Denying science and censoring books are time-honored traditions in the tyrannical governments of places like Thirdworldsylvania and Nukehavistan. However, in America we also allow such risible practices to transpire in elementary and high schools. In the state of Kansas, for example, the education board has set education standards that call to question the theory of evolution with absolutely no scientific support. Meanwhile, all over the country, books are banned from curriculums because of their “questionable” content. Supporters of these policies are a combination of wretched parents and right-wing activists who assert that they have a right to control what children learn. They also claim that these policies are in the best interest of children and teenagers in school.
They are wrong on both counts.
Parents have a right to raise their children, but they do not have a right to indoctrinate them, or to make them ignorant of the world around them. When parents and activists force science teachers to call into question theories about evolution that are well supported by an enormous body of evidence, as they are doing in Kansas, they go beyond simply teaching their children values or protecting them from harm. They cross the line into using the state as a means to distort the truth, and to rob children and teenagers of their right to know and their right to an education.
This is just as true when activist parents and school boards decide to ban books from their curriculums. Books are usually banned when they contain sensitive content and present alternative viewpoints. Parents and activists claim to be protecting students from the ravages that the content and viewpoints will visit upon them. In reality they are robbing students from a true understanding of humanity. Books selected by certified teachers for use in curriculum are not smut for the sake of smut, but literature. These books contain graphic details because life itself is graphic; they are meant to give young students an understanding of another race, culture or way of life not easily accessible in their everyday life. The fact that the details of life for some might be graphic doesn’t give parents or members of the community the right to keep students, particularly high schoolers, ignorant of what struggles people go through.
An example of what I am talking about is the book The Perks of Being a Wallflower. It tells the story of a high school student who encounters a host of different problems in growing up and trying to find his place in high school society. Since it is realistic, it contains references to drug use, violence and homosexuality. Since it contains all of these elements, it is also one of the books most frequently challenged by parents in school libraries and curriculums. Predictably, some wretched parents claim that all the alternative sexuality and naughty behavior are bad influences on their children.
But what is the alternative they propose? They would rather ignore that all these things exist, and to never cause the more well-adjusted students to identify with those who have trouble fitting into high school. This causes harm to both groups of students. The well-adjusted students are worse off for not being exposed to the point of view of others. Meanwhile, the isolated students never get the benefit of having a character with which they can identify. Parents don’t have a right to prevent this education, just as they don’t have a right to prevent their children from using calculus or long division.
But this education is even more important than what students learn in math class. While mathematical principles are important, what is more important is a student’s ability to think and reason outside the insulated cone created by parents and community. Sure the values most popular among locals might eventually be the most appealing point of view, but students ought to have access to a world of ideas before they are taught to shut it out.
We usually think of freedom of speech and the right to have access to a diverse body of information as the exclusive rights of those over the age of 18, but they aren’t. These freedoms exist for all citizens, especially for the ones who are most subject to indoctrination. Challenged books like The Perks of Being a Wallflower, To Kill a Mockingbird and Slaughterhouse 5 need to be taught because they expose students to new thought about the human condition. Challenged ideas like evolution also need to be taught because they tell students the truth about the human past. Conservative parents’ and activists’ efforts to censor such ideas and books show a lack of confidence in their own ideology. Confident ideologies and societies do not fear new ideas, they embrace the dialogue and believe that they will triumph because of the strength of their ideas, not the strength of their censors.
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