Censorship in the classroom
These brief articles make you think about where you draw the line between punishing inappropriate content in students' work and censorship. What thoughts or writing can you reasonably censor or punish a student for?
The situation described in the first article is, frankly, ridiculous. Aside from the fact that "shoot the neighbour's dinosaur" sounds like the sort of thing an eleven-year-old might dream up and not to be taken seriously, why does a fictional story involving a firearm and the untimely death of a prehistoric animal merit arrest, search and suspension? Teachers shouldn't jump with paranoia when a shocking and scandalous word like "gun" shows up in a student's vocabulary, seeing as the English novels we read for class involve death, torture and weaponry galore.
Exhibit A: 1984. Exhibit B: To Kill A Mockingbird. Etc., etc., etc.
Or was it was the dinosaur that so appalled school officials?
*coughs*
The situation in the second article is something very different that I can't face with sarcasm. Recap: a girl writes a poem about the Connecticut school shooting and says therein that she understands why the killer pulled the trigger. I don't know about you, but my first thought was that she sympathised with the shooter. The teacher must have thought so, too, and automatically taken her for a psychopath or something equally alarming.
The thing is that statements like that shouldn't be taken at face value. That student meant only to say that she understood why things like that happened in society, why someone might be compelled to open fire on children - not emotionally but from an objective standpoint. Rather than "suspending her until further notice", teachers should ask her what she meant in her poem. Thousands would write about the tragedy of the Connecticut shooting, but not many would choose to focus on the wider implications of this massacre - what society could produce a killer of children?
These are important questions! This aspect of such tragedies should be brought up and discussed, by students and teachers alike, not frantically shot down by suspending the student on suspicion of jeopardising school safety. If freedom of speech means anything, it's the freedom to bring up opinions that no one has thought of yet or are too nervous to voice.
The fourth article is most relevant to the general point, I think. A kid writes a creative short story about a student who murders one of her teachers. There's no gore and the actual murder isn't shown to the reader, but the story ends suggestively enough that it's clear what happens. The writer was expelled from the school, his work labelled with "inappropriate subject matter" - even though the teacher who marked it didn't seem to have any qualms about criticising the rest.
Would the story have gotten Brendan kicked out if it had been about an employee who murders his employer? Are teachers, and the school setting, really so sacred that students can't use them as less than saintly story elements? That's not right; nothing should be untouchable matter for a writer. When something becomes so sacrosanct you can't discuss it or write about it, it should ring an alarm bell: impediment of free speech. The characters and school in Brendan's story were fictitious, but by his teachers' reaction you might have thought he'd described himself murdering one of his real-life instructors. Sure it was an unusual choice, but like I said before - our English class literature has enough murders to delight Sherlock Holmes. It's either hypocrisy or a mild case of censorship.
So, to summarise: how far is too far? In my opinion, none of the above kids deserved what they got. "Questionable subject matter" shouldn't be enough to punish at student - at most, it should earn a student-to-teacher talk or a conversation with his/her parents. Free speech is equally important for students as it is for their elders - especially for students, while they are still developing their minds and characters. What kind of message does it send if you can only write about school-approved things in a class that should be open-minded, like Writer's Craft?
Not a very optimistic one, I think.
Anyway, that's my two cents.
The situation described in the first article is, frankly, ridiculous. Aside from the fact that "shoot the neighbour's dinosaur" sounds like the sort of thing an eleven-year-old might dream up and not to be taken seriously, why does a fictional story involving a firearm and the untimely death of a prehistoric animal merit arrest, search and suspension? Teachers shouldn't jump with paranoia when a shocking and scandalous word like "gun" shows up in a student's vocabulary, seeing as the English novels we read for class involve death, torture and weaponry galore.
Exhibit A: 1984. Exhibit B: To Kill A Mockingbird. Etc., etc., etc.
Or was it was the dinosaur that so appalled school officials?
*coughs*
The situation in the second article is something very different that I can't face with sarcasm. Recap: a girl writes a poem about the Connecticut school shooting and says therein that she understands why the killer pulled the trigger. I don't know about you, but my first thought was that she sympathised with the shooter. The teacher must have thought so, too, and automatically taken her for a psychopath or something equally alarming.
The thing is that statements like that shouldn't be taken at face value. That student meant only to say that she understood why things like that happened in society, why someone might be compelled to open fire on children - not emotionally but from an objective standpoint. Rather than "suspending her until further notice", teachers should ask her what she meant in her poem. Thousands would write about the tragedy of the Connecticut shooting, but not many would choose to focus on the wider implications of this massacre - what society could produce a killer of children?
These are important questions! This aspect of such tragedies should be brought up and discussed, by students and teachers alike, not frantically shot down by suspending the student on suspicion of jeopardising school safety. If freedom of speech means anything, it's the freedom to bring up opinions that no one has thought of yet or are too nervous to voice.
The fourth article is most relevant to the general point, I think. A kid writes a creative short story about a student who murders one of her teachers. There's no gore and the actual murder isn't shown to the reader, but the story ends suggestively enough that it's clear what happens. The writer was expelled from the school, his work labelled with "inappropriate subject matter" - even though the teacher who marked it didn't seem to have any qualms about criticising the rest.
Would the story have gotten Brendan kicked out if it had been about an employee who murders his employer? Are teachers, and the school setting, really so sacred that students can't use them as less than saintly story elements? That's not right; nothing should be untouchable matter for a writer. When something becomes so sacrosanct you can't discuss it or write about it, it should ring an alarm bell: impediment of free speech. The characters and school in Brendan's story were fictitious, but by his teachers' reaction you might have thought he'd described himself murdering one of his real-life instructors. Sure it was an unusual choice, but like I said before - our English class literature has enough murders to delight Sherlock Holmes. It's either hypocrisy or a mild case of censorship.
So, to summarise: how far is too far? In my opinion, none of the above kids deserved what they got. "Questionable subject matter" shouldn't be enough to punish at student - at most, it should earn a student-to-teacher talk or a conversation with his/her parents. Free speech is equally important for students as it is for their elders - especially for students, while they are still developing their minds and characters. What kind of message does it send if you can only write about school-approved things in a class that should be open-minded, like Writer's Craft?
Not a very optimistic one, I think.
Anyway, that's my two cents.
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