Free Reading, Free Thinking

I read an article over the weekend about Sherman Alexie's award-winning literary novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian being banned in Wisconsin schools. The article (which, to be fair, is more than a year old but somehow just recently reached my eyes) details a school board banning the book, students petitioning and receiving copies from a book seller, and angry parents calling the police to report inappropriate book distribution.

All because...students wanted to read an evocative, contemporary book.

I don't mean to suggest that all students should read all books, nor do I think that anyone other than students and parents combined can best decide suitable reading material for each person. 

What I am suggesting is that we straighten out our priorities involving education and schools. Last year, school budgets and teacher pensions continued to be threatened, cut, or put on hold; standardized test ideas bounced around the government as politicians tried to decide the best way to help our students with "high-stakes testing" (ahem...get rid of it); and elective programs were reduced or cut to pave the way for more test-oriented material.

Books and ideas can be weapons, and they can be dangerous. We cannot, unfortunately, remove all of the dangers from our world. We can, however, do something for our kids: we can teach them how to think...if only we let them.