“All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions…” -- George Bernard Shaw

After having to do an interview for our topic, I found myself thinking of other perspectives of this issue. So far, I’ve covered my perspective, the unknowing person’s perspective, the opposition’s perspective, but I have yet to cover one of the most important perspectives: the teacher.

Teachers are probably one of the most important people in the lives of students. They literally teach them the proper things they need to know in life… well, some of the most important things needed. They are the ones that have to deal with the repercussions when they decide they want to teach a book that has been banned or teach something that a parent doesn’t agree with.

One such case of this happened at a school near me. The teacher had assigned The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to her class. It is considered to be a classic novel so; she wanted her class to read it. One of the students went home and told their parents that they were going to be reading the Mark Twain novel and it didn’t sit too well with them. They went to the school board and wanted the book to be removed from the curriculum because they didn’t want their child to read it. The teacher decided that she was going to fight it. She didn’t win in the end and she had to remove the novel from the curriculum. She just wanted to teach the children this classic novel that has been read by so many people before them and she wasn’t allowed because one child’s parents didn’t want their child to read it.

The parents reasoning for not wanting their child to read it… the use of the ‘n’ word. I’m not comfortable with saying or ever writing, or in this case, typing the word, so I will just be referring to it as the ‘n’ word. They didn’t think that students should be reading a book with such profanity in it and they took it to the school board. The teacher could have done several other things instead of fighting it. She could have considered the rules of the district/administration before putting the book in her curriculum; she could have talked it out with the parents and the school board to try and reason with them instead of ‘fighting the system’ so to speak. She could have just removed it after the complaint was lodged, but the one thing she should have considered and probably done, was to just substitute the novel with another one.

Teachers go through a lot when they make their curriculum and they have to follow certain rules and make sure that those rules are obeyed. They also need to be prepared in case something like that incident would happen to them. That’s one thing that isn’t really covered in most teaching programs at universities and colleges. That is also one thing that Dr. Almasy, who I interviewed, is trying to do in his English class. I admire him because this is important information that future teachers need to know. They need to know how to react if something they want to teach is challenged and they also need to know the alternatives if they do have to change something.

This is important information and all future teachers should prepare themselves. If they don’t learn these in a class, then when they get hired, they should familiarize themselves with the rules of the district and administration and they should also see which books are the most challenged and also familiarize themselves with the area and see how conservative or liberal the community is to determine which books will be appropriate to teach.