As both an English teacher and writer, the increased number of challenged or banned books in schools and libraries has me concerned. Looking closely at the trends of which books are being targeted, the motive becomes clear. Books written by black or other minority authors and their experiences, LGBTQ+ and their self-discovery, and young people exploring their sexuality are the main categories we are seeing challenged or banned. But instead of diving into this blatant show of bigotry and hate, which is something for a later post, I wanted to first talk about my own experience with banned books.

In my classroom, nearly every book I teach has been banned at some point in the last four years. As much as I’m a rebel-rouser, I didn’t do this intentionally. The reason why these books are in my curriculum is because they are culturally significant and conduits for a development of perspective and independent thought. In short, it’s because they’re good books. And I can put them in there because I work at a school that gives me the freedom to develop my own curriculum (which is an unfortunately advantage I have over most public school teachers).

Within the first three months of my teaching, though, I had an impromptu visit by a parent of an eighteen-year-old senior who was currently reading Looking for Alaska. She read the book ahead of her son to make sure the material was appropriate, and when she reached the frequently attacked scene of an awkward and upsetting blowjob, she lost her G-D mind.

“He’s a very impressionable boy and will get ideas!” she shouted at me.

It took everything in me not to laugh in her face. If she really thought her adult son didn’t already think and/or engage in stuff like that, what a world of wonder and imagination she must live in.

But the truth was, later in class with the student, he responded to that same scene with “Those kids are acting so stupid.” And when I asked him why, he went on to explain how they were letting societal pressures get to them and they weren’t listening to their hearts. Profound stuff, stuff that this student never would have been able to think of logically in the perspective of a reader if his mom had her way.

This irate mother did not cause me to hesitate in assigning the book again, if anything, she motivates me every time I recommend it to my students.

What should be plainly obvious is that teenagers and even small children are able to watch content that is far more life changing and traumatic on the internet through their phones, tablets, and laptops, than in a book. What books really do is change the way a person perceives the world, and I’ve never known a book to do this negatively. 

Yes, there is upsetting content in books. On the top of my head, I can recall the childbirth scene in the Bell Jar, the Ceremony in the Handmaid’s Tale, and the description of a man’s teeth splintering as his head is being smashed into concrete in Fight Club. I was no older than 18 when I read all of these books for the first time, and while those scenes were jarring and made me put the book down for a minute or two (okay, maybe a full day for the Handmaid’s Tale…), they only heightened my understanding of the world and allowed me to think critically about situations and conflicts without actually having to actually be subjected to them.

Instead of just throwing books with difficult and confusing content in them at students, though, I act as their guide through the story, helping them to process and understand. It has been a wonderful experience teaching these books because I have seen students grow tremendously as people, develop a better since of right and wrong, and become creative thinkers and problem solvers. By banning books, by limiting young people in their reading, we are robbing them of these opportunities.

And quite frankly, I can no longer sit back and watch the education system burn, so I’m rising up and taking a stand. Stay tuned for more…