Banned Book Week

Sponsored by the American Library Association, and observed in early fall since 1982 , this event has one main goal:

It is designed to remind all of us not to take this democratic freedom for granted. BBW celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them.

As an American school, teaching an American curriculum, it is difficult to separate out the very documents which the United States bases it political, economic, and legal system – the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights. However, it is extremely important to address these issues in a culturally sensitive manner, respecting the political, economic, and legal system where we live.

In as global way as possible, by addressing the needs of students in any country, we seek to guide our students in a world where the use of higher level thinking skills is of the greatest importance. In order to do that they need to be exposed to a flow of information to help them think, evaluate, and be ready to make a positive contribution as citizens of the world. The expectation of most every student here is to move on to university. To compete in a more complex educational setting, they need exposure to the same materials many of their counterparts from around the world take for granted.

Banned Books Week will challenge them to think about the importance of ideas. It will challenge them to think what the free flow of ideas means – and if taken away, what that would mean.  This is certainly not just an American idea. The banning of books and the people who wish to control what others think, read, and say, has been around since the time Plato wanted to ban the things Homer was writing about . In the library, in our school, in any university, students must understand our roles – and theirs -- as gatekeepers of intellectual freedom.