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Jared Auteri
Comp 1
Mrs. Cramer
January 20, 2017

Censorship In Schools Good or Bad?

What is your look on censorship in schools today? Schools today have censored almost

everything on the internet and got rid of what they thought were "inappropriate" books in the

library. The effect this has on students and sometimes even teachers can cause them to not be

able to find what they are looking for educationally. Which brings me to my two main topics;

censorship for books and censorship on the web and how both of them effect what students are

trying to find for educational reasons. For example, a student wants to watch a video on Ben

Franklin and tries to go on the website YouTube, but one problem it is block. How is that student

going to learn about new people or new ideas if they can not watch an informational video on

them. Schools should only censor books and websites to keep their students and faculty safe not

stop them from learning about new people, places, or ideas.

Schools today have censor basically everything on the web and sometimes it is a little

over the top. In the schools defense there are some immature people out there who abuse their

privilege on the internet and ruin it for everyone. Therefore, they have to block information that

could go without being blocked. On the other hand, I dont believe the school should block the

websites for everyone because it also punishes the responsible people. I believe they should

punish the immature students reasonably. Schools follow what you would consider a rubric to

see if the website is safe or not. They check educational content, age level, acceptability by
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parents and the community, and appropriateness in the school. Censoring certain sites not only

limit students knowledge and where to find new knowledge but also waste a students time. A site

that would not be block at their home in which the student is familiar with is blocked at school

which causes them to use up more time looking for a new site that is not blocked. One statement

I found interesting was "school censors believe, in most cases, that censorship is the most

expedient, safe, and familiar way to keep salacious, frightening, inciting, titillating,

overwhelming, or seditious words or images out of reach of students." (Ken 2) I found this

interesting because I have seen in schools were one website is blocked and in another school it is

not blocked. For example the famous online game Minecraft, which has no bad language,

overwhelming content, or inappropriate images, is blocked in one school but in another they use

it for math classes such as geometry and computer aided drafting. I dont believe in school

censors and their policies I believe it is all opinions and those schools that censor everything

have kids that are not able to experience new and exciting ideas online. Sometimes it is not the

schools fault, sometimes parents complain to the school about racial content or overwhelming

content for their child. When this happened it is aimed back toward the school for having it in the

first place. I believe that if a teacher would look it up then a student should be aloud as well.

Books today may be forgotten with all the new E-readers and online articles, but today

our school libraries are still censoring these "ancient" scrolls we call books. In our schools today

they are getting rid of classic books that our parents and grandparents read when they were little

who would not even think about them having racial comments or bad content in them. For

example, in 1998 Yellow Medicine East School District in Minnesota pulled the classic book The

Little House on the Prairie off their shelves in their library. (Ken 2) The reason this happened
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was because there was a complaint from a parent of a student at that school who found that the

book had racial offensive material about Native Americans in it. My question for the parent is

how long ago was that book written? The book was published in 1932, 76 years ago at the time

the parent complained. In the time period the book was written you were not scolded for being

racist, in fact, no one knew what that was. Back then it was life and you can not just censor how

the pioneers lived. It is a classic novel which I am sure everyone has read or even seen the

movies they made about the book. We should not pull a 85 year old classic book off the shelves

for having racial content it's not like it was written yesterday. The students today need to read

about life as a pioneer and living without electric or cars because how it is now and how it was

then are two completely different worlds. There are far worse books out there that we should be

focusing on. Another idea is even though a school may censor the book, the student can just go

out and buy the book and bring it in to read it in school. In general censoring a book doesnt fix

the problem it makes it worse because now the students are curious to why the book is censored

and then they go out and read it to find out. Not censoring a book also informs students and

teaches them how to deal with problems and why those problems are either good or bad.

Schools today should only censor books and websites to keep their students and faculty

safe not stop them from learning. I believe schools should lower their censoring policies so they

are not so strict. They need to look at how the students will learn and the knowledge they will get

from that website or book, not the bad content they may take from them. All in all if a school is

going to censor a book or website they should dig a little deeper and ask themselves "Do I think

this is honestly that bad?"

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Work Cited
Jacobson, Linda. "Unnatural Selection. (Cover Story)." School Library
Journal 62.10 (2016): 20-24. Teacher Reference Center. Web. 5 Jan. 2017.
Petress, Ken. "The Role Of Censorship In School." Journal Of
Instructional Psychology 32.3 (2005): 248-252. Teacher Reference Center.
Web. 5 Jan. 2017.
Spencer, John T. "Don't Bribe My Kids To Read" Kappan 94.3 (2012): 72-
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