There are times when I appreciate my upbringing with a passion reserved for my soapbox moments. Right now is one of those times. A student and parent in a relatively local school district have officially challenged the use of Fahrenheit 451 as classroom reading material for sophomore classes.
Yes, the classic book on the dangers of group think, government power and the danger in the absence of free speech, pervasive technology, and the importance of knowledge and history is apparently a danger to the morals of children. Ironic, isn’t it, that a book that rails against banning books is the target of an attempt at removing it from curriculum? And, for the cherry on top, the challenge was issued during Banned Books Week (though the news article states it’s purely coincidence).
I know that books and the messages within them have been banned for many years. I don’t expect that to stop–I’m not that naive. And I can’t rightly condemn book banning and in the same breath say that people shouldn’t be able to ban them. Freedom goes both ways.
I just can’t imagine what it’s like going through life so afraid of living it. I was raised in a home where intellect was prized as a gift from God. Where the more you know, the more you appreciate your world, your life, your self, and your beliefs. That’s not the kind of thing you truly grasp as a child–it takes the eyes of an adult reading stories like this to understand how often your parents stepped aside, trusted their guidance, and let you intimately interact with the world around you. I can’t say exactly what my parents did to encourage me to find my own way, but I can say without a doubt that I know they did.
As kids, my sister and I would roll our eyes when our mom saw us watching a movie with a sex scene. We’d ask if she didn’t want us watching it, and she’d just look at us a say, “You know how I feel about it. Use your judgment.” Same comment applied to topics such as doing drugs, drinking, abortion, sex–all those heavy things we all tackle as we grow up. We knew how our parents felt, they taught us right and wrong, and they expected us to being to make those decisions.
“We went them to go after God,” said Glen Jalowy Jr., Grand Parkway Church youth minister. “We encourage them that what you put in your mind and heart is what comes out.”
So I see these children being raised to believe that if something bad goes in, something bad comes out, and I ache for them. How scary the world must seem to them believing that they must avoid all things questionable! And how limited their reach when tales like Fahrenheit 451, Huckleberry Finn, Of Mice and Men, Harry Potter, A Brave New World, and even works by Shakespeare are off limits to them.
So, thank you to my parents for allowing me to see that it doesn’t matter what goes in as long as I can learn from it, turn it into a positive lesson, or just decide to forget I ever encountered it. Ignorance isn’t bliss. It’s just plain ignorance.
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