Ten points to consider before banning a book

Opinion editor's note: Star Tribune Opinion publishes a mix of national and local commentaries online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

•••

I have spent 31 years teaching in middle school and high school classrooms witnessing students' love and indifference to reading. Here are my 10 reasons why banning books is never good for students:

1. Good adolescent literature (and there is a lot out there) creates windows out into the world. Students learn about people who are different from them in a way that is safe while at the same time expanding their hearts and minds. Banning books puts blinds on those windows to the outside world.

2. Books also are mirrors. Books point out our common humanity. I always asked students doing book reports for me to explain how the book related to their life. Banning a book cloaks the mirror, where a student might see themselves.

3. Books do instill empathy and understanding in a reader. When a ninth-grade boy cries out "No!" during silent reading when he gets to the heart-crushing last page of "Of Mice and Men," I know he is engaged with the content of that novel. I have provided facial tissues and open discussion of feelings for other banned books, such as "To Kill a Mockingbird." Banning such titles of controversy cuts off this opportunity to feel and understand each other.

4. Banning books that are controversial or emotionally hard disrespects the student. Teens are much more capable of handling controversial material than we often give them credit for. Banning books with hard topics such as racism, substance abuse and bullying does not keep them safe from those things in the real world. Instead, it narrows their perceptions of those realities.

6. Choice is a big deal for teens, and getting them engaged in reading has become more of a challenge with all the other options of social media, YouTube, Netflix, etc. Banning books or controlling their options to choose often leads to students deciding not to read at all.

7. If parents/guardians are concerned about content students might be reading, are they also monitoring social media and other easily accessible material on the internet that might be more harmful to students than a book that explores sexual identity?

8. Do we really want to ban any book that will potentially engage a reader, when reading is so important to academic growth and one of the key components of higher education success?

9. Reading fosters imagination and possibilities in ways that movies or videos can't. The brain works to envision and practice imagining, which improves thinking and comprehension scores. This works most efficiently when a student is interested in what they are reading. If a book they want to read is banned, this can't happen.

10. Finally, when a book is banned or removed from a library or school, it is banned from everyone, not just the children whose parents have decided that it is not what they want their children to be reading. It happened on occasion that a parent was uncomfortable with their child reading a certain book in the curriculum, and I would offer that student an alternative title. One or a few parents shouldn't be dictating what is right for all students. Parents concerned about the appropriateness of material for their child should at the very least read the entire book in question and write a book report explaining why this book has absolutely no redeeming qualities, and only then should it be banned for all students.