A Few HIGH SCHOOL Students From Berkeley Heights Want To Read A Book & It Becomes National News

Ideas and ways of looking at the world – good and bad- are out there and more available to our kids than ever. Is someone asking people to ejaculate on a pillow, asparagus, or whatever the hell that book says to ejaculate on the biggest problem facing our District? With everything that’s gone on in our schools – is a book about feminism really what we are losing sleep over and what Fox News feels is essential?

In High School, I read Mein Kampf and realized that Hitler was an unhinged moron. Catcher in the Rye helped me feel more normal. 1984 and Brave New World helped me understand and appreciate liberal democracies with all their faults. I would read a book a week, each offering an escape, a perspective, a new understanding of the world that I had yet to consider. Books allowed me to be safe and academic in my rebellion. Of course, they influenced my ideas and identity- that is the whole point of adolescence.

Adolescence is not about our children adopting our ideas – it is a time for them to dive into the world of ideas and balance them with what we have taught them to develop their identities. The presence of a book you disagree with is not “brainwashing” – removing that book encourages the brainwashing we feel is acceptable. This is anathema to free societies, learning, and adolescent development.

Allowing books – every book- permits our children to talk about ideas. It holds beliefs up to the lens of scrutiny – children can speak to you about what they don’t have to hide. It gives parents more access to conversations with their kids. It also allows our kids to rebel safely with provocative political ideas, ideologies, and world views. It will enable them to experiment intellectually. Restricting access encourages kids to seek what is forbidden and hide their thoughts.

A few questions for my friends on the Right and the Left who are inclined to take an eraser to ideas and facts they don’t like:

Why is this or any book that a few High School students want to read and discuss, that parents can opt their kids out of, even a topic of conversation? Why isn’t this book in our libraries already? Why does it have to be donated? Why should someone else have to read a book before another person is allowed to read it?

Censorship does not work – it has never worked. Governments who have attempted to prevent people’s access to ideas and facts often end up in horrible places.

People are willing to die and have died for the ability to speak and read freely.