Censorship in Schools

From digmovements

"Liberty without learning is always in peril and learning without liberty is always in vain."

- President John F. Kennedy

1933 Nazi Berlin Book Burning Source: Wikimedia Commons

1 Definition of Censorship
2 Campaign against Censorship In Schools
3 Claims-making performances
4 WUNC displays
5 Who are the participants in the movement?
6 What are the claims of your movement?
7 Are web technologies creating/transforming your movement?
8 Fight Censorship
9 Links

[edit] Definition of Censorship

Censorship, or more acurately a Censor, can be defined as: A person authorized to examine books, films, or other material and to remove or suppress what is considered morally, politically, or otherwise objectionable. Dictionary.com

But Lester Asheim more broadly defines the distinction between Censorship and Selection as follows: Selection... begins with a presumption in favor of liberty of thought; Censorship, with a presumption in favor of thought control.

[edit] Campaign against Censorship In Schools

Many Censorship in Schools Organizations Online are against Censorship in Schools and this has been true since the controversy arose in the 1950 of whether or not States should be allowed to censor certain books while allowing other in.(Cite Example) But the problem with this is that there always needs to be someone who has read the book in the first place to determine if it is good or bad. And how can any parent trust someone else to say that a certain book is good or bad for their child. The overall goal this campaign is after is to be completely free of censorship everywhere. Free information to anyone who seeks it is the ultimate goal. One of the problems with this is minors, and that is where the k-12 touchy subject comes into play. The parents of a child may not feel it is appropriate for a child of their's to read "Huckleberry Finn" but the teacher might feel that it is their responsibility to teach American literature to the student. This brings into play the question of what should the teacher teach and who is it up to? This campaign is aimed at simply informing people who might be subjected to censorship and feel they have no way of getting to the information they seek.

Moffet Painting Source: Moffet website

[edit] Claims-making performances

This campaign is aimed at stopping censorship of books in schools. It does this by taking a very active look at which books are censored and which ones are simply targeted against because of bias. THe ALA American Library Association works to list all of the complaints they receive and deals with them accordingly while the NCAC works to stop censorship before it happens. Both of these are vital in preventing and dealing with the banning of books. The NCAC uses Listservs and links to many other organizations to fight for intellectual freedom.

[edit] WUNC displays

Worthiness: The worthiness of this cause would be self evident every time a child is not allowed to read a certain book because of what the book contains. Intellectual freedom is a right of all students no matter their age and they should have the right to choose what books they want to read.

Unity: The unity of this cause is every teacher, parent and concerned citizen who values freedom of thought and expression over censorship. Every person in the world should value the freedom of the mind, and for another to censor what they can or cannot think has to be morally wrong.

Numbers: The ALA documents all of the complaints they receive every year. There are graphs which represent every aspect of a challenged number of books. Every teacher in schools all across the country represent people who are willing to fight for expression of the mind.

Commitment: Any person who feels that censorship will never stop, and that freedom of the mind will always be challenged by those who feel that it is right to ban books, must feel compelled to continually fight for freedom of expression.

[edit] Who are the participants in the movement?

Organizers – Who are the proponents initiating and guiding the movement? I believe the people that are starting this anti-censorship movement are the ones that are afraid of what will happen if no one actually does fight censorship. It is the Librarians and teachers and parents that are concerned that censoring a book will ultimately take too many liberties away from people.

Activists – Who are the active followers? The followers of this are the teachers, administrators, librarians, concerned parents and students. Parents are usually the ones to start the challenges and everone else has to then deal with the consequences. Unfortuantely it is the students who lose in the end if censorship is allowed.

Authorities – Who or what are the powers the movement targets?

Third parties – Who is in between? As public observers? Allies? “Objects of reform”? This would definitely have to be the students. The students are the ones who are subjected to the book in the first plae and then it is the parent who challenges it and then the entire process starts from there. Parents might try and stop a book from getting read before it is even allowed into the classroom or library, but it is always the students who are in the middle of it all.

[edit] What are the claims of your movement?

Program – What are the movement’s specific political goals? To stop book Censorship in schools, but more specifically to inform people that banning books is not the correct way to get your point across. A parent has the right to be offended by a book, but they don't have the right to be not offended. Meaning that they can be offended by a certain book because of their political, racial or ethnic views, but they cannot make it so that nobody ever has the chance of being offended by something.

[edit] Are web technologies creating/transforming your movement?

In what ways? How do they produce their effects? Information is far easier to obtain on the internet. For example the websites that I have listed provide charts on book that have been challenged and graphs on how many have been challenged and why. The internet is changing also because of e-books where nobody has the ability to censor all the books on the internet.