Should Censorship Be Allowed In Schools

Supporters of banning say profanity can negatively influence the actions and thoughts of readers, especially younger readers that may not have heard or read many corrupt words. Huckleberry Finn, a book commonly inveighed for its use of contentious racial language, is commonly challenged for that reason. For USA Today, Martha Moore wrote, “When the younger reader is staring at that word five times on a given page and the instructor is saying, 'Mark Twain didn't mean this and you have to read it with an appreciation of irony,' you're asking a lot of a younger reader”. Granted, foul vocabulary is a challenge that academies need to address, but not through barring novels. Besides, if the reader is sufficiently mature for the book, they can still learn from it. For instance, some racial characterizations do not intentionally persecute people, but show the contrasting tensions between them, conforming to the time period. Again, the article “Huck Finn Navigating Choppy Waters Again” revealed, “The word is there for a reason… The word is terrible, it's hurtful, but it's there for a reason” (Moore). The racial epithets used in that book convey the attitude of Missouri in the 1840s when friction between African Americans and white people was rising. Additionally, banning a book due to concerns about the language is not beneficial to pupils because it prevents them from learning from other components of the book. “Often the organizations or schools that ban these books fail to see the book as a whole; they often center on the one page, the one scene or even the one word containing the offensive language or meaning and judge the whole book based on that one aspect,” according to an article by Adriana Lopez. She makes a sound point. A book contains a whole plot with themes that

The Catcher in the Rye. The Scarlet Letter. Huckleberry Finn. Harry Potter. The Diary of Anne Frank. Animal Farm. To Kill a Mockingbird. The Da Vinci Code. The Grapes of Wrath. These literary classics have been vital to the education of many, especially children and adolescents (Banned Books). These great novels both teach important values and educate children about world affairs and classic themes. Unfortunately, each of these novels has been banned at one point in time. In a country where freedom is so adamantly advocated, it is a wonder that an issue like censorship would even come up, that such a controversy would sink its claws into the minds of states’ boards of education across the nation.

language is vulgar, lewd, and demeaning. As of 2015, all states in the United States, except for

“Children deprived of words become school dropouts, dropouts deprived of hope behave delinquently. Amateur censors blame delinquency on reading immoral books and magazines, when in fact, the inability to read anything is the basic trouble.” (Peter S. Jennison) Censorship could easily be one of the biggest controversies around the world today. The book “Harris and Me” by Gary Paulsen, about a boy who stays with his distant cousin Harris on the family farm because his parents are a bunch of “puke drunks.” Spends the summer fighting “commie japs”, hunting mice, and tussling with the rooster Ernie. This book was banned by the ALA for nothing more than profanity. If that’s even the right term, especially for today in our society. This book was taught in my sixth grade class and I have adored it ever since, but I was baffled to find out it

Despite that students now use profanity in their public schools and even more out of school, this could cause more children and teens to use the offensive language around their peers.

According to one article, “Parents have argued that the use of profanity by the children in the novel were offensive and may even encourage their own children to use profanity.” J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye was “banned countless times for its profanity alone.” Alice Walker’s The Color Purple is an example of a book banned because of the homosexual content (as well as its “troubling ideas about race relations, man’s relationship to God, African history, and human sexuality”) As you can see, books are challenged very often, even these very famous and renowned

Censorship can take different shapes depending on the public school system: Schools can give teachers a list of acceptable books to teach, just provide guidelines, or leave it up to the teachers to judge which books are appropriate (Agee, 1999). Teachers are often very nervous about including texts that are not traditional or specifically approved by the school, especially because of the highly publicized cases of teachers whose careers have been ruined because of censorship debates in courts and school systems (Agee, 1999).

     It is well known that books read by adolescents are somewhat inappropriate in certain ways such as language and the types of actions done by the characters. Some books consist of drugs, sex, and violence which obviously isn’t very appropriate nor does it consist of

To start, students should not be completely obvious to the harsh topics explained in some of their books. The book To Kill A Mockingbird was kick out of the 8th grade lesson plan “due to the use of the ‘N’ word” in Biloxi (Clarion Ledger). This book show how difficult

When being assigned this project, I immediately went to this issue of banning books in the classroom. I remember growing up reading some of these books on the banned list. But not remembering them for being racist or indecent, but rather them depicting a time period and a glips of society back them. I wanted to get down to the reason why and who has the power of banning books. I wanted to dig deeper into the reasons why books were becoming banned and reach out to the community of educators for their opinion on this topic.

Censorship is a problem that has popped up throughout the world. “Censorship takes place anytime a book is removed from its intended audience” (Whelan). The banning and censoring of books puts a pall on the eyes of children and adults alike. Many novels have been banned and challenged, dredging up controversies that now plague the entire world. Carrie by Stephen King is a novel that was challenged by schools and libraries.

The practice of the censorship of books in schools has been prevalent due to the explicit content of them. Parents have been complaining to schools about books that count as required reading because they disapprove with the points made in the book. If a book consists of offensive or sexually explicit material, then parents would challenge the schools about them in order to prevent their children from reading them. Censorship in general has been an intensely debated issue because it is considered an infringement to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution while others argue it is used to conceal inappropriate things (Aliprandini and Sprague). The banning of books in school curriculum has also been debated since parents see

Profane language is used very often in books. A majority of people believe the use of profanity in books is acceptable. However, when these books are exposed to high school students, many parents complain about it. Parents complain about these type of books because they do not want their children to learn negative words and get influenced by these devastating words. These words promotes negativity within students and sometimes it could lead to violence.

Schools ban books containing sex and profanity because they do not want their students to get the idea of “another day, another blow job” (Anonymous 112). As well, they do not want their youth reading books that include “the dirty sonofabitches had taken turns raping us and treating us sadistically” (78). While this novel includes explicit aspects such as blasphemy and sex, the author never encourages doing either of these things. He or she uses these as a way to explain the negatives of drug use, meaning he or she is insinuating that both sex and profanity are sinful actions, as they are a result of

When offensive ideas are introduced to children through a school curriculum, it allows the child to grow in knowledge, morals, and prepares him/her for uncomfortable situations in the future. Through adding controversial literature to the curriculum, teachers give a safe environment for students to process these new ideas. In the fourth grade, my teacher read a book to my class, called Smokey Nights. Smokey Nights is about a young African American boy named Daniel, who witnesses riots in the streets outside his Los Angeles apartment.