THANK YOU for this article! I've never been happier I found your Substack.
I really appreciate the point about divergence of classroom experiences, and I hope in your note to reporters that a lot of deep digging can drag this specific problem into the light.
I also appreciate the reminder about the difference between library bans and curriculum bans. As a student, the curriculum bans actually worry/worried me less, because I didn't *want* to read those books anyway, and they were still available in the school library if I had. A library ban keeps that book out of a reader's hands.
Worse still are the all too common shadow bans where librarians (either themselves or under the direction of a higher power) remove books from the school or local library. I spent some time volunteering at both my high school and my community library as a teen, and these were a real thing. You may wish to address this kind of situation in an addendum to this post.
The "bigger problem to solve" is exactly the point in most banning efforts, IMHO. Sure, parents are interested in how their children are educated, but realistically, they can't devote large chunks of time to fully understand the nuts and bolts of classroom dynamics. They see that a book (either in the library or on a required reading list) contains hot-button issue content, with which they disagree, and they act to prevent their child's exposure to it. I haven't studied the details of what recent banning efforts have attempted to ban, but I suspect that most efforts these days center around two bigger problems: 1) What material is proper to expose to a student of a particular age, and 2) The question of whether the school or the family should determine the exposure of certain topics to the child.
In the cases I have seen, these two problems often go hand in hand. A parent sees that a book being read to her six year old son advocates faddish New Age gender material and reacts negatively because she believes that her son is too young to adequately absorb the lesson, beyond an indoctrination level. She also believes that it is her job to determine when and how, her son is exposed to the issue. Both concerns have legitimacy, and the upshot is that she demands that the school remove the book. She doesn't parse the nuances of educational theory, but she knows that her plan for her child is being challenged. She probably also believes that other, similar challenges exist in the system and she sees this book as a point of contact with that system for which she may have some influence. The same analysis can be applied to a book in the library that is accessible to her 13 year old daughter that demonstrates approval of a lifestyle that she wants to discourage.
Of course, bans should not be imposed at the drop of a hat and should not be successfully driven by the lunatic fringe. But there are legitimate concerns about the influence of academia on young minds, and those concerns do not need to be centered in the pedagogy to be valid.
THANK YOU for this article! I've never been happier I found your Substack.
I really appreciate the point about divergence of classroom experiences, and I hope in your note to reporters that a lot of deep digging can drag this specific problem into the light.
I also appreciate the reminder about the difference between library bans and curriculum bans. As a student, the curriculum bans actually worry/worried me less, because I didn't *want* to read those books anyway, and they were still available in the school library if I had. A library ban keeps that book out of a reader's hands.
Worse still are the all too common shadow bans where librarians (either themselves or under the direction of a higher power) remove books from the school or local library. I spent some time volunteering at both my high school and my community library as a teen, and these were a real thing. You may wish to address this kind of situation in an addendum to this post.
The "bigger problem to solve" is exactly the point in most banning efforts, IMHO. Sure, parents are interested in how their children are educated, but realistically, they can't devote large chunks of time to fully understand the nuts and bolts of classroom dynamics. They see that a book (either in the library or on a required reading list) contains hot-button issue content, with which they disagree, and they act to prevent their child's exposure to it. I haven't studied the details of what recent banning efforts have attempted to ban, but I suspect that most efforts these days center around two bigger problems: 1) What material is proper to expose to a student of a particular age, and 2) The question of whether the school or the family should determine the exposure of certain topics to the child.
In the cases I have seen, these two problems often go hand in hand. A parent sees that a book being read to her six year old son advocates faddish New Age gender material and reacts negatively because she believes that her son is too young to adequately absorb the lesson, beyond an indoctrination level. She also believes that it is her job to determine when and how, her son is exposed to the issue. Both concerns have legitimacy, and the upshot is that she demands that the school remove the book. She doesn't parse the nuances of educational theory, but she knows that her plan for her child is being challenged. She probably also believes that other, similar challenges exist in the system and she sees this book as a point of contact with that system for which she may have some influence. The same analysis can be applied to a book in the library that is accessible to her 13 year old daughter that demonstrates approval of a lifestyle that she wants to discourage.
Of course, bans should not be imposed at the drop of a hat and should not be successfully driven by the lunatic fringe. But there are legitimate concerns about the influence of academia on young minds, and those concerns do not need to be centered in the pedagogy to be valid.