How lucky am I that I can follow through with one of my main goals as a teacher and am able to use my teaching and my classroom to produce rabble-rousing citizens who are aware of the dangers of censorship and propaganda and are given tools to take action when they see places where change and dissent should occur? (Hint: very!) Im kicking off my social studies class tomorrow with a discussion about history curriculum censorship (Thanks to Shannon Voirol for making me aware of this issue in her childs school district.) Then we begin our celebration of Banned Books Week. Im proud that my classroom library is chock-full of banned and challenged books, and that our celebration is year-round. Our particular focus this week will be on the dangers of censorship. If we let others agendas dictate which books should be allowed in libraries, the shelves would be empty. Yes, books are dangerous. They should be dangerous—they contain ideas. -Pete Hautman
Posted on: Mon, 22 Sep 2014 03:55:37 +0000