EDTECH at Boise State University

I’m in Chicago today, hosting the American Library Association’s Great Chicago Readout, kicking off our celebration of Banned Books Week with authors of some of the top ten banned books of 2010.  I look over the list of reasons for the challenges and bannings: religious perspective, homosexual content, sexual content, offensive language, suicide.  Human things.  Things the people who want to “take our country back” don’t want kids to talk about; human things the “conservative right” doesn’t think should be part of human education.  Wow.

But the authors aren't cheating the kids.  The Superintendent is cheating the kids.  Blaming the authors is like blaming the fearful young wife for bashing her face into her abusive husband's fist.  This might well be a time for those kids to have an experience that is a whole lot more fulfilling than meeting their favorite wordsmith.  This could be a time for them to stand up and feel empowered; to write letters to the editor, and picket, and demand answers to why a few ideologues, who are not educators, by the way, get to decide for everyone that they shouldn't see and hear Ellen Hopkins talk about writing books to which many of them connect. 

If you had asked me a year ago what bombs, lips, and martini glasses have in common, I would have answered, “A fraternity party.” Now I have a different answer. It’s called Common Sense Media. This not-for-profit Web-based organization is in the business of using a “rating” system to review all types of media that target children, but their “ratings” of books are especially disingenuous. They claim that they want to keep parents informed. Informed about what? What their children should read or what they shouldn’t read?