Book Banning

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- [Liz] Straight ahead on "Utah Insight": book bans in the Beehive State.

- It is very personal, not because of my deeply held beliefs about libraries and equal access to information, but because I really care about my students.

- [Liz] We explore the tug of war between parents and educators about what students read.

- Adults, they can't protect us forever, but they can prepare us for the most hard things that's gonna happen in life.

- From the past to the present, we'll bring you up to speed on this issue, plus share some of the psychological implications.

(upbeat music) Welcome to "Utah Insight."

I'm Liz Adeola.

Librarians are in Layton for the annual Utah Library Association's Conference.

One topic of discussion this year: book bans.

According to PEN America, Utah is one of the top five states where book bans are the most prevalent.

According to a voluntary survey done by the Utah State Board of Education, five school districts reported 273 book challenges between last November and January of 2023, and there's concern within the districts that most of those challenges are coming from one or two people.

I spoke to a high school librarian who has a decade of experience.

She's seen book challenges increase since 2021 and now she's leaving the field.

- There might be a misconception that librarians are just picking whatever book that they want to pick.

My process is reading review magazines, I look at social media, I look at the top Amazon sellers, I talk to my students, I talk to my teachers.

I rely on my 10 years of librarianism and my master's degree that I got for this job.

I am a professional.

I use professional metrics to decide what books go in my library.

I run title analysis all the time for my school to see the gaps in my collection and I try really hard to be unbiased because I know that my preferences are not everybody's preferences.

In my district, and I know in many districts, if a parent didn't want their child to read a certain book, they could theoretically email me, call me, and tell me to put a flag on the student's profile and restrict access for that student only.

If you feel like reading some of these books isn't best for your child, that is perfectly fine and acceptable.

I wholly and completely agree with parents getting a say in what their children are reading, but it should go both ways.

I think a little bit of empathy on both sides probably would do us all good.

- And there's so much to digest from that interview.

But first, let's get to our panel.

Joining this discussion, Sarah Reale, who is a state school board member for District 5.

Dr. Karen Tao is the associate professor in counseling and psychology at the University of Utah, and one of the co-directors of READ-U, and the host of the award-winning PBS Utah web series, "Let's Talk."

Plus Dr. Alexander Hyres, who is an assistant professor at the University of Utah, teaching the history of US Education.

Welcome to the show.

Thank you all for being here today.

Sarah, I wanna start with you.

You heard the interview with the librarian saying that this was personal for her.

And for so many people, this issue is personal.

How does that complicate things when decisions have to be made for what's best for children here in Utah?

- It is personal, and thanks for having me, and I only speak for myself, not the full board.

But for me, because it is personal and a lot of it is personal between the parent and the student.

That's why I love what the librarian said about talking to parents and allowing parents the opportunity to say, "This book isn't appropriate for my child.

"Can you make sure they don't check it out?"

And librarians are trained professionals that understand what is appropriate for what student.

And so working with parents, a lot of these issues that we're hearing about could be solved, and are already solved, between the librarian and the parent.

- Yeah, and it's unfortunate that librarians are choosing to leave.

Karen, what are your thoughts on hearing that some, after all of the pressure from parents, are deciding to give up their career?

- Yeah, it's heartbreaking to hear that a librarian like Catherine is leaving.

So a little bit of personal note about this.

I grew up in a library.

My mom taught.

She's a librarian for 35 years in a K-8 school, and librarians and libraries are like sanctuaries.

These are places that kids go to find who they are, to talk with other kids about books that really represent them.

And to know that a librarian like Catherine, who really knows the students, really knows the teachers, is leaving is such a loss.

It's the support person who kids go to to talk about what's going on in school, around friendship, and things that are happening in the classroom.

And librarians pick just the right book for students that really capture and really meet their needs.

And so, yeah, it's heartbreaking.

- Alexander, you've said that a lot of the book bans are a symptom rather than the issue.

What does that mean?

- Well, I think that when we talk about education, it is political.

And so across the political spectrum, people see schools as the place where we sort of work out our differences and train the next generation of our society.

And across the political spectrum, people believe in education.

The question is what kind of school are they going to have?

What's the purpose of them being there?

And so across American history, people have looked to schools as both a reflection of society, but also a way of pushing our society forward.

- Yeah, to add on that.

I think that oftentimes in this, education has been pulled into these culture wars, right?

A lot of times, the piece that they're forgetting is that teachers are there to help students think critically.

They're not there to tell them what's right and what's wrong, but to give them all the information, give them the freedom to learn, and then let them decide for themselves what they think, right?

But they forget about that in the conversation in these culture wars, where education has been just pulled into, and they just talk about how teachers are doing this or doing that.

Teachers are there to help students think critically and I think people forget that.

- Yeah, and we posed this question to our social media followers on Facebook and Instagram to hear their thoughts on book bans in Utah schools, and here's a bit of what they had to say.

Megan Vosgerau Jay compared it to restrictions on radio and television, writing, "Number one, no books are being banned.

"Publishers still publishing, "stores still sell them and they are for the most part "still available at local libraries.

"We are restricting access to harmful materials for minors."

Katrina Cummins shared that her son's teacher works with parents, giving them options of books they could choose for their child to read and seeking written parental permission for books on sensitive subjects, saying, "I trust the judgment of teachers and librarians "who are educated, trained and experienced.

"They are not the bad guys.

"Book bans come not from a place of actual concern "for children's well-being, "but fear of losing ground in a political and cultural war."

And then we got this comment from Aaron Bullen, who wrote, "Wow, what a bunch of false propaganda!!

"If a sexually explicit book is not available "to children in a school library, you think that is a 'ban'?

"What nonsense."

He goes on to say, "No, I do not want my child "to have sexually explicit material offered to them "by a public school in an unsupervised environment.

"I 100% do not want my child "to inadvertently see or read explicit descriptions of sex."

And went to the dictionary.

The definition of a ban is officially or illegally prohibiting something.

So I think they're getting into semantics there, saying that these are not bans.

But Karen, what are your thoughts on, or Dr. Tao, what are your thoughts on the last bit of what he had to say about the harm that this could cause students?

- Yeah, I think we have a couple of debates that are being conflated.

The first is, as a parent myself, of course I am protective and I want my kids to read books that are at their maturity and developmental level, and so I can understand that perspective.

I think that the other perspective that we're having is around the specific topics that parents are afraid that kids are going to be exposed to, and so I wanna just first discern those differences.

I think a lot about the books that are currently being "banned" or taken off the shelves and I wonder a bit around really what is the fear.

And some of the fear that I think parents are having around certain books is really around the emotional, what emotions kind of get elicited around certain books that are uncomfortable.

And to me, as a parent and also as a psychologist, kids need to be exposed to the full range of the emotions that some of these books bring up.

To wrestle with sadness, and guilt, and sometimes fear, and having parents and adults to talk with them about the topics.

And so, yeah, I just, I think there's a lot to unpack from comments like these that seem like sound bites that need to be kind of, kind of thought through more, yeah, intentionally.

- And Dr. Hyres, there's this term being used now called Ed Scare.

Can you explain a little bit about what that is and why that's taking a hold in this conversation?

- So I think people have used these books as a way to attack public education more broadly.

And so if we think about the book bans really as a part of a broader project to attack public schools.

I mean, what we saw in Utah is money being funneled out of the public school system towards school vouchers.

That's also connected to the the book bans we're seeing, where you're pulling funding out.

You're making public schools less effective in what they're trying to do.

And I think that it's sort of, across time, has been a way of in public education is to say that we're failing in these ways, and so we're gonna blame the schools, and we want them to fix all of our issues.

- Sarah, can you shed light on some of the coordination that kind of happens behind the scenes?

We've heard about these parental groups that are gaining more momentum and gaining more support.

What have you noticed about them?

- Yeah, for me, a lot of it is about good governing, right?

So good governing is local control.

Good governing in education is parental input, right?

Good governing is a good use of our taxpayer dollars, right?

And what I've seen is in many districts, in one district 500 hours it took to review all of the books that have been brought towards the board.

And that district's 500 hours, I think of what those 500 hours and the money spent on those 500 hours could be doing to actually support our students, to help them get academic excellence, to help with mental health, whatever it is, right?

This is such an unnecessary type of governing from a top-down level from the state and it really should be a local issue, down to a local decision between a parent and a librarian or a principal at a school, right?

They know their community.

They're closest to their community.

They know what's right for their community.

And the way that we have instituted these policies have taken up a lot of time and resources that I think could be better used in other areas.

- Well, speaking of that.

Let's take a look at the "Utah Insight" Bill Tracker.

The Sensitive Materials in Schools bill was passed last year, prohibiting sensitive instructional materials in schools.

Following that move, several other similar bills were proposed during the past legislative session.

One proposal that would give parents more control was House Bill 465, a push to create an online system where parents can see what their child checks out at the library.

But that one came with an estimated price tag of about $1.9 million to implement for Utah school districts.

Sarah, you saw all of these bills coming through, or proposals, and you said, "Wait a second, we gotta think this through."

Why was that?

- Yeah, it really fires me up because I would like data.

I would like data to understand is this really an issue facing our students, is this really an issue facing our schools, right?

And a lot of times, it's anecdotal.

It's one person in one school, one time in one classroom, right?

And we're passing legislation statewide, costing money, to blanket it on all of our LEAs, right?

And so, for me, they're really frustrating because one, we haven't had a chance to really implement the already sensitive material bills that have been through.

And two, is this a big issue that we need to have laws passed?

It doesn't seem like that.

And from what I'm gauging in LEAs, there are only a few that are having sensitive material issues and parents that are really frustrated.

Most of them are great, and they are having no books that are being brought to the board, and they're feeling really good about their sensitive materials, so.

- Yeah, and I wanna say how a lot of this debate gets translated down to children, and the vitriol and the language that's used behind some of these book bans and legislation.

So what kids are hearing is that books that are written about me are bad and books that talk about my story are not okay, and so, in essence, you're banning me.

And so when we think about some of the language that's used about why we are kind of banning or censoring certain types of literature, we're really talking about what kinds of people are we banning and rendering invisible.

And so I really appreciate how you're talking about the systemic perspective and what's really happening politically.

And then also, let's really think about the emotional toll that this takes on kids, and parents, and families who often don't have a loud voice and don't have access to be able to share who they are within school settings.

- Right.

- Absolutely, and Alex?

- And I would add too for the teachers involved in these situations.

Teaching, I'm a former middle school and high school teacher and I know that's a very difficult job at the baseline.

And teachers have a lot of different regulations and things that they're accountable to, whether it's state standards or the curriculum that the district has, and so it feels like in a way these book bans are adding another layer of accountability to these teachers that already have a lot of accountability in a job that's difficult.

And just as we heard about the librarian earlier, I don't want to see teachers pushed out of the field because they're being asked to do even more work in a job that is a lot of work at the baseline.

- Right.

We'll continue this conversation in just a moment, but we do wanna talk about those voices that are often left out of the book ban conversation, the voices of actual students who are impacted the most.

"Utah Insight's" RaeAnn Christensen shares how students are finding their voice in a world of constant change and uncertainty.

- [John] Everyone, do me a favor, please.

Deep breath.

(John inhales deeply) (John exhales deeply) - [RaeAnn] For years, John Arthur, better known as Captain to his sixth grade students at Meadowlark Elementary in Salt Lake City.

- Do you see this kindness right here?

- [RaeAnn] Has been leading a special project that has become a beloved tradition in his classroom.

- [John] The whole point of this is to give kids choice and voice in their education.

Why do you think adults are afraid of teaching you about hard things?

- Because they think we're not ready, but we are.

- These kids have found at this early age that their voice has power and that there are platforms to share it with adults.

- [RaeAnn] Under Captain's guidance, the students set out to create a music video called "How are the Children?"

that would bring attention to the important issues affecting them.

- We're brainstorming all these things and we want adults to listen to us.

We wanna stop being afraid, and wanting to speak, and being heard.

Just being heard.

- The news was talking about this was the most depressed generation ever.

My eyes were red when I cry, but I just said I was on my phone too much.

Since they talked about that, we started to think of making a music video about it.

- [RaeAnn] After the students saw this news story in class, they were feeling a sense of urgency to address the need for greater understanding and empathy in our society for young people.

- They thought the best service that they could provide is telling adults, "Here's what we need from you.

"Here's why it may be hard for you to fully understand "what we're going through.

"We get why it's tough for adults right now, "but we need you to listen to us "as we tell you why this is a hard time for kids."

- The topic was very serious and relating to.

It's hard for adults to help us because no one's ever grown up with this.

Throughout my life, I've had many bad things happen.

I've been called many bad things.

- [John] Give yourselves a round of applause.

- [RaeAnn] The students never expected it to become a catalyst for change, but that's exactly what happened.

- I feel like it made people understand the problems that are going on.

A lot of people don't understand how young people are because they don't tell people.

- I wanted to put an impact on people and spread an awareness.

- Let me tell you, once all of the kids heard how many views and how many likes, we freaked out.

We didn't think it was gonna go this far.

- It's like that story we saw about students not being able to read certain books or talk about certain things 'cause they're scary.

- [RaeAnn] In a world where adults often dominate the conversation.

- Loads of smiles.

- [RaeAnn] Mr. Arthur wants to remind everyone of the importance of listening to our children.

- We are talking about our kids without talking with our kids, and now we're making decisions about their futures without taking into consideration what's actually happening in their present.

Without going to the original source: our children.

- They can't protect us forever, but they can prepare us for the most hard things that's gonna happen in life.

- Maybe the problem is that you want to prepare us for the world as it was when you were a kid instead of the world as it is today.

Our generations are changing, and changing, and we need support.

We do need support.

- [John] My greatest hope for them is that they take what they've learned in this project and they use it to continue sharing out about anything that's important to them.

- Teach us.

- Guide us.

- Believe in us.

(student speaks in foreign language) (gentle music) - And that was RaeAnn Christensen reporting.

Sarah, what are your thoughts after seeing that piece?

- John Arthur, prized teacher educator in Utah, and I am so grateful for his students, and their voices, and that their voices are amplified.

To me, it reminds me of what the core of what we're talking about, books, right?

And books are so important because they give us the ability to see other worlds, to see outside of our own culture, our own bubbles, right?

And in doing so, we gain understanding, we gain empathy.

And in the end, we build community and we become closer together, and that's what books do.

They allow us to open a window into another world and understand people who are not like us, and that is so important.

And part of what frustrates me with the book banning is that it takes away students' ability to do that, which is taking away our ability to come together as a community.

- Yeah, we have a list of some of the books, a snapshot from PEN America of what's been banned in public schools across the country.

44% of the books had themes of violence and physical abuse, 30% featured stories about people of color or included themes of grief and death, 26% featured characters or themes from the LGBTQ+ community, and 24% detailed sexual experiences between characters.

Dr. Tao, so many people are like, "Okay, you see the numbers.

"Why not have more parental control "and why not take these books off the shelves?"

- Hmm.

I wanna echo what Sarah just said about so many of these books.

They treat children with respect around the truths that are happening, and hard truths.

There are so many tough things that are going on in our world, and as Mr. Arthur's students shared, we want adults to trust us to have these conversations.

And these books are ways in which we can open up dialogue about things that are really, really hard, and that I'm scared about, and that I sit with at night and worry about.

And so by taking these books off the shelves, what we do is we don't prepare our kids for things that they're going to see.

And so, yeah, again, I think part of the whole book banning sort of issue is what we forget is kids are already watching social media, television, they're hearing things.

I'd much rather them kind of open up a book, and bring it to an adult, and ask questions and be curious than to hold kind of these ideas and thoughts in silence, which I think can be much more damaging.

- And one thing I remember, I think you told me was that a lot of times if a kid is reading a book and they're not ready to read that kind of content, they'll put it down.

- Absolutely.

Kids are, I mean, they're a lot more sophisticated than we give them credit for, clearly.

I have a 13 and a nine-year-old, and they will also note the content that they want to note and that's important to where they're at in their lives, and actually they miss a lot of the stuff that we're worried about.

They don't even see it.

So the main thing is how do we keep these conversations open?

And books are such an amazing opportunity to have these conversations with kids and adults together.

- Yeah, before we wrap, I do wanna go around the table and get your final thoughts.

If you could each take 30 seconds with final thoughts, starting with you, Dr. Hyres, on this issue.

- Yeah, I think one thing that I'm thinking a lot about around this idea of book bans is the language that we're using.

And I think anytime we're using things like age appropriateness, this is a term that's come up in other culture wars beginning in the 1920s, 1960s, 1980s to today.

And that word age appropriateness can sort of be a shield to saying, "We're not going to provide this material," when the reality is we should be providing this material but you're hiding behind that idea of age appropriateness.

- Dr. Tao?

- Yeah, so when we offer kids books that windows, as Sarah mentioned to other cultures, what we do is we really foster empathy.

We foster humility, we foster kindness.

And as a parent, I want my children to be exposed to literature that makes them think, and makes them wrestle with the things about the world, and I'm there to have those conversations when they're ready.

- And Sarah?

- For me, the big takeaway is that I would love it if we got back to trusting teachers and trusting our librarians.

They are trained professionals.

They are in this profession because they deeply care about our students, and they deserve the respect of their profession and they deserve the respect of our state.

And I hope that we can get back to just trusting our educators, trusting our librarians, and letting them do their job.

They truly care so much about our students and they deserve the right to be able to do their work.

- Well, thank you all for being here today.

Thank you for joining this discussion on book bans in Utah.

Next week, we're gonna be talking about social media and youth mental health.

How does being online impact the mental health of Utah's youngest generation?

Do you think social media is harmful to young people?

You can respond to that question on social media or give us a call as well and you just might hear your comment or question shared on the show.

Thank you so much for watching "Utah Insight" and we'll see you again next week.

(gentle music)