge is power. Using knowledge, people can reshape society and the world as a whole, changing it for the better. However, gaining access to the necessary wealth of information requires a full education: people should be taught multiple ideologies and topics from an unbiased perspective. They must receive access to various viewpoints in their entirety. Teaching only one worldview strips students of their ability to truly analyze the world and its issues, because they cannot look beyond the one restrictive narrative they learned and therefore cannot develop their own perspective. Censorship hinders schools, institutions with the purpose of informing students and helping them develop their beliefs. Therefore, schools should not practice censorship when selecting literature for students because censorship obscures the purpose of literature, because censorship fails to expose students to a variety of ideas, and because censorship removes students’ ability to develop unique opinions and worldviews; education should provide an unbiased view of the world and many ideologies, so students can take their own stance on various issues rather than blindly following what they learn.

Censorship is a concept with several different meanings. To each individual censorship has its own meaning. Is it a violation of our rights or is it a protection for our well being? Censorship in the generic sense refers to the suppression of information, ideas, or opinions. It occurs in all forms of communication from technological media to print media. Each society, culture, or individual's belief is violated by the codes of censorship that our society instills.

The parents of our communities tend to fall on either side of the issue, divided into pro and anti-censorship groups. The big question that everyone is asking is if a student were to open a book and read about drugs, sex, or violence will this make a child more susceptible to this kind of behavior? Our United States board of education believes so, and has installed censorship safety precautions in the literature that is available in public schools and libraries. According to the American Library Association between 1990 and 2000 6,364 challenges against books were brought to Office of Intellectual Freedom by parents, teachers, and different pro-censorship organizations. The grounds for these challenges were that the books contained sexually explicit material, offensive language, satanic references, violence, homosexuality, or promotion of a religious belief. Some books that were on this list include The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (for incessant use of the n word), The Catcher and the Rye (Depicts teenage depression, prostitution and use of the f word) and Go Ask Alice (Instances of Drug Use, sex, and suicide. People that are pro censorship argue that no books are being banned. That, in fact, you can buy those same books in many bookstores or other places. They argue that is their right, as taxpayers to decide what their children should have

Censorship is not easy to define. According to Webster’s Dictionary, to "censor" means "to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable." Its central characteristic is the suppression of an idea or image because it offends or disturbs someone, or because they disagree with it. In many countries, censorship is most often directed at political ideas or criticism of the government. In the United States, censorship more often involves social issues, and in school is commonly directed at so-called "controversial" materials.

Censorship has been around for millions of years. Although censorship is still practised in some countries today, almost anyone would agree that censorship is never the right answer; as we have seen in the past, it has seldomly ever works out. Which is why it is so concerning that schools are starting to allow censorship in classrooms. As a result of this, the world is seeing an alarming amount of young millennials who are fresh into the workforce, expecting to always be catered to. More and more millennials are not being properly prepared for the real world due to censorship in schools; schools have been giving in and catering to students by allowing the censoring of books and microaggressions in the classroom, as a result the students are being taught that the world will cater to everyone, which is very inaccurate.

Censorship is one of the most controversial topics in America today. It provides rules or discipline for new technology. It covers music, video games, movies, plays, and the internet. Censorship is all around us, but how has it affected our nation as a whole? Censorship is the suppression of words, images, or ideas that are “offensive,” happens whenever some people succeed in imposing their personal political or moral values on others.

Censorship occurs when information is forbidden; for example, in books, movies, newspapers, and the Internet. Books are banned when they contain objectionable language, sexual content, political content, and in the case of government censorship, knowledge. Some people argue that censorship is necessary to protect children from explicit language or sex scenes, and to preserve morals or religious values. Those against censorship argue that historical facts shouldn’t be censored, so that people can learn from history. Opponents also claim that censorship invalidates their intellectual freedom; which the United Nations proclaimed as a fundamental human right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Finally, censorship decreases the quality

Censorship refers to the regulation of freedom of expression or any other information that may be sensitive or morally inaccurate to the people. This information can be considered immoral or politically inconvenient by religious groups, the government, ethnic communities and media outlets. Censorship originates back in ancient times in many different countries such as Rome and China. Censorship was mainly used for political, social and religious purposes. For example, Christians used censorship to defend against non-Christian rulers threats.

Censorship is "the removal, suppression, or restricted circulation of literary, artistic or educational materials ... on the grounds that these are morally or otherwise objectionable in light of the standards applied by the censor. Challenges to school materials have started to become a more prevalent and common occurrence in society especially in public schools. Public schools usually address censorship issues by taking one or more routes: imposing a list of acceptable literary works on all teachers, providing guidelines for the school district, or giving full authority to teachers to choose appropriate reading material and relying on their discretion. Advocates for censorship in school often target material that discusses race, sexuality, religion, and ethnicity

“Censorship is the process of suppressing something that is considered objectionable or offensive” (Emert 1). In order for a work to become censored, some authority figure imposes restrictions that establish what would be and would not be allowed to be put in front of the public for people to read. The standards those in authority base their restrictions off of are the standards set by the publishers, producers, and agencies of that work. Censorship is something that affects many people especially in the school system; it normally causes tensions to rise. This is because someone feels that their First Amendment rights have been violated. This most frequently happens in the school system because parents, students, teachers, and or staff find a work offensive in some way and try to get it removed. They bring it to the school board, and if severe enough, the case is brought before a judge in court. In most cases the person or group that tries to get the work censored, loses the case. In some cases, the person trying to censor does win. According to most school boards, they would say that students have their full First Amendment rights, but that is not always the case. When it comes to the Freedom of Expression, most schools find some way to censor, books, and articles especially.

Imagine if a society controlled what people see, hear, or did. This type of censorship is harmful to a society. Everyone needs to understand each other’s freedoms. This issue is discussed in Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. In this society, they can not read certain things and people decide to commit suicide over it. Censorship takes away our rights as individuals. It violates the First Amendment, keeps people from learning, and gives the government total control.

Censorship in U.S. law occurs if the media displays excessive or graphic violence, has mature content that is not appropriate for young audiences or contains matters that are kept secret for national security or public safety. How ever censorship in American communities is driven by the belief of the community. It is best seen in American schools like the banning of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The book was first banned in Concord, MA in 1885, people in this community banned the book because they believed that the book was racist for its use of the N word. Other communities like in Kansas banned the teaching of evolution in public schools. Censorship could have a negative effect in

Books are like a teacher, they teach us so many things about life and how the world is. And for censorship to continue happening it's preventing us from learning even more and reaching our full potential. We chose how words influence us. It could influence us in a bad way, or it could influence us in a good way. Furthermore, most children who are in poverty use books as a source for knowledge because their families cannot afford for them to go to school due to little to no income. And for books to continue to be censored it prevents the children to learn and grow their knowledge even more.

If one parent censors a book, because they do not want their child to read it, every kid looses the opportunity to read it. Some parents want to censor too much for their kids. What these parents do not realize is that it makes the child un prepared. If you give someone rose colored glasses to shield them from all the red flags of the world, all the red flags just end up looking like flags. Censorship hurts a child. The American Association of School Administrators states “Censorship is defined as the removal, suppression, or restricted circulation of literary, artistic, or educational material”. Since when does that sound like a good decision. Censorship can only further destroy our fragile society.