Censorship

Whack! That's the sound of me smiting my head after 10 years and hundreds of calls from teachers in danger of being fired for doing their jobs.

The problem isn't that parents and others challenge the use of particular books. That's certainly their right. What's disturbing is that challenges all to often go past reasoned discussion — or even hotly argued disagreement — and headlong into agitation, manipulation and rabble-rousing.

The most common pot-stirring action is shameless sensationalism.

Profane words or sexual passages are listed out of context and read aloud at a school board meeting. Fliers with the offensive words listed are placed on windshields in parking lots. Calls are made to conservative talk radio shows, where hosts are glad to condemn the teaching of targeted literary works and rail at the rampant immorality of public education.

Worse, teachers are often attacked personally. They are called pornographers, racists, traitors, promoters of violence and Satanists because parts of the works they have chosen carefully for their programs are deemed offensive by protesters. Fundamentalist ministers sometimes join the charge and denounce books, teachers and schools from the pulpit. Principled disagreement and tolerance are nowhere in sight, replaced by a cacophonous culture war with little concern for the complexity of the issue, let alone the pain inflicted on others.

Who would want to stay in teaching amid such dirty fighting and hurtful accusations? Fortunately, most of the teachers I have worked with are determined not to be bullied out of the profession. Inspirationally, they keep their eye on the prize — their students' need for access to a wide variety of materials that can be read with enjoyment and critical intelligence.

While teachers have overwhelmingly reported that the would-be censors were unsuccessful, and few leave the profession, their lives are changed when the conflict gets ugly — and the after-effects of the experience are literally incalculable. It is difficult to get reliable data on self-censorship, but the anecdotes suggest that even when book-banning fails, many teachers feel a deep chill and quietly decide to limit their choices of materials.

It would be naïve to think that nasty charges will not be made in a divided society where the daily media present carping, snapping and one-upping others as fair and balanced debate. What's distressing is that this hard-edged propaganda has entered into the everyday life of teachers who, in the course of their dedication to children, find themselves vilified as despoilers of youth.

Democracy makes room for such mean-spirited extremism, of course. But let us not shrink from saying that it is cruel, bigoted and unethical. And we can hope that with continued — what else? — education, civility will prevail over the destructive excesses of censors.