Dangerous Words: Censorship in Public Schools
This essay discusses the problems raised by book challenges in the public schools and offers practical and philosophical responses to censorship. It also summarizes the legal history of book censorship in schools and libraries and provides a list of often challenged books that should be used in the classroom. We cannot protect our children from this world, which is a scary place. The only thing we can do is help them develop an inner strength to meet the inevitable challenges they will face. —Young Adult Novelist Katherine Paterson, Foerstal Interview, pp. 168-69. Imagine you are a new ninth-grade language arts teacher, fresh out of college, filled with big ideas, and inspired by the large number and wide variety of books for young adults. You assign your class a novel by well-known (and critically-acclaimed) young adult author Chris Crutcher, and everything seems to be going well. The students appear to like the book, the class discussions are lively, and you are certain you are teaching them about reading, interpretation, and argument. Best of all, students actually seem to be enjoying themselves. Then your principal calls you into her office, closes the door, and tells you there’s been a complaint by one of the parents—
“You Can’t Handle The Truth!”: Reality, Censorship, and the Young Adult Novel
P erhaps the strongest argument regarding the value of literature for young adults is that it allows the juvenile reader to experience a host of scenarios that he or she has never experienced and, ordinarily, will probably never undergo in real life. This vicarious function may, of course, be true of any literature but is of particular interest to me when it applies to an audience assumed to be going through a particularly dynamic stage characterized by the changing expectations, both of one’s self, of others, and of the world.
SECONDARY EDUCATION 1993-97, A review of Secondary Schools in England
Provides a general overview of secondary schools in England. The text looks at the standards achieved by schools, the contributory factors, and wider aspects of school life. Through discussion of key issues, it aims to point the way forward for further improvement.