In a world where banned books, historical whitewashing, and internet restrictions prevail, classrooms have become battlegrounds where we, as students, are left fighting for our educational freedom. Censorship “discourages learning” according to the National Coalition Against Censorship, and the VBCPS district has too many restrictions placed on their students.
Technological securities placed by the schools themselves also tend to cause a divide in the classroom. Securely (a blockage site commonly used in the VBCPS district) allows a teacher to see what their student is doing on their computer as well as close tabs, limit the number of tabs, and revoke access to the internet. It is a major invasion of the student’s privacy. Also, the school systems put blocks on certain websites that can aid the student’s learning. For example, if a student wanted to research breast cancer, they couldn’t because schools have blocked the word “breast” from being searched on the devices. Even YouTube videos assigned by teachers are inaccessible to the students due to overly extreme efforts at censoring students’ content intake. It should be left up to the students to use their devices responsibly.
Books such as To Kill a Mockingbird and The Things They Carried have been a part of high schooler’s curriculum for years. All of a sudden, it has become a problem… why? What are parents and the community trying to protect students from? It’s not the violence or sexual content because high schoolers play video games with similar, if not worse, material since it contains visuals. When it comes to censored content, roughly 66% that have been banned details the life of at least one type of minority, whether that be people of color, women, or the LGBTQ+ community. Sadly, this will lead to ignorance. Some people, like Walters, believe that “The banned books focus heavily on racism and other controversial topics that are not appropriate for K-12 students”. These same people are at home watching South Park and The Boondocks.
An article published by the National Coalition Against Censorship states that “Censorship also harms teachers. By limiting resources and flexibility”. Our teachers are well aware of what is and isn’t suitable for their classrooms. The district should put more trust in them.
In today’s world, there are too many restrictions on the content that high school students are allowed to use for their work. The books, content, and websites are being banned from their usage and it disrupts the classroom. The issue is that the students are being left with a harsh, uninteresting learning environment, they are fortuned to become ignorant adults, and censoring content puts too much strain on the teachers. There should be limits on the amount of content that is allowed to be censored in high school, more specifically in the VBCPS school district.
