Highlander Newspaper

Issue date: 2/2/10 Section: Opinion

Media Credit: Courtesy Flickr/Old Shoe Woman

A Riverside County school district has recently been in the news for pulling Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary from its elementary school classrooms because a parent complained about their child reading the definition for "oral sex." The Menifee Unified School District school board made the decision to put the dictionary back into the classrooms, but children now need a permission slip from a parent in order to use it. If that permission is denied, children have the option to use an alternative dictionary as opposed to the full version.

The problem with banning books in schools is that it leaves open the question of who can decide what is appropriate and where the line should be drawn. But what is staggering in this case is how drastic the censorship is. Banning the dictionary in a classroom is so counter-productive to what the classroom represents - education - that it's truly unbelievable that this actually occurred. And the fact that the dictionaries have been returned to classrooms under the stipulation that children can only use them with signed permission slips isn't much better. This shouldn't even been an issue in the first place; a dictionary is a basic and vital resource of knowledge and students are more than ready to use the full version of it. This is a case of overreaction by the school board and is not only shortsighted, but dangerous.

The use of an educational tool should not be taken away because it is used by an individual in a questionable way. Just because a child looked up "oral sex" in a dictionary instead of using it for the teacher's original intentions does not mean it should be banned, for the same reason that R-rated movies shouldn't be banned because some children and teenagers sneak into them without their parents. The examples go on and on. And it could also be argued that looking up a sex act in the dictionary is still educating oneself. After all, who made the decision that learning about certain things is permitted and others are not? Learning is learning, at the end of the day, no matter what the subject is.

And with children being exposed to these issues at younger and younger ages, this banning comes off as a decision based on naivety. It's a product of America's continuing suppression and fear of sex. Would this reaction been as strong if the dictionary definition in question had been "murder" or "rape" or something related to violence? There's no doubt that this wouldn't have even been a controversy. It's the same reason that sex education varies greatly between school systems - some teach it as early as elementary school, while others don't implement it until high school. This all goes back to standards and expectations - when is it right for a child to learn about sex? What books are appropriate to be taught at what ages? What requires parental consent and what does not?

The more information someone has, the better off a decision maker and an individual they are. This applies to childhood all the way through adulthood. The suppression of knowledge does nothing but hinder development rather than enhance it.

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