What is worth learning?

As of today, they are still restricting from teaching about racism, sex, religion and any other bias topic. Things like the Indian removal act, slavery and LGBTQ, would not be able to be taught. They are also banning books that related to these "controversial" topics. I found an article called, "banned and challenged books", where they have a list of some books by year that have been banned and why. An example is "of mice and men", by john Steinbeck. It is said that it contains racial slurs and stereotypes which is "bad for the students". I remember having to read it in my English class, and sure it was a little weird to me, but I never felt influenced by it in the way critics are claiming. It was an interesting story and the whole point was to analyze the reading, I learned words I didn't know and had to break it into parts to understand it . It upsets me that students now days won't be able to read all these great books that might be tragic in some way, but are very educational and eye opening.

At first I understood why topics like religion should be restricted, those are beliefs that can be taught to the individual by their church or family. It would be easy to disrespect ones religion or teach it the wrong way. However, my thinking changed when I read more of the module regarding banning the other issues like racism. I don't think any topic should be banned because they are important to history and even play a role today. For example, the quote in the article " Texas school district strikes more books from reading list", "After all, how can we expect young people to learn about diversity, if we do not expose them to diverse perspectives in literature?”. I think this quote perfectly explains the benefits of exposing students to these diverse topics. Not only do they learn about other people and how we got to where we are today, but also about themselves. I understand leaving out some details, the goal should be to teach the main concept, and as history changes, keep adding to it. If we are able to teach about the good, we should show the bad as well. we have to teach students life skills and that there will be challenges as well as rewards.

Admin. (2021, April 5). Top 10 most challenged books lists. Advocacy, Legislation & Issues. Retrieved October 28, 2021, from https://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/top10.