When censorship gets personal

NEA Today, Apr 1999 by Neill, Derrick

The war on public education is easy to ignore-until it comes, uninvited, to your classroom.

Since the 1980s, a war has raged in our public schools. At stake: our ability to teach children critical and independent thinking. Big war, big stakes, but I didn't have time.

I stood by while a California school board adopted a policy putting creationism "on an equal footing with evolution." I stood by while my state, Arizona, passed a moment of silence law promoting school prayer.

I stood by when my school board banned a sex education pamphlet that mentioned homosexuality. And I stood by when a teacher at my own school sponsored a Christian club, which federal law says is illegal.

I'm ashamed that it took me so long to enlist in the battle. Here's why I finally did.

Two years ago, the would-be censors set their sights on me-and my novel Adventures in Spacetime (Dan River Press, 1996).

Since I take an intercurricular approach in my classes, and since I discovered that science fiction is the perfect vehicle for teaching science, English, history, and more, it's only natural that I started using my book as a supplemental resource.

And it worked great the first year. The kids loved it, we.got lots of positive media attention for the school, and I even won two teaching awards.

But the second year was another story. Oh. the kids still loved the book. But a small, but well-organized group of parents didn't. Four to be exact.

Their complaint? They said "profanity" and two sentences of "sexual content" made the book inappropriate. They also claimed I wasn't teaching science. Oh yeah, and they called the book "garbage."

Needless to say, I was taken aback. And I was angry. The language in my book is tame compared to other challenged books, like Hinton's The Outsiders. Its sexual content is mild compared to Blume's Forever. Besides, I've used Crichton's Jurassic Park for 10 years, and no one said a word. No, something else was going on. I just didn't know what.

Why couldn't these parents understand that teaching students critical literacy-and there's no real literacy that's not critical-means exposing them to more than facts? Learning to separate fact from fiction and fact from opinion requires seeing all three.

No doubt, this misunderstanding was part of the problem. But something still told me there was more.

Then, one day, the librarian pulled me aside. The parents who complained about my book were reviewing the videos I show-videos on evolution. When the librarian described how the parents scoffed at the science videos, a light bulb lit. You see, my novel is a parallel time-track story involving-you guessed it-evolution.

Now, in all fairness, the parents never admitted evolution was the problem. And, in the end, I guess it's moot. Thanks to supportive colleagues and administrators and a fair-minded school board, I was allowed to continue using my book in class. But the story doesn't end there. How did all of this affect the four students most directly involved?

The children of three of the complaining parents promptly dropped my class. One, let's call him John, didn't. He told me several times that he liked me, the class, and the book. At the end of the school year, John's English teacher told me she assigned an essay, asking students to select their favorite science fiction device and explain why they picked it.

"John chose a time machine," she said. "It seems he's wondering where we all came from and he wants to travel back in time so he can find out how everything really happened."

I couldn't help but smile. It was just the kind of independent thinking book-banners don't like. It threatens their morality, and it frightens them. But, thanks to them, one eighth grade boy had an intellectual growth spurt. And, thanks to them, the fight for intellectual freedom-for public schools that allow all voices to be heard-has one more soldier, heavily armed with the written word. Me.