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Should high school students be "protected" or shielded from certain information, thoughts, or ideas? Why or why not? Please be specific.

Add your response to the padlet.

Defend your position with at LEAST 1 mode of persuasion and cite at LEAST 1 resource.

Reply to at LEAST 2 classmates (keep in mind online etiquette).

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The scattered black boxes hold resources!

Open them up to read/gather information about the topic.

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Ethos, Pathos, and Logos are modes of persuasion used to convince audiences. They are also referred to as the three artistic proofs (Aristotle coined the terms), and are all represented by Greek words.
or the ethical appeal, means to convince an audience of the author's credibility or character.

An author would use ethos to show to his audience that he is a credible source and is worth listening to. Ethos is the Greek word for "character." The word "ethic" is derived from ethos.

Ethos can be developed by choosing language that is appropriate for the audience and topic (this also means choosing the proper level of vocabulary), making yourself sound fair or unbiased, introducing your expertise, accomplishments or pedigree, and by using correct grammar and syntax.

During public speaking events, typically a speaker will have at least some of his pedigree and accomplishments listed upon introduction by a master of ceremony.

or the emotional appeal, means to persuade an audience by appealing to their emotions.

Authors use pathos to invoke sympathy from an audience; to make the audience feel what what the author wants them to feel. A common use of pathos would be to draw pity from an audience. Another use of pathos would be to inspire anger from an audience, perhaps in order to prompt action. Pathos is the Greek word for both "suffering" and "experience." The words empathy and pathetic are derived from pathos.

Pathos can be developed by using meaningful language, emotional tone, emotion evoking examples, stories of emotional events, and implied meanings.

or the appeal to logic, means to convince an audience by use of logic or reason.

To use logos would be to cite facts and statistics, historical and literal analogies, and citing certain authorities on a subject. Logos is the Greek word for "word," however the true definition goes beyond that, and can be most closely described as "the word or that by which the inward thought is expressed" and, "the inward thought itself" (). The word "logic" is derived from logos.

Logos can be developed by using advanced, theoretical or abstract language, citing facts (very important), using historical and literal analogies, and by constructing logical arguments.
In order to persuade your audience, proper use of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos is necessary.
Examples of Ethos, Logos and Pathos:

Example of Ethos:

"Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30...

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together."

Stanford Commencement Speech by Steve Jobs. June 12, 2005.

Example of Pathos:

"I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed."

I Have a Dream by Martin Luther King Jr. August 28th, 1963.

Example of Logos:

"However, although private final demand, output, and employment have indeed been growing for more than a year, the pace of that growth recently appears somewhat less vigorous than we expected. Notably, since stabilizing in mid-2009, real household spending in the United States has grown in the range of 1 to 2 percent at annual rates, a relatively modest pace. Households' caution is understandable. Importantly, the painfully slow recovery in the labor market has restrained growth in labor income, raised uncertainty about job security and prospects, and damped confidence. Also, although consumer credit shows some signs of thawing, responses to our Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices suggest that lending standards to households generally remain tight."

The Economic Outlook and Monetary Policy by Ben Bernanke. August 27th, 2010.

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Home - Ethos, Pathos, and Logos, the Modes of Persuasion ‒ Explanation and Examples

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Ethos, Pathos, and Logos are modes of persuasion used to convince audiences. They are also referred to as the three artistic proofs (Aristotle coined the terms), and are all represented by Greek words. or the ethical appeal, means to convince an audience of the author's credibility or character.

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We should teach religion to children because, by learning about the origins of myths and the histories of various religious institutions, they can see all religions as part of the same phenomenon - and not see one as inherently superior to all others.

I think it is important to give children a healthy dose of religious education early on, teaching them a broad range of comparative mythology and religion from a phenomenological approach. Children are naturally curious, and what is more interesting than the ancient belief systems that so many of our peers and ancestors have dedicated their lives to? By teaching them about the world's religions, we are giving them the information they seek and filling a gap in their knowledge in the same way we do when we teach about history or politics.

Given the opportunity to study it, I think many would agree that mythology is an interesting subject - and modern mythologies are no different. Through an education in Religious Studies, I learned about the creation myths from various cultures and those myths' earlier influences, about the similarities and inconsistencies within each belief system, and how each religion has grown from a localized cult to its modern global equivalent.

To clarify, I majored in Religious Studies, the study of religions from a phenomenological approach, which is not to be confused with Christian Theology - the study of Christianity as a fundamental truth. I found that, if you study comparative religion, it's more difficult to be religious because the great faiths are all very similar at the most fundamental level. Each organization has similar cult beginnings and "prophets," they each began as local and cultural myths before being applied to a global context, and they are almost always spread through a combination of violence and proselytization.

In the United States, public schools don't generally teach comparative religion courses, although they legally can - and should. The Supreme Court has upheld the teaching of religious studies in American public schools time and time again[1], but the vast majority of students in the U.S. continue to learn very little about the phenomenon of religion from traditional educational outlets, and instead adhere to whatever faith they were born into out of enculturation and ignorance.

The American approach is in stark contrast to most countries in Europe, which often have compulsory religious education courses taught from an academic (i.e. secular) perspective. What are the results? In the United Kingdom, a 2008 European Social Survey asked the question, "Which religion or denomination do you belong to at present?" with 52.68 percent selecting 'No Religion' in 2008.

In America, the most recent survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that 78.4 percent of the 35,000 or more respondents identified specifically as Christians - with only 6.3 percent declaring they were secular and unaffiliated with a religion.[2]

The fact remains that people, more often than not, inherit their religious beliefs from parents or childhood mentors. There is a crucial period in which a child begins to ask questions about life and wonder about the origin of existence and, in a religious family, these questions are typically answered in a religious context. The process begins with childhood baptisms, forced participation in religious rituals from a young age, and teaching children who are too young to understand that their religion is the only correct one, and sometimes that all others will burn in Hell.

Once the child is old enough to think logically about the possible veracity of various religions, it is often too late - the religious instruction has been so successful that the child no longer accepts the possibility that they could be wrong. After all, these ideas were introduced by a loving and trusted family member - why would they lie?

But there is hope. By educating children about the world's many religions, historical and modern alike, we can show them that each faith is simply one culture's attempt to explain the unknown. They can learn about religion from the perspective of an anthropologist, with a proper balance of intrigue and detachment, and gain true insight into the origin of the world's many belief systems.

David G. McAfee is a journalist and author of Mom, Dad, I'm an Atheist: The Guide to Coming Out as a Non-believer and Disproving Christianity and other Secular Writings. He is also a frequent contributor to American Atheist Magazine. McAfee attended University of California, Santa Barbara, and graduated with dual-degrees in English and Religious Studies, with an emphasis on Christianity and Mediterranean religions.

Written By: David G. McAfee continue to source article at

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Why We Should Teach Religion to Children

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We should teach religion to children because, by learning about the origins of myths and the histories of various religious institutions, they can see all religions as part of the same phenomenon - and not see one as inherently superior to all others.

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Public schools may teach about religion in a secular context. The Bible may be taught in a school, but only for its historical, cultural or literary value.

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A school's most important job, along with educating your kids, is protecting them while they are there. Which is why many schools choose to filter Internet content, by blocking certain websites and shielding students from harmful content.

With an endless supply of new websites, it can be difficult to keep up with the ones you'll want to have blocked, but parental control software like Net Nanny can make this task easier for parents. Net Nanny aids parents in blocking websites and filters unblocked pages in real-time to sift out content that is unsuitable for your children.

For parents, knowing how to block websites, can be an important piece of keeping your kids safe online. The Internet is packed with websites that end up being highly inappropriate for kids even when they seem innocent to begin with. Blocking these websites is the first place many parents and schools start in an effort to make the Internet safer for kids.

According to a survey by the American Association of School Librarians, 98% of the nation's schools filter the online content that's available to students. For most schools, it's a moral imperative, but then again, it's also for monetary reasons.

The federal government's E-rate program provides discounts for schools and libraries by purchasing certain communication services and products. As a condition for this federal funding, the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA), passed by Congress in 2000, requires that K-12 schools and libraries in the U.S. use Internet filters and implement other measures to protect children from harmful online content.

The Argument for Schools Blocking Websites

Teachers are not always around in the computer labs or study halls to police online safety. Using school Internet filtering to block pornography and websites that are inappropriate provides a level of consistent online security that is not only nice to have, but also a necessity.

There are many debates about schools being too restrictive with online boundaries and limiting students' access to research. But those criticisms are outweighed by the greater good of protecting them from harmful images and content. Without content filtering, for example, simple Google searches by students researching a subject can return obscene images in the thumbnail results- that's not what we want our kids seeing in the classroom.

At the same time, schools need to teach kids how to use the Internet responsibly, and work with parents to plant seeds for kids to learn how to be safe online as they become more independent. As they learn which websites to visit and which to avoid, the importance of awareness becomes a key factor, learned at school and home.

Years ago, there was no debate about websites that should and shouldn't be allowed in classrooms. Everyone was more concerned with which books students should be allowed to read. Now, Internet filtering is an ongoing issue, specifically between school administration, faculty and concerned parents.

According to a Project Tomorrow 2018 report, each year a greater number of students have access to devices:

91% of high school students and 79% of middle school students have access to smartphones

57% of elementary students have access to laptop and 50% report having access to a smartphone

68% of students say they have periodic access to devices during class

These numbers will continue to increase throughout the years and eventually all schools will go paperless and utilize technology in the classroom full time.

How Website Blocking Keeps Students Safe

Safety is the number one priority of school systems and this applies not only to the time kids spend in school, but also their time spent online. There are many dangers on social media that we want to protect our children from such as adult content, Internet strangers, and more.

Do we want our children exposed to mature material? Do we want our children corresponding with strangers or exposed to online predators? Are we ensuring that our child's privacy is protected? These are valid concerns that school administrators must take into account when deciding to allow students to access the Internet.

Another issue to consider is, can we guarantee that the students will make good ethical choices on social media? Some adolescents today are engaging in inappropriate and illegal behaviors on social media. Some of these acts include: sexting, hacking into networks, stealing passwords, creating fake accounts, and much more.

Many of these behaviors can lead to school suspensions, expulsions, and even criminal charges. Schools today are spending countless hours dealing with these new social media issues instead of focusing time and energy on academics and school priorities. And the question that remains is, who should be held accountable? The student who accesses the websites that are banned from school or the school for not having adequate security?

Each year more and more technology is incorporated into the classroom meaning that it is even more vital to put more effort into education and teaching responsible digital citizenship among students. Educating kids and teens on the pros and cons of social media, dangers or threats that might be found online, and other issues is a positive first step towards finding a solution.

Schools must also have policies in place, specifically geared at addressing social media, Internet and technology usage, and cyber bullying. If the policies are specific, outlining which websites and behaviors will and will not be tolerated, schools can confidently stand behind their disciplinary practices.

Why Parents Should Block Websites at Home

It only follows logically that: website blocking should be just as vigilant at home. Ideally throughout a child's development, the school, and parents work hand-in-hand to keep children safe. You might be asking, "Is it really necessary?" Take a minute to think about the vast sea of Internet content today- would you want your kids to see everything and anything that's available at such a young age?

Websites that are off-limits at school should also be out of bounds at home. In fact, the real teaching about online safety and discipline for your kids should probably start at home, with school rules reinforcing the importance of it. Using a digital family contract can be beneficial for families and parental controls, like Net Nanny, makes it easy for parents to enforce house rules for Internet use. Since Net Nanny is downloaded onto each device, your rules can travel whenever and wherever they are using the device.

Parents need to be encouraged to be educated just as much as the students. Net Nanny offers families Internet filtering and content monitoring solutions for personal devices that can be used at both home and school. Remote access and alerts and reporting mean that parents can stay up-to-date, even with everyone on-the-go. Keeping your kids safe at all times is always a priority and we must be sure to not overlook website blocking and Internet safety.

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Why Schools Block Websites and You Should Too

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A school's most important job, along with educating your kids, is protecting them while they are there. Which is why many schools choose to filter Internet content, by blocking certain websites and shielding students from harmful content.

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These days, more and more students are bringing cell phones to class. Even elementary school-aged students have cell phones in their pockets and backpacks.

However, the news of Ontario's decision to ban cell phones in classrooms opens again the debate about whether or not students should have cellphones in school. It also brings up the question of whether it's possible for technology to exist in the classroom as a learning tool-rather than simply a distraction.

Ontario's Classroom Cell Phone Ban

Starting in September 2019, cell phones will be banned in Ontario classrooms during instructional time.

The new ban means elementary and secondary school students won't be able to use their cellphones in the classroom unless it is for educational purposes, medical reasons, or as a support for students with special needs. How the ban is enforced will be up to individual boards and schools.

By banning cellphones, Ontario's Education Ministry hopes to remove distractions so students can focus on acquiring foundational learning skills they need, including reading, writing and math.

The decision and renewed debate has many teachers and parents left wondering: can cell phones ever really benefit students in class, or are they best left tucked away?

Read on to learn more about the pros and cons of students having cell phones in school.

Cell Phone Use In The Classroom

Students check their phones in the classroom an average of more than 11 times a day. That can add up to a lot of time spent distracted from schoolwork. And when students are distracted, it's a recipe for extra stress, frustration, and catch-up time for everyone.

With students spending up to 20% of their in-class time texting, emailing, and checking social media, it's no wonder the debate about cell phones in the classroom is alive and well.

Students check their cell phones in the classroom more than 11 times a day.
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Learn more about the pros and cons of students bringing their cell phones into the classroom.

How Cell Phones Can Be Used Effectively In the Classroom

If properly managed, cell phones can be used as tools to help children learn in the classroom. The following are some of the pros of allowing cell phones in school:

1. Using educational learning apps

Cell phones give students access to tools and apps that can help them complete and stay on top of their class work. These tools can also teach students to develop better study habits, like time management and organization skills.

2. Incorporating digital platforms into lessons

Using social media can keep students interested in class and encourage them to participate in the discussion. Some teachers create twitter hashtags or message boards students can use during class discussions to share thoughts and ideas. This can be especially helpful for students who might not be comfortable speaking in class.

3. Supplementing lessons with digital materials

Teachers can take advantage of cell phones by providing students with resources to find more information about a topic. This can include videos, news stories, online discussion groups, and more. Allowing students to access these resources in class can help encourage participation and discussions.

4. Providing easy access to more information

Cell phones can give students access to more information, letting them research more about a topic while having class discussions. This is especially true for current events that have not yet been covered in school textbooks.

The Drawbacks Of Allowing Cell Phones In Classrooms

While cell phones can be used as learning tools, it is a challenge to make sure students are using them for school-related tasks. A cell phone can easily turn from "classroom learning tool" into "classroom disruption".

Cons of allowing cell phones in school include:

1. Distractions and interruptions

When students use their cell phones to check social media and text their friends in class, it leads to distractions for those students as well as for their peers. This can cause disruptions in class, particularly if the teacher is constantly telling students to turn their devices off.

2. Cyberbullying

Cell phones can also lead to increased problems with bullying on the schoolground. Cyberbullying can be harder to see than other forms of bullying, making it difficult for teachers to identify and stop when it is happening.

3. Cheating

Cell phones can be a helpful learning tool in class. But they can also be used by students to access information while taking a test, leading to cheating. Even if a student isn't caught, this can lead to him or her having a poor understanding of the material in the future, and is unfair to students who studied hard to do well.

4. Disconnection from face-to-face activities

While cell phones can help encourage participation by offering different channels, this can also lead to less in-person discussion and fewer learning opportunities. Learning to work together with others is an important part of students' education, and can be lost with too much dependence on cell phones and other digital technology.

The Bottom Line: Should Students Have Cell Phones In School?

There's no easy answer: there are both pros and cons to students having cell phones in school. Although they can be used as a learning tool in the classroom, this only works as long as students use them effectively.

This means for teachers who decide to use cell phones (or any other digital device) as part of their lessons, it's important to set ground rules and keep a close eye on how they are being used.

Where do you stand on the cell phone debate? Let us know by tweeting @oxfordlearning on Twitter!

Related Resources:

Is Multitasking Bad For Students?
How To Study Without Being Distracted

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Should Cell Phones Be Allowed In Classrooms? | Oxford Learning

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Should students have cell phones in the classroom? Learn more about the pros and cons of students having cell phones in school, and weigh in on the debate.

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Have you ever tried to look up images for a school project on Google and it won't let you because there may be one or two inappropriate images on the page? This has happened to me numerous times and frankly it's a bit irritating.
I understand that if a student sees an inappropriate picture, he or she may click on it, but don't you find it a bit ridiculous that you can't even find a picture of an apple on Google, because the page is blocked? In my opinion, I believe that the Internet should not be filtered that strongly.

By RILEY PAPSON
Turkeyfoot
At Turkeyfoot Valley, our Internet is not overly censored. Our school gives students the right to watch videos on YouTube, check their e-mail, and, if they are in a design class, search the Internet for inspiration. While our school allows this, it is only because the students have earned the right to use these Internet sources. Our school does restrict certain sites if they fall under specific categories however. web sites that post blogs and contain forums are blocked by our school. Any sites that are game sites (or even contain games as a category) are blocked if they are not educational games. All websites that contain adult material are blocked and social networking sites, such as Facebook, are blocked.
I feel as if our school's security is both protective and strict all at once. The student body at Turkeyfoot has been given a privilege to the sites that are unblocked and they express this trust with care. I think that all schools should be allowed to have website privileges just as our school.

By KATRINA SPINELLI
Windber
Filtering the Internet in schools seems to be more of a hassle to students than necessary. Our school in particular has a very harsh filtering system. There are students who do abuse their Internet privileges, but others need blocked information for research or other school related projects. There is no doubt that the Internet should be filtered, but eliminating everything that could be possibly controversial is a little too strict. Sites such as YouTube should remain open because they are useful in presentations as references or visuals. Students should also be allowed to access Google Images to assist them in projects. However, it is understandable for sites such as Facebook to be blocked because they distract students from their school work.

By ELANA THOMPSON
North Star
I feel that a school's Internet system should be filtered to an extent. Schools have the right to block as many websites on their computers as they like, but there is a limit that will hurt the students. I can see schools blocking the social networking sites to help prevent cyber-bullying and harassment and also pornographic websites for the obvious reasons.
But when schools start to block websites, such as YouTube, is when I think they go too far because that is an acceptable educational website. There are other websites that are educational that schools block which take away from a student's education. Why should a school take away from a student's education by simply blocking a website that could help a student do research. So simply said, a school should block websites that can impede the education of students not websites that can help a student's education.

By ANNA KNOBLACH
Meyersdale
Log on. Open Internet Explorer. Facebook. As much as I hate to admit it, this is an everyday routine for me, as it is for many teenagers. While the mindlessness of people chit-chatting about trivial events is relaxing, the social network can propel my exaggeration into overdrive. At school however, the problem is virtually non-existent. Meyersdale Area High School's Internet filter prevents me from getting lost in an online world of distracts when I have a task at hand, which proves to be very helpful. There are times, however, when the filter is often more a hindrance then a help. Filters pose some obvious problems, but the negatives are rarely examined. A strict limitation on websites available for student use can make research a challenge, along with finding any entertainment for students in their down time. Even teachers get fed-up with these confines from time to time; too often they must bypass the firewall simply to obtain teaching materials. While the filter provides many great protections, the restrictions of such a tool severely curbs the most important part of Internet use: Freedom.

By KELLY VAUGHN
Salisbury-Elk Lick
Filtered surfing protects students from harmful sites that would be inappropriate or distracting to the learning place, but these blocks also prevent the students from using tools that would benefit their education.
Often in an art class, for example, students want to find ideas for an upcoming project, but because Google Images is blocked, many students have difficulty locating pictures.
Educational videos found on YouTube would be a beneficial addition to any class's lesson, but because of these Internet filters, teachers cannot use them.
These sites, and many more like them, can be unblocked by teachers but because of the large hassle it has become, many teachers don't even bother.
In an ideal situation, the Internet would be fully filtered on student computers, but give teacher computers access to all that the Internet offers.
This would keep students on safe sites, able to work on papers and gather research as the filters allow now. Teachers with free rein on the Internet would give classes interesting and applicable supplements that will benefit the learning experience.

By ETHAN TRIOL
Shanksville
There is a saying that goes "Give an inch, and they take a mile." This adage applies perfectly to the question of how strongly the Internet should be filtered at high schools.
Although I would certainly like to see less Internet filtration as a student, I completely understand why school administrations lock down the Internet as much as they do. Some students are mature enough to handle complete Internet freedom at school, using it for work and research. However, unless every single student in the entire school could do this, it is impossible for school administrations to give even the most minuscule amount of leeway. For example, I, and even many teachers, believe that YouTube should be accessible from school.
Science classes would especially benefit from this website, as they would be able to view dangerous experiments that would otherwise be out of their reach. Nevertheless, it still goes back to the problem that not all students would just use these sites for purely educational purposes. Although schools may end up blocking websites that could certainly enhance education, the administration has to view the problem by looking at everyone in the school, not just those who would use it responsibly. According to Shanksville technology director Marty Petrosky, "Filtering the Internet is not just a case of blocking inappropriate websites. Students are attracted to site that, while not obscene, tend to take their focus off of learning. Therefore, filtering goes beyond just inappropriate content."
Although less Internet filtration could certainly help some students, and even teachers, overall, Internet must be filtered to ensure that students do not abuse the Internet.

By ZAK SLAYBACK
Somerset
George Bernard Shaw once noted that the "first condition of progress is the removal of censorship." Shaw's quotation applies not only to macro-societies such as the Western world or the United States but also to micro-societies such as towns and schools.
The generally agreed-upon end of education is to prepare students for the real world, and to equip students with the knowledge and skills to make differences and promote progress in that world. In order to fully prepare students for the "real" world, schools should aim to be micro-societies that reflect the society in which they reside. Schools in the United States should aim to promote civic virtue, individualism, freedom, and charity - the values that the United States claims to support - and promote these values in action.
Censorship is the negation of nearly all of the aforementioned values. Any form of Internet filtering within our schools would be a negation of Americanism. While it may be argued that children need to be protected, this is not the role of the state. Should parents object to the filtering (or in this case, non-filtering) policies of a school, then they should reserve the right to move their children to another district. Unfortunately, the very concepts of promoting freedom at schools while legally mandating individuals attend one specific district tend to be paradoxical.
While it may be argued that China is the new superpower, it would be unwise for American schools to emulate the Chinese system of Internet censorship. Do not collectivize students by centrally controlling what all may see. Handle Internet abuse on an individual basis and reject the concept of censorship. Only once we have fully rejected Internet censorship at our schools can we truly begin to promote Americanism.

By KAYLA SMITH
Berlin
High schools should limit what is filtered to a degree. The Internet can be a very useful tool for doing schoolwork. I am sure that some schools have a filtering system that blocks out certain key words. On the other hand, some high school students are not mature enough to even be trusted with a filtered Internet even though they have been taught from an early age to use the Internet responsibly. Because of this, students need to be monitored.
Technology has become a huge part of modern society. High schools should monitor the websites students use, but the filtering should be only for their protection such as explicit websites that give information harmful to the welfare of children or websites that contain adult content. Schools should monitor what students are viewing, but should also keep an open mind that some information may be essential to learning.

By SARA ROMESBERG
Rockwood
With the advancement of technology comes a need to scrutinize what it is students are looking at during school hours. However, some schools may be taking this to an excessive level.
Although filtering what students are looking at is necessary, the extremes that some schools are going to may be overkill. While attempting to research opinionated essay topics, a student at Rockwood found multiple websites blocked. One student was unable to look at pictures of horses upon looking them up on Google.
After speaking with an administrator about what the criteria is that defines which websites are blocked and which ones are not, she stated that the school blocks websites based on whether they are educationally useful or not. Websites such as social media networks, blogs, and those referring to drugs or alcohol are blocked. However, upon further research, I found that when looking up drugs such as marijuana on Google, almost all of the websites were not blocked.
While using restrictions to block websites that students should not be looking at is necessary, some schools may be taking it overboard with the ones that they are blocking. At times, it may seem like a student is finding more blocked websites while doing research than "educationally useful" ones.

By LINDSEY BUNCICH
Conemaugh Township
In my opinion students should be limited, but the limitations should not interfere with their education. Websites that will distract students such as social networking sites, gaming sites, and other sites should be filtered.
Students don't have an educational need for these sites, in fact they can take away from the educational experience. However, filters shouldn't make research difficult to students or prevent students from getting on websites that can help them.
Limitations to teachers should be much different than they are to students in my opinion. Teachers may have needs for sites students don't need access too.

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How strong should the Internet be filtered at high school?

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Have you ever tried to look up images for a school project on Google and it won't let you because there may be one or two inappropriate images on the page?

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Should high schools censor the internet?

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Debate.org is a dynamic social community where you can voice your opinion on today's hottest issues.

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Pro 1

Parents have the right to decide what material their children are exposed to and when. Having books with adult topics available in libraries limits parents' ability to choose when their children are mature enough to read specific material. "Literary works containing explicit sex, oral sex, explicit & violent descriptions of rape, masturbation, vulgar and obscene language" were on the approved reading list for grades 7-12, according to Speak up for Standards, a group seeking age-appropriate reading materials for students in Dallas, Texas. If books with inappropriate material are available in libraries, children or teens can be exposed to books their parents wouldn't approve of before the parents even find out what their children are reading. "[O]pting your child out of reading [a certain] book doesn't protect him or her. They are still surrounded by the other students who are going to be saturated with this book," said writer Macey France.

Con 1

Parents may control what their own children read, but don't have a right to restrict what books are available to other people. Parents who don't like specific books can have their kids "opt out" of an assignment without infringing on the rights of others. The National Coalition against Censorship explained that "Even books or materials that many find 'objectionable' may have educational value, and the decision about what to use in the classroom should be based on professional judgments and standards, not individual preferences." In the 1982 Supreme Court ruling on Board of Education v. Pico, Justice Brennan wrote that taking books off of library shelves could violate students' First Amendment rights, adding that "Local school boards may not remove books from school libraries simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books."

Pro 2

Children should not be exposed to sex, violence, drug use, or other inappropriate topics in school or public libraries. Books in the young adult genre often contain adult themes that young people aren't ready to experience. Of the top ten most challenged books in 2018, six had LGBT content, and three were sexually explicit. According to Jenni White, a former public school science teacher, "Numerous studies on the use of graphic material by students indicate negative psychological effects," including having "more casual sex partners and [beginning] having sex at younger ages." The American Academy of Pediatrics has found that exposure to violence in media, including in books, can impact kids by making them act aggressively and desensitizing them to violence. Kim Heinecke, a mother of four, wrote to her local Superintendent of Public Schools that "It is not a matter of 'sheltering' kids. It is a matter of guiding them toward what is best. We are the adults. It is our job to protect them - no matter how unpopular that may seem."

Con 2

Many frequently challenged books help people get a better idea of the world and their place in it. Robie H. Harris, author of frequently challenged children's books including It's Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing up, Sex, and Sexual Health, stated, "I think these books look at the topics, the concerns, the worry, the fascination that kids have today... It's the world in which they're living." Many books that have long been considered to be required reading to become educated about literature and American history are frequently challenged, such as: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, The Color Purple by Alice Walker, Beloved by Toni Morrison, and Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. 46 of the Radcliffe Publishing Group's "Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century" are frequently challenged; banning them would deprive students of essential cultural and historical knowledge, as well as differing points of view.

Pro 3

Keeping books with inappropriate content out of libraries protects kids, but doesn't stop people from reading those books or prevent authors from writing them. Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council noted that removing certain books from libraries is about showing discretion and respecting a community's values, and doesn't prevent people from getting those books elsewhere: "It's an exaggeration to refer to this as book banning. There is nothing preventing books from being written or sold, nothing to prevent parents from buying it or children from reading it." What some call "book banning," many see as making responsible choices about what books are available in public and school libraries. "Is it censorship that you're unable to go to your local taxpayer-funded branch and check out a copy of the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion'? For better or for worse, these books are still widely available. Your local community has simply decided that finite public resources are not going to be spent disseminating them," Weekly Standard writer and school board member Mark Hemingway stated.

Con 3

Books are a portal to different life experiences and reading encourages empathy and social-emotional development. One study found that reading J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, which is frequently challenged for religious concerns about witchcraft, "improved attitudes" about immigrants, homosexuals, and refugees. Another study found that reading narrative fiction helped readers understand their peers and raised social abilities. A study in Basic and Applied Social Psychology found that people who read a story about a Muslim woman were less likely to make broad judgments based on race. Neil Gaiman, author of the frequently challenged novel Neverwhere, among other books, stated that fiction "build[s] empathy... You get to feel things, visit places and worlds you would never otherwise know. You learn that everyone else out there is a me, as well. You're being someone else, and when you return to your own world, you're going to be slightly changed. Empathy is a tool for building people into groups, for allowing us to function as more than self-obsessed individuals."

Source: American Library Association, "Top 11 Challenged Books of 2018," ala.org (accessed Sep. 18, 2019)

Footnotes:

1. Loris Vezzali, et al., "The Greatest Magic of Harry Potter: Reducing Prejudice," Journal of Applied Social Psychology, July 23, 2014

2. Raymond A. Mar, et al., "Bookworms Versus Nerds: Exposure to Fiction Versus Non-Fiction, Divergent Associations with Social Ability, and the Simulation of Fictional Social Worlds," Journal of Research in Personality, 2006

3. Dan R. Johnson, Brandie L. Huffman, and Danny M. Jasper, "Changing Race Boundary Perception by Reading Narrative Fiction," Basic and Applied Social Psychology, Feb. 10, 2014

4. ALA, "Top 11 Challenged Books of 2018," ala.org (accessed Sep. 18, 2019)

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Banned Books - Top 3 Pros and Cons - ProCon.org

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Pro 1 Parents have the right to decide what material their children are exposed to and when. Having books with adult topics available in libraries limits parents' ability to choose when their children are mature enough to read specific material.

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Banned Books Week 2014 fast approacheth, marching to the cadence of its creed "Thou shalt not inhibit free speech."

An annual celebration of the freedom to read, Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in the form of events and exhibits highlighting issues surrounding censorship. In its 32-year history alone, over 11,000 books have been challenged.

The vast majority of challenges to reading material, according to the American Library Association (ALA), are made by parents. School and university libraries, public libraries, classrooms, and businesses across the nation see attempts to ban books on a regular, if not frequent, basis; Joan Bertin, executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship, said she encounters an attempt at book-banning or censorship every week. Banned books range from contemporary bestsellers to centuries-old classics, from fictional narratives to historical and biographical nonfiction, and from children's fairy tales to adult erotica.

Fortunately, committed librarians, teachers, parents, students, and other individuals have risen to these challenges with entreaties of their own, and most challenges never result in a ban. But when they do? It's usually for predictable reasons. Here are ten reasons why books are routinely banned or challenged, followed by five much better reasons that books of all kinds should be defended and preserved. (Unless otherwise specified, all examples come from the ALA website.)

So off we go into the murky mindset of those who would take away our beloved stories and fictional best friends. Banned books typically include one of the following "poisonous" ingredients:

1. Racial Themes

Scores of books, from To Kill a Mockingbird to The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, have been banned for exploring racial themes or depicting racism directed at various groups of people. The N-word is, in fact, a one-way ticket to book bonfires, even if the whole point of your book is to condemn or deconstruct racism.

Because if we all pretend a problem doesn't exist, usually it goes away on its own.

2. Alternative Lifestyles

Unless a book contains strictly conventional, conservative values and conduct, it has probably been banned somewhere, at some point-but more likely many places, many times. So-called alternative lifestyles and "deviant" behaviors that prompt libraries, schools, and businesses to ban books include drug use, fornication, and homosexuality.

Brideshead Revisited and The Outsiders are two such examples. And then there's Go Ask Alice-the most frequently banned book in high school libraries, largely due to its depiction of drug use. The challengers really missed the point on this one, though: Go Ask Alice unflinchingly (and perhaps a bit exaggeratedly) illustrates the negative consequences of drug use, including but not limited to homelessness, rape, prostitution, commitment to an insane asylum (yes, really), and eventually, death.

3. Profanity

In 1977, the Ku Klux Klan-yes, that Ku Klux Klan- took moral issue (!) with Of Mice and Men for its profanity and demanded the book be a) removed from school libraries in South Carolina, and b) burned. Other books challenged or banned for profanity include The Great Gatsby and As I Lay Dying.

This category, by the way, also covers blasphemy-because if it offends God, it offends a whole lotta people. The Grapes of Wrath stirred up trouble in North Carolina for "taking the Lord's name in vain." Now, if it were me, I would skip the trouble and paperwork associated with challenging the shameless sacrilege in this Pulitzer Prize-winning classic, and just let God do his smiting (sorry, Steinbeck). But not all of us are rational, and not all of us have much to do on a Monday afternoon.

4. Sex

I should amend the above to include not just graphic sexual content, but also dialogue of a sexual nature, any and all references to reproductive acts, and even the barest, briefest, Disney-approved sensuality.

A Farewell to Arms was banned by school officials in New York, Texas, and South Carolina throughout the '80s and labeled a "sex novel" despite the absence of any explicit sex scenes. Apparently it doesn't bother them, having so much in common with Hitler-who also banned the book back in 1933 after a tantrum. People weren't quite warming up to Nazi Germany yet, it seemed, so he sent his minions into libraries and bookstores across the country to seize anything that would make for good bonfire material (basically any text that threatened the Nazi ideology). I imagine all the propaganda went down better with a little bratwurst, roasted over the dead words of Ernest Hemingway.

But I digress. We were talking about sex, right? Sexual content was the top reason cited for book challenges over the last decade, probably because sex is the most dangerous, self-destructive weapon available to humanity... or something. Definitely something.

Let me leave you with this delicious morsel: in 1980, Brave New World was banned in classrooms by some individuals with keen and discerning foresight for "making promiscuous sex look like fun."

5. Violence

The board of education in Strongsville, OH was pressured with a lawsuit in 1974 to ban One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The complaints of the challengers were long and varied, but mostly came down to violence: the book, in their opinion, "glorifies criminal activity, has a tendency to corrupt juveniles, and contains descriptions of bestiality, bizarre violence, and torture, dismemberment, death, and human elimination." No one apparently found the lobotomy controversial, but challengers in a Washington high school district did take issue with the book's endorsement of secular humanism.

Beloved has been banned for violence (there's just a little bit of, um, infanticide), and Lord of the Flies has seen similar treatment.

Speaking of Lord of the Flies ...

6. Negativity

Some books are just too sad for any of us to suffer through-at least, according to book challengers. Why agonize over harsh realities-or, you know, fiction-when we can shift our attention to raindrops on roses, and whiskers on kittens? And, of course, Prince George?

Book challengers at a North Carolina high school in 1981 were apparently willing to overlook the violence depicted in Lord of the Flies, but they did take issue with its negativity. They described the book as "demoralizing inasmuch as it implies that man is little more than an animal."

While I try not to make a habit of arguing with people who use words like "inasmuch," I would like to point out two things to these North Carolinian emotional cowards: 1) Humans are animals-and this wouldn't come as such a surprise if your mother hadn't pulled you out of freshman year biology class because the textbook depicted skeletons in the nude, and 2) "Demoralizing"? You know what I find demoralizing? Book banning. Cheese substitutes. The Teletubbies.

And as long as we're on the subject, The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank was banned in Alabama for being a "downer." We are talking about the story of a teenage girl who hid from the Nazis for two years in an attic space in Amsterdam and wrote in her diary, "In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." You, Alabama, are the downer.

7. Witchcraft

OK, it's Honesty Hour. Tell the truth: after reading the first Harry Potter, didn't you pick up a pencil and try out a few spells, just to see if something would happen? Really, really hoping against hope that it would? Because, well, I totally did. And then, just as quickly, I got over my witchcraft "phase" and moved on with my life.

Some people think that fictional witchcraft is so harmful that all references to it must be eliminated-presumably by, er, witchcraft, because man, it is everywhere. The Harry Potter books, which have sold 450 million copies, are actually the most banned books in America. The Lord of the Rings was banned as "satanic" even though Tolkien was a devout Catholic and viewed LOTR as a "fundamentally religious and Christian work." It has wizards, yes, but no gay wizards. Even Sleeping Beauty has been challenged on counts of witchcraft.

Moral of the story: magic is inherently evil, even if you use it only for good.

8. Unpopular Religious Views

Many a book has been banned because it contained religious notions that " might not coincide with the public view." Because apparently the public view is... unanimous?

Books in this category include everything from The Da Vinci Code, which discusses controversial issues in Christianity, to The Satanic Verses, which was read as a criticism of Islam and led to assassination attempts (some, tragically, successful) on Salman Rushdie, his publishers, and his translators.

Religious groups, though, are notoriously hard to please. On the one hand, you have the Christians who revere The Chronicles of Narnia because it's a transparent, totally unsubtle Biblical allegory (seriously, the lion might as well have been named Jeezis), and on the other, you have the Christians who condemn it as an attempt to "animalize" Christ. (Yes, it really has been banned for exactly that reason.) What's a magical wardrobe enthusiast to do, I ask you?

9. Unpopular Political Views

Fascism was never the cool kid in high school, and there's nary a good day to be a communist or an anarchist in America. Book banning based on "dangerous" political themes and ideas has been routine for a good long while.

Everything Orwellian (but mostly 1984 and Animal Farm) was banned because "Orwell was a communist." (He was a democratic socialist.) Challengers in Long Island called Slaughterhouse-Five "anti-American, anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic, and just plain filthy." And Of Mice and Men drew criticism in Tennessee because Steinbeck was "very questionable as to his patriotism" and "known to have had an anti-business attitude." So, case in point.

10. Any Theme Judged Unsuitable for a Particular Age Group

Some books are deemed inappropriate for the targeted age group of readers. The Giver, and its dark(ish) themes, is often challenged as unsuitable for children or young adults, along withThe Perks of Being a Wallflower and The Kite Runner.

The banning of books such as Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret based on unsuitability for the targeted age group begs the question: when is the best time to confront young adult issues such as puberty and bullying, if not during young adulthood?

The Catcher in the Rye has had the special privilege of being banned for almost all of the reasons listed above. Parents have objected to the book's "profanity," "lurid passages about sex," "immorality," "excessive violence," "negativity," "communist" elements ( I kid you not), and depiction of alcohol abuse-criticisms guaranteed to discourage teenage readers up to and including Rod and Todd Flanders from perusing this angsty, much-beloved classic.

And then, of course, there is the occasional book banned for some ludicrous strain of logic:

In 1985, Shel Silverstein's A Light in the Attic was challenged at an elementary school in Wisconsin because it "encourages children to break dishes so they won't have to dry them."

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz came under fire for depicting women in non-traditional (read: non-submissive) roles, undermining the conventional view that women could not possibly serve as competent fairy tale archetypes.

A Texas school district banned Moby Dick in 1996 because, bafflingly, it "conflicted with their community values."

My Friend Flicka, a children's horse drama, was challenged because "a female dog was referred to as a 'bitch' in the text."

And just to leave you flabbergasted: in 2010, Merriam Webster's dictionary was banned from classrooms in southern California for defining "oral sex."

So there you have it: ten of the most common reasons cited for banning books, and a few uncommonly silly ones. Notice that not a single one of them referred to "statistics" or "research"-the kind of useful evidence we try to employ, generally speaking, to support our beliefs that ideas or substances are harmful to us or to children. So really, what book banning and censorship are all about-within both small communities and at larger, oft-governmental levels-is personal opinions. And with this in mind, I present to you five (better) reasons not to ban books:

1. You may not like something, but that's no reason to take it away from everyone.

The ALA's website reads like an elegant ode to free speech. Along with John Stuart Mill, Noam Chomsky, and Phil Kerby, they quote Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., in Texas v. Johnson:

If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.

The crux of the matter, when it comes to censorship, is that one individual disagreement-or even widespread dispute-over an idea or form of expression does not justify restricting access for others to the same information. Most opponents of book banning understand parental preferences regarding their own child's reading material, but they refuse to grant them the right to make a decision on behalf of all parents about what is or isn't appropriate.

With so many book challenges and bans arising every day across the nation, it's not the children who need safeguarding; it's the books. Which brings me to reason number two...

2. "Protecting" children from the difficult realities of the world is an exercise in futility-and privilege.

If your child's first encounter with the word "fuck" is in an eleventh-grade reading assignment, or if their exposure to violence by the age of, say, ten is limited solely to The Hunger Games, I hereby accuse you of invoking supernatural parenting powers.

In a media-flooded world, where information travels exactly as fast as your Twitter feed loads, it would take the shield of Captain America to keep the unpleasant facts of reality at bay. And more important, these bullets of candor don't injure young people. They simply open up their minds, or even offer them something to identify with. Sherman Alexie, author of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, has said that
Almost every day, my mailbox is filled with handwritten letters from students-teens and pre-teens-who have read my YA book and loved it. I have yet to receive a letter from a child somehow debilitated by the domestic violence, drug abuse, racism, poverty, sexuality, and murder contained in my book.
Attempts to protect kids from these notions are an occupation of the privileged, for the privileged. Rainbow Rowell was reportedly devastated when Minnesotan school and public library officials un-invited her to speak to local students based on the profanity found in her bestselling book Eleanor & Park. On her blog, she wrote:

When these people call Eleanor & Park an obscene story, I feel like they're saying that rising above your situation isn't possible. That if you grow up in an ugly situation, your story isn't even fit for good people's ears. That ugly things cancel out everything beautiful.

The parents of children who have not experienced shattering hardships first-hand should be grateful, perhaps-but putting their youngsters' privilege in context, and raising their awareness of the adversities faced by their peers, has immeasurable value.

3. Books are among our best teachers.

Books teach us history in context. They teach us compassion. They teach us vocabulary, and social skills, and new ways of thinking. Despite our not-so-casual saunter toward innovative, tech-based learning models, research shows that good, old-fashioned reading is still the best way to improve intelligence. Let's embrace books-not ban them-for being unique and provocative.

You know what some of our other greatest teachers are? Teachers. Why is it that book-challenging parents are so quick to position themselves and their opinions as superior to the education system of their community? A group of parents in California challenged One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in 2000, complaining that teachers "can choose the best books, but they keep choosing this garbage over and over again." Maybe they should reexamine their logic instead of presuming that they occupy the Territory of Truth. Teachers-also known as adults who have trained extensively, and dedicated their careers, to the education of people young and old-keep choosing books like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and To Kill a Mockingbird, and Brave New World, OVER AND OVER AGAIN, out of ALL THE BOOKS EVER.

I would like for the challengers to reflect on that. Mull it over, on the couch, with a cup of tea. And then let me know when they arrive at the obvious conclusion.

4. Many of the most frequently banned books are-or go on to become-celebrated classics. And that's not a coincidence.

The classics all tend to have one thing in common: they say something that humanity needs to hear, and they say it masterfully. In a multiyear exhibition, the Library of Congress named dozens of books that have shaped our heritage, from Catch-22 to Gone with the Wind to The Sound and the Fury, each one a classic of extraordinary merit. By their very nature, classics are apt to confront the social, political, philosophical, and moral issues of their time, for all time, often demonstrating the kind of critical thinking that helps us to progress as a society and as individuals.

Which brings me to the last, and probably best, reason not to ban books:

5. Books really can change the world.

It would take the global population's fingers-and then some-to count up all the problems in the world today. It can be tempting to drown out their grumbles and their cries with reality TV. But if we never confront our problems, even in name, how will we overcome them? Silencing voices and stifling ideas are no means of growth, or even of shelter. In the ALA's words, "Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us."

Free expression is the weapon of enlightenment-Kafka's " axe for the frozen sea within us." Where would we be as a nation-as a planet-without the writers who dared to battle our monsters, from the mundane to the epic, with their mighty pens? The Feminine Mystique was the spark that ignited second-wave feminism, and The Jungle prompted the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. The founding of evolutionary biology in Darwin's On the Origin of Species continues to impact scientific theory across the globe, and the African-American Civil Rights Movement can find roots in Native Son. Never underestimate a blank piece of paper in the right hands, because words are how we live-and for some of us, they're why we live.

So here's a final send-off to all the book banners who would challenge independent thought and extinguish its expression: methinks thou doth protest too much.

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A writer, reader, and traveler, Jamie Leigh writes a literature review blog at the100greatestbookschallenge.wordpress.com and won the Purdue University Kneale Literary Award in 2008. Books for burning photo by Mikael Altemark (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ABook_burning_(1).jpg) via Wikimedia Commons.

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10 Reasons for Banning Books, and 5 Much Better Reasons Not To - Punchnels

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Banned Books Week 2014 fast approacheth, marching to the cadence of its creed "Thou shalt not inhibit free speech." An annual celebration of the freedom to read, Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in the form of events and exhibits highlighting issues surrounding censorship.

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I was walking back from my high school's audio-visual room with my English 9 students. We were all carrying our new class book, a memoir titled The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls.
Another teacher happened to be walking down the hall in the middle of our group, and saw the book that my students were holding in their hands. She approached me. "Hey," she said quietly, "do you warn students before they read that book?"
"Sorry, what?"
"I mean...that book's pretty serious," she said. "There are a lot of triggers in it."
"Right. Actually, I did warn them. I told them how intense it might be for some of them and that the book has some really gritty elements." I said I warned them in the same way that a movie has a rating. I let the students know that they were going to read the difficult journey of an American girl, and that she was going to experience some things that might disturb them.
The teacher and I quietly talked about the elements, but she wasn't satisfied. "I just don't know," she said. "That book's really dark." Her face was a combination of a wince and a frown. Clearly she didn't think that The Glass Castle was appropriate for high school students.
I almost asked if the book was too real for her, but I didn't want to fight over a book in front of my students, and so far we'd kept our voices down. We'd acted like professionals. So I kept walking.
Even though I was the teacher who acquired for our English department, I wasn't offended. First, The Glass Castle isn't very dark. I know that it isn't too dark in the context of memoirs because I read contemporary memoirs regularly and I'm also the author of a dark, contemporary memoir ( The End of Boys). Second, I've never argued much when I've encountered literary conservatives or would-be censors. So I didn't say anything. But then I thought about it for a couple of days and realized that this is an important fight - the fight against book censorship - and that I have to stand up and challenge this insidious point of view.
To fight any argument, we have to understand the positions our opponents hold. So - to summarize - these would-be book censors believe the following:

1. We need to protect young people.
2. Teenagers can't handle gritty material.
3. Teens won't understand what's going on if the material is too complex.

On the issue of protecting teens by not allowing them to read certain books, isn't that one of the founding doctrines of the average 20th Century European fascist dictator? We need to protect the people by not allowing them to read dangerous ideas. If we do in fact allow people to read anything serious, there could be dangerous consequences.
Also, because I hang out with adults and teenagers on a daily basis, I know that the people-group I hear talk about horror movies most passionately and regularly is high school freshmen. The adults I know rarely watch horror movies, and my seniors rarely talk about them either. But 14 and 15-year-olds LOVE the horror genre. And if they're allowed to watch gratuitous and graphic violence on the screen, what are we protecting them from in books?
But it's not just about the horror genre. Books are often banned for teens because of vaguely "adult" subject matter. Book censors are attempting to protect teens from "inappropriate" and "controversial" material. As my favorite librarian, Julie Vignol of South Eugene High School, says, "If teens are going to be able to vote at 18, shouldn't they be reading the most controversial and interesting books as teenagers so they learn to think and discuss and debate and change minds? Isn't thinking a big part of becoming a responsible voter?"
If we censor and limit teens' reading material, don't we then stunt their intellectual development?
Also, can we actually protect teens from swearing, sexuality, bigotry, and violence? Aren't they getting regular doses of all of those while watching Netflix, television, movies, or Youtube? Don't professional athletes regularly use homosexual slurs? Isn't "Game Of Thrones" full of rape and incest? Aren't the hallways at the average U.S. high school populated by teens who sometimes use the F-word and/or disparaging terms for many people groups? I'm not saying that bigotry and violence and rape are good things. Clearly they're terrible. But they're also common occurrences in contemporary media and secondary schools. So is protection even possible?

Second, on the idea of teens not be able to handle gritty material...
One of the best young adult books of 2015, according to NPR, Booklist, Publishers Weekly, and Barnes & Noble is the novel Mosquitoland by David Arnold. The book is incredible and the main character, Mim, is a perfect narrator. Her voice is poignant and unforgettable. But responses to that book's Amazon reviews show that many people object to the book because:
A. It includes the F-word.
B. It questions whether many teens should be on psychotropic drugs.
C. It addresses sexual assault.
D. It demonstrates that some people use derogatory terms for homosexuals or developmentally disabled people.
So - basically - the book is "too gritty," which in reality means "too realistic." Teens reading the book will discover real-world issues, real-world language, and real-world situations. They will read those very real scenes and have to decide how they feel about them. In reading a real book, they will sometimes laugh, sometimes cry, and sometimes root for or against certain characters and events. In short, they will have normal responses to lifelike things. And what's wrong with that?

Finally, let's talk about the most ridiculous argument for censorship: "Teens are not able to understand complex material."
Young adults are simply young adults. They are not feeble-minded or mentally-limited people. They are not weak and they don't struggle with cognitive issues. Most high school students aren't old enough to buy cigarettes or enlist in the Army, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be challenging their minds and expanding their worldviews with excellent literature of all types. In my experience as a high school teacher, I've found teens capable of incredibly insightful readings of novels and nonfiction. I've seen teens be creative, argumentative, philosophical, and opinionated. They often discover something in a text that I've never thought of. So why shouldn't we put excellent literature in their hands?
But I also have a personal argument against the ludicrous idea that teens can't handle complex material:
Last year, I pulled my thirteen-year-old daughter out of 8th grade and let her finish the year educating herself. At her middle school, she had been assigned half of one novel in two-and-a-half years - and I knew that she'd be better educated if she stayed home to read novels and poetry collections, study math, read a book on physics, watch Bill Nye science videos, examine history, and memorize Spanish verbs and nouns. Basically, I trusted her to challenge herself and examine complex material.
She was allowed to determine a lot of curriculum during those five months, and part of that curriculum was reading two of the most banned books of all time. She chose Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye and Alice Walker's The Color Purple. My daughter loves classics and she wanted the challenge of reading those two novels. They're both difficult books - both deemed inappropriate for teens - but my daughter worked through them and asked intelligent questions, wrote about complex themes, and examined the use of literary devices in the texts. Put simply, she read those novels well. So if an eighth-grader can read difficult, banned books and get a lot out of them, why do we keep those same books out of the hands of our average high school students? Why do we limit teens' lives and disparage their abilities as learners? Why do we think that a teen is less capable than the average adult?

When School Library Journal gave my first adult novel ( Graphic The Valley) a starred review, it ended the review with this sentence: "Both adult and mature young adult readers and lovers of literary ecofiction will enjoy this fast-paced love story." Many adults online took offense when they read that review because my novel includes some sex, and young adult readers shouldn't be reading those scenes. First, the sex in my novel is both limited and not too graphic in nature. There's certainly nothing pornographic about it. And second, I'd guess that there might be a little bit of sex going on at the average U.S. high school as well.
Finally, by banning books, or by choosing not to teach classics with "gritty content" to teens, what are teachers and parents losing, or more accurately, what are the students and teens in our schools and households missing? If we keep the classics from young people, will they ever read them later on? Will the average adult in this country seek out banned books and sit down to read them from the ages of 21 to 24, the first four years of legal adulthood? Will the average adult self-educate and catch up on material missed in high school since adults chose to ban certain books?

Teens have an opportunity in their classrooms and homes, an opportunity to take back their education. They have an opportunity to challenge and develop their capacities for empathy and understanding. They can demonstrate curiosity and zeal, can question what has been taken from them, and demand that they get it back.
To teens, I say take back those great books. Take back the classics. Take back gritty, contemporary material. Look at the banned and challenged book lists and decide what you want to read, decide what you want to learn, decide what you care about. Then you can ask great questions, develop strong opinions, and be open to new ideas.

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I was walking back from my high school's audio-visual room with my English 9 students. We were all carrying our new class book, a memoir titled The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. Another teacher happened to be walking down the hall in the middle of our group, and saw the book that my students were holding in their hands.

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The First Amendment in Schools: Censorship

Introduction | The First Amendment and Public Schools | Censorship | Student Protest Rights | How Big a Problem is Censorship? | Roles and Responsibilities | Censorship Policies | Resource Guide

A. Understanding Censorship: Censorship is not easy to define. According to Webster's Dictionary, to "censor" means "to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable." Its central characteristic is the suppression of an idea or image because it offends or disturbs someone, or because they disagree with it. In many countries, censorship is most often directed at political ideas or criticism of the government. In the United States, censorship more often involves social issues, and in school is commonly directed at so-called "controversial" materials.

Advocates for censorship often target materials that discuss sexuality, religion, race and ethnicity-whether directly or indirectly. For example, some people object to the teaching of Darwin's theory of evolution in science classes because it conflicts with their own religious views. Others think schools are wrong to allow discussion about sexual orientation in sex education or family life classes, and others would eliminate The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the English curriculum because of racial references.

Most pressures for censorship come from parents who disapprove of language or ideas that differ from or affront their personal views and values, but demands can emerge from anywhere across the religious, ideological, and political spectrum. The range of "controversial" topics appears to be limitless: religion, science, history, contemporary and classical literature, art, gender, sexuality, "one-worldism," health, multiculturalism, and on and on. Many demands appear motivated by anxiety about changing social conditions and traditions. Feminism, removal of prayer from schools, the emergence of the gay rights movement, and other trends with implications for family structure and personal values, have all generated calls for censorship.

Censorship demands require educators to balance First Amendment obligations and principles against other concerns - such as maintaining the integrity of the educational program, meeting state education requirements, respecting the judgments of professional staff, and addressing deeply held beliefs in students and members of the community. Challenging as these circumstances may be, educators are on the strongest ground if they are mindful of two fundamental principles derived from the Supreme Court's First Amendment decisions: 1) educators enjoy wide latitude in exercising their professional judgment and fulfilling their educational mission if their decisions are based on sound educational and pedagogical principles and serve to enhance the ability of students to learn; and 2) the decisions that are most vulnerable to legal challenge are those that are motivated by hostility to an unpopular, controversial, or disfavored idea, or by the desire to conform to a particular ideological, political or religious viewpoint.

Pursuant to these principles, lower courts generally defer to the professional judgments of educators. As discussed in Fact Sheet #8, this sometimes means that the courts will uphold a decision to remove a book or to discipline a teacher, if it appears to serve legitimate educational objectives, including administrative efficiency. However, administrators and educators who reject demands for censorship are on equally strong or stronger grounds. Most professional educational organizations strongly promote free expression and academic freedom as necessary to the educational process. Access to a wide range of views and the opportunity to discuss and dissent are all essential to education and serve the schools' legitimate goals to prepare students with different needs and beliefs for adulthood and participation in the democratic process.
It is highly improbable that a school official who relied on these principles and refused to accede to pressures to censor something with educational value would ever be ordered by a court of law to do so.

There are practical and educational as well as legal reasons to adhere as closely as possible to the ideals of the First Amendment. School districts such as Panama City, Florida and Hawkins County, Tennessee have been stunned to find that acceding to demands for removal of a single book escalated to demands for revising entire classroom reading programs. The school district in Island Trees, New York encountered objections to 11 books in its library and curriculum, including Slaughter House Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Black Boy, by Richard Wright, and The Fixer by Bernard Malamud. Other jurisdictions have been pressed to revise the science curriculum, the content of history courses, sex education, drug and alcohol education, and self-esteem programs. Experience has shown far too many times that what appears to be capitulation to a minor adjustment can turn into the opening foray of a major curriculum content battle involving warring factions of parents and politicians, teachers, students and administrators.

B. Distinguishing Censorship from Selection: Teachers, principals, and school administrators make decisions all the time about which books and materials to retain, add or exclude from the curriculum. They are not committing an act of censorship every time they cross a book off a reading list, but if they decide to remove a book because of hostility to the ideas it contains, they could be. As the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and International Reading Association (IRA) note, there is an important distinction between selection based on professional guidelines and censorship: "Whereas the goal of censorship is to remove, eliminate or bar particular materials and methods, the goal of professional guidelines is to provide criteria for selection of materials and methods."

For example, administrators and faculty might agree to take discussion of evolution out of the second grade curriculum because the students lack sufficient background to understand it, and decide to introduce it in the fourth grade instead. As long as they were not motivated by hostility to the idea of teaching about evolution, this would not ordinarily be deemed censorship. The choice to include the material in the fourth grade curriculum tends to demonstrate this was a pedagogical judgment, not an act of censorship.

Not every situation is that simple. For example, objections to material dealing with sexuality or sexual orientation commonly surface in elementary schools and middle schools when individuals -often parents or religious leaders - demand the material's removal with the claim that it is not "age appropriate" for those students. On closer examination, it is clear their concern is not that students will not understand the material, but that the objecting adults do not want the students to have access to this type of information at this age. If professional educators can articulate a legitimate pedagogical rationale to maintain such material in the curriculum, it is unlikely that an effort to remove it would be successful.

Of course, hardly anyone admits to "censoring" something. Most people do not consider it censorship when they attempt to rid the school of material that they think is profane or immoral, or when they insist that the materials selected show respect for religion, morality, or parental authority. While parents have considerable rights to direct their own child's education (see Fact Sheet #9), they have no right to impose their judgments and preferences on other students and their families. School officials who accede to demands to remove materials because of objections to their views or content may be engaging in censorship. Even books or materials that many find "objectionable" may have educational value, and the decision about what to use in the classroom should be based on professional judgments and standards, not individual preferences. Efforts to suppress a disfavored view or controversial ideas are educationally unsound and constitutionally suspect.
The child is not the mere creature of the state; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.-- Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. at 535 (1925).

C. Consequences of Censorship: What's so bad about getting rid of materials containing profanity? Many people don't want their children using that kind of language even if they do it themselves, and many parents believe that seeing profanity in books or hearing others swear encourages youngsters to do the same, especially if the act goes unpunished. Yet profanity appears in many worthwhile books, films and other materials for the same reasons many people use it in their everyday language-for emphasis or to convey emotion. As Shakespeare's Hamlet says to the players, the purpose of drama is "to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature."

Works containing profanity often contain realistic portrayals of how an individual might respond in a situation, and some teachers intentionally select such materials to remove the allure from cursing. But even minor use of profanity has not shielded books from attack. Katherine Paterson's award-winning book Bridge to Terabithia contains only mild profanity, but it has been repeatedly challenged on that ground, as have long-acknowledged classics like Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck. Profanity, however, is only one of many grounds on which books are challenged. Almost every classic piece of literature - including The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, The Diary of Anne Frank, and Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet - has been for some reason, in some place, at some time.

As these examples illustrate, censorship based on individual sensitivities and concerns restricts the world of knowledge available to students. And that world could get smaller and smaller. Based on personal views, some parents wish to eliminate material depicting violence, others object to references to sexuality, others to racially-laden speech or images. Some parents oppose having their children exposed to fiction that doesn't have a happy ending, teach a moral lesson, or provide noble role models. If these and other individual preferences were legitimate criteria for censoring materials used in school, the curriculum would narrow to including only the least controversial and probably least relevant material. It would hardly address students' real concerns, satisfy their curiosity, or prepare them for life.

Censorship also harms teachers. By limiting resources and flexibility, censorship hampers a teacher's ability to explore all possible avenues to motivate and "reach" students. By curtailing ideas that can be discussed in class, censorship takes creativity and vitality out of the art of teaching. Instruction is reduced to bland, formulaic, pre-approved exercises carried out in an environment that discourages the give-and-take that can spark a student's enthusiasm for learning. To maintain the spontaneous give and take of the classroom setting, teachers need latitude to respond to unanticipated questions and discussion, and the freedom to draw on their professional judgment and expertise, without fear of consequences if someone objects, disagrees, or takes offense.
When we strip teachers of their professional judgment, we forfeit the educational vitality we prize. When we quell controversy for the sake of congeniality, we deprive democracy of its mentors.-- Gregory Hobbs, Jr (dissenting in Board of Education of Jefferson County School District R-1 v. Alfred Wilder)

Censorship chills creativity and in that way impacts everyone. In a volume entitled Places I Never Meant To Be, author Judy Blume, whose books are a common target of censorship efforts, has collected statements of censored writers about the harms of censorship.

According to one frequently censored author, Katherine Paterson:
When our chief goal is not to offend someone, we are not likely to write a book that will deeply affect anyone.

Julius Lester observed:
Censorship is an attitude of mistrust and suspicion that seeks to deprive the human experience of mystery and complexity. But without mystery and complexity, there is no wonder; there is no awe; there is no laughter.

Norma Fox Mazur added:
...where once I went to my writing without a backward glance, now I sometimes have to consciously clear my mind of those shadowy censorious presences. That's bad for me as a writer, bad for you as a reader. Censorship is crippling, negating, stifling.. It should be unthinkable in a country like ours. Readers deserve to pick their own books. Writers need the freedom of their minds. That's all we writers have, anyway: our minds and imaginations. To allow the censors even the tiniest space in there with us can only lead to dullness, imitation, and mediocrity.

Censorship represents a tyranny over the mind, said Thomas Jefferson-a view shared by founders of our nation-and is harmful wherever it occurs. Censorship is particularly harmful in the schools because it prevents youngsters with inquiring minds from exploring the world, seeking truth and reason, stretching their intellectual capacities, and becoming critical thinkers. When the classroom environment is chilled, honest exchange of views is replaced by guarded discourse and teachers lose the ability to reach and guide their students effectively.

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The First Amendment in Schools: Censorship

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Introduction | The First Amendment and Public Schools | Censorship | Student Protest Rights | How Big a Problem is Censorship? | Roles and Responsibilities | Censorship Policies | Resource Guide A. Understanding Censorship: Censorship is not easy to define. According to Webster's Dictionary, to "censor" means