April 1976: Censorship

Question: What is one of the reasons for censorship incidents?

Answer: A belief that schools indoctrinate. The belief that teaching means indoctrination. The belief that whatever teachers teach, students learn mindlessly. By rote. What goes in , always comes out.

Comment: We need to define what we mean by teaching. We need to define what we mean by discussion. Most of what we teach is skills. We need to make clear our purposes for teaching what we teach, usually skills. When we discuss issues raised by literary works, we need to be clear that our classes are looking at the many sides of controversial issues in an attempt to understand them. We need to make clear that we are not indoctrinating our students with ideas or attitudes. Most of all we need to make clear our purposes for what we are teaching. RayS.

“Censorship: War? Peace? Truce?” Ken Donelson. English Journal (April 1976), p. 7.