Today, while subbing at Guilderland High School, I came
across a booklet of banned books for 2009 – 2010, sponsored by various
bookseller and library organizations.
The list includes some of the usual suspects: Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings; Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird; and The
Diary of Anne Frank. It includes
some books which I have not noticed previously on banned book lists but which
did not surprise me: Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time
Indian; Augusten Burroughs’ Running
With Scissors; and Jeannette Walls’ The
Glass Castle: A Memoir. However,
some books on the list did surprise me:
Barbara Kingsolver’s The Bean
Trees and Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel
and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America.
One listing, however, utterly stunned me: The Merriam-Webster
Collegiate Dictionary (10th ed).
The explanatory blurb reads: “Pulled
from the Menifee, Calif. Union School District (2010) because a parent
complained when a child came across the term ‘oral sex.’ Officials said the district is forming a
committee to consider a permanent classroom ban of the dictionary.”
A Google search indicates that the Menifee Union School
District pulled said dictionary from all district schools after a student at
Oak Meadows Elementary School found the offending term in mid-January,
2010. On 27 January 2010, the district
reversed its decision. To compensate, it
put in to effect a system of permission slips by which parents can either allow
their students to continue to access the dictionary in question or opt to
access other dictionaries. Supposedly,
the district chose the collegiate level dictionary in the first place to encourage
students to acquire higher-level skills.
Back in my days of teaching freshman composition, for a
multi-week Word of the Week assignment, a male student chose the word “cunnilingus.” I denied permission for him to use this word,
noting that the dictionary houses many words that we would not necessarily use
in front of our parents. I did not take away
his dictionary. I simply required him to
choose a word more appropriate to the context.
(The problem resolved itself when soon thereafter the student abruptly
left the college under a cloud of scandal associated with inappropriate
behavior in the dorm.)
Human civilization is made up of words. Just as our bodies are what we eat, our essential
selves are our words—what we say, what we think, what we read, what we write.
Think of George Orwell’s 1984,
another usual suspect on the banned book list.
Big Brother controls most of the citizens of Oceania through many
methods, including Newspeak. Newspeak
consists of language comprised of (and compromised by) restricted vocabulary
and adjectives and abbreviated words, thus restricting citizens’ speech and
thoughts to government approved orthodoxy.
For those of you who have studied a foreign language, what
are the first words you want to learn? The dirty words! When you get a new dictionary, what are the
first words you look up? THE DIRTY
WORDS! Since kids are going to learn
DIRTY WORDS anyway, it is best that they learn them from a reputable source—THE
DICTIONARY! (By the way, I am not saying
which word I first looked up in my OED.)
Take away my potatoes.
Even take away my Complete Works
of Shakespeare. But do NOT take away
my dictionary!
(Now go look up a dirty word and giggle!)
Oh dear. This reminds me of when I was in 7th grade and my mother complained to the principal about my class being required to read Shakespeare because he used "dirty words"
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