School book banning escalates in the UK as Greater Manchester secondary school censors scores of books
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Happytallperson
School book banning escalates in the UK as Greater Manchester secondary school censors scores of books
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Happytallperson
18 comments
The book that kicked this off, ‘The Men Who Hate Women’ by Laura Bates, is absolutely essential reading for 16 year olds in my view – far more so than the Netflix series ‘Adolesence’ or Theroux’s ‘Manosphere’ documentary.
Anyone who claimed ‘Why I am no longer talking to white people about race’ is racist is either wildly unprofessional, lazy and incompetent, or an active racist who doesn’t want children reading about why racism is bad.
I’m guessing it’s the ‘free speech’ crowd doing this.
STOP COPYING THE US! You’re dragged us down to their level.
really hard to know what happened given everything including the school is anonymous, but Terry Pratchett?
The school banned the Da Vinci Code (and, it seems, every other Dan Brown book). Bless their cotton socks.
This is what happens when standards are eroded and your institutions become captured by idealogical trash.
Is it reverse psychology?
”we are banning these books, you can not read them! Do not get them in your own time we forbid it!”
book sales skyrocket
It’s impressive they stocked a lot of those books to start with. I wonder how suitable Stephen King and Game Of Thrones is for 15 year olds, but if that’s what sparks some kid’s love of reading…
Why aren’t Ofsted all over this? Triple Ofsted inspections for any head teacher that censors their library!
If a kid is old enough to read and understand the book- they’re old enough to read the book (within reason)
ACADEMIES are THE WORST thing that happened to education in the UK: private companies, especially CHURCH / Religious “companies”, should not have the power to censor education in this way: can you imagine being an english teacher for this chain? unbearable. & so short-sighted. but deliberate: OH SO deliberate because it’s all ideological, fundamental radicalism, deciding what art & literature’s “acceptable” or not to be challenged by & learn from. damn ideological hegemonies.
So the librarian included a book that contains uncensored extremist incel and mysoginistic ideology on a “recommended reading” list for people including younger children. This book is wildly inappropriate for that age range and is something children should be introduced to in a structured way. It’s honestly crazy that they didn’t understand or even seem to have given any thought to safeguarding of the children and seems to have a ridiculously blasé attitude for someone working in a school. There doesn’t seem to have been any process at all. Then the school have realised she is a massive idiot and gone way overboard in purging any other “risky” books she may have let through in a panic.
This is from the introduction of the book:
>“Imagine a world in which millions of women are raped, beaten, mutilated, abused, or murdered every year because of the simple fact that they are women.”
Then
>What’s the best way to assert dominance over someone? Initiating physical contact without asking for permission.
>There are gold-digging professional victims who’ll conveniently ‘remember’ a brush of the hand three decades later in a shameless bid for attention, compensation, and ‘five minutes of fame
As well as graphic descriptions of assault and abusive messages sent to women.
For children as young as 11.
Seems like the school had a lack of proper processes and an idiot working for them, which they should address.
Edit – hilarious that pathetic people are actually downvoting this. Why are the actual facts so unpleasant to you? Hiding the truth to get mad at a headline is peak Reddit.
Nice tactic to tell kids what not to read, when they can just go search it out on their time outside school just to see what the big deal is if nothing else.
1) I’m skeptical that these books are as profound as many are claiming. Often these titles are just a load of waffle.
2) Not actually I dont want schools to carry any books with social media- esque titles. Teens especially should be taught actual media literacy; like how any title that thats intentionally provocative are less about learning and more about self congratulation for those with certain beliefs
Dont ban these books entirely, but I 100% support them being removed from settings of education and learning.
Ohh look they’re copying exactly what they were doing in America with all the book banning. It’s like they have a play book on how to manipulate the public and shift views to the far right.
tf kinda school library is stocking George martin, tokyo ghoul , death note and Black buttler.
did a student librarian make this list ?
I wish I knew who was funding this behaviour – I do not believe it is a spontaneous uprising of little authoritarians – whether it be book banning, racism, the campaigning outside abortion clinics… all of it smacks of some kind of foreign interference that needs to be identified and neutralised as this is getting ridiculous and the USA is showing very clearly what happens if we let this stuff pass.
Laura Bates is a fantastic author, every book I’ve read of hers has been thought provoking and very well written. How can kids develop free thought if you’re restricting what they can read and critically engage with?
I’m a school librarian and I can only hope this was just one batshit headteacher. I can’t see my head or academy trust removing books. Hopefully they trust my judgement on what is appropriate at different ages.
We have a reading crisis in this country; the majority of children are disengaged and addicted to their phones and games. We should be encouraging kids to read something, anything. Not giving them the message that books are harmful. I was reading Rosemary’s Baby at 13 and I’m (mostly) a solid citizen.