Banning books does no good
There’s always a fine line concerning what’s acceptable and what’s objectionable when it comes to education and the materials used in public education settings like junior high and high school.
I think it’s important that we teach students about the real stories behind our country’s history, and not just our country, but world history. History is often a very messy thing. Records go missing, and the longer one attempts to recreate events and fill in the lives of people, the harder it becomes to know what is history and what is hearsay.
Most history tends to be one side claiming to be the heroes of the conflict, and the others are the villains. In other words, a great deal of the primary sources one reads, that is, works and letters and words written by people living in that era, tends to be propaganda.
The job of the historian then, is to separate the wheat from the chaff, to ignore the lies and get to the truth of it all. Sometimes that truth is uncomfortable. Sometimes it’s painful. Sometimes it leaves long-lasting impressions.
And it should. Books then become some of the best ways to instruct students. Journals and auto-biographies of people who lived in perilous times are some of the best ways to parse hard truths - that the world can be violent, ugly and awful.
The world is also beautiful and wonderful and full of amazing people, but it’s important to see and understand both sides exist so as to promote a better future. One thing that does not promote a better future is the banning of books.
Recently, a school board in Tennessee voted 10-0 to ban the book “Maus” from their eighth grade curriculum. For those who don’t know, “Maus” is a Pulitzer Prize winning graphic novel that depicts the Holocaust and the Nazi death camp at Aushwitz. It’s told from the perspective of the author, Art Spiegleman’s father, who survived the camp and also Spiegelman’s attempts to get his father to talk about it.
Jews are depicted as mice (hence the title “Maus” - the German word for mouse), Germans as cats, Polish as pigs, Swedish as deer, etc.
The novel depicts the horror of the Holocaust, albeit in cartoon form, and this includes some curse words, and one depiction of nudity. For this reason the school board removed it from their curriculum.
But that does not change the fact the Holocaust happened, that atrocities are a very real part of history. Those are things that should be confronted head on and discussed in a mature manner.
I think the board of education at McMinn County, Tenn., underestimates their students. People forget how curious teenagers are, and how much they can truly understand. I’m a firm believer in protecting innocence, but as children become young adults, it’s important to trust them and bring them into the fold and tell them about the uncomfortable truths.
It’s the only way we can stop those things from ever happening again.
MUSINGS AND G RUMBLINGS
