Book Banning? (Updated)
Several of my blogging colleagues have commented on a story in today’s Miami Herald. The story is about a book currently available in area school libraries entitled Vamos a Cuba. According to the Herald:
A portrait of kids outfitted as Pioneers -- Cuba's communist youth group -- is emblazoned across the book's cover. Inside pages show scenes of a joyous carnival held on July 26, the anniversary of the Cuban revolution.
After seeing the book, the parent of a Marjory Stoneman Douglas Elementary student promptly contacted officials at the West Miami-Dade school.
''The parent was offended with the book's content,'' district spokesman Joseph Garcia said Wednesday. ``We're following School Board procedure to have the book removed from library shelves.''
Now I’m quite sure that that the book is 100% propaganda and therefore worthless garbage but I’m not too fond of banning books. Book banning is what the Nazis did. It’s what the Bolsheviks did. It’s what castro does. A free society does not ban books. I understand the concern about children being exposed to propaganda but parents have to take responsibility for what their children read. They need to engage their children when they come to them with questions about the stuff they are reading. You can’t win a debate by silencing the opposition. That’s not a debate.
That said, I wonder how long that book would last on library shelves if instead of communist propaganda it featured cartoons of the prophet Mohamed.
More on this story here and here.
Update: (Val) Here's the contact page from Miami-Dade Public School's Library Media Services Web Portal. Perhaps a few questions as to how, exactly, any particular book is chosen for an Elementary School Library are in order? Do they have a standardized list? If so, who puts together that standardized list? The ALA, perchance?
Henry, while I do not favor banning books either, I do think the system has to be very careful to exactly what books children are exposed and at what age. Children are very impressionable and very vulnerable to propaganda.
I'm sure that's what the parents are objecting to. I would not want my child in elementary school to be purposely exposed to this kind of propaganda.
We can't be naive enough as to think that our kids aren't going to be exposed to propaganda. Unfortunately I've noticed a trend in our country where kids are being brought up by Nintendo and television and the schools rather than the parents.
I don't have kids but my 11-year old nephew knows what happens in Cuba because I tell him. I know what he's exposed to out there and so I explain to him what I believe and why I believe it. That's the way I learned.
I remember specifically when I was a child I built a model of a WWII Soviet Tank. When I showed it to my dad he wasn't happy. I said the the Soviets were our allies in WWII. And he gave me a lesson in what communism was and how communism is the reason he had to leave Cuba, etc. That lesson was one of the most important and formative ones of my life. No book in the library was going to convince me that my father was wrong.
Lastly, I'm sure there are tons of other books in the library that we don't want our kids to believe. I bet you the communist manifesto is available at every single one of those libraries. That document has probably resulted in more deaths than any other in the history of man. But we just need to teach our kids that.
I don't favor banning books. It never works. It puts us in bad company with other book banners since the days of Savanarola, through the Nazis and the Soviets, and of course present-day communist Cuba and North Korea. Banning a book is a sign of weakness, a declaration that one's beliefs cannot stand to be challenged. Ideas, even bad ones, should be freely exchanged. The Supreme Court, in First Amendment cases, often compares the exchange of ideas to the free market. The truth will be sifted out from the untrue and inaccurate. Even the Trading With the Enemy Act, which bans commercial exchanges between Cuba and the U.S., makes an exception for "information," a word that courts have interpreted as including art, books, etc. (Remember the Cernuda case in the 1990s? That's how he got his paintings back.) Yes, I too have a real concern about the curriculum of our public schools, especially when it is clear there are teachers (and textbooks) pushing a political agenda. No doubt I would find something objectionable if I paged through some of the textbooks used in high schools or colleges today. But I would rather talk to my child about what I find objectionable and offer an alternative view than ban the book entirely. That usually backfires.
Ive no problem keeping that book in the school library, as long as its in the FICTION section.
I do have a problem allowing a public school library - one affiliated with the ALA and their cadre of fidel castro cultists - bullshitting kids to belive everything is hunky dory in Cuba.
Does anyone know if UM or FIU is carrying out an oral history project? That's where people record their experiences on tape (or disk) and it's kept in a library for other people to access. Many of those who first came over in 1959 to 1961 are beginning to die. It would be a shame to lose their memories and experiences of what Cuba was like before Castro and what it became. There are newcomers arriving every day. They too have stories to tell. If there isn't an oral history project here, there should be.
I agree with Val, the books should be filed in the fiction section.
As I stated in the last sentence of my post, if they want the books to be kept, fine. But we need to make sure that those same kids have equal access to the other side of the story (the truth). That's all I ask.
Exactly, Robert.
Ideally it would be a reference book titled "Nos Vamos de Cuba" and it would explain why people still risk their lives to leave that place.
I wonder if these libraries still have Mein Kampf or mao's little red book as well.
Am I the only one that thinks that the present ALA leadership may have something to do with having these kinds of books in school libraries? Doesnt seem like a stretch to me.
Maybe a nation wide search of that title found in schools would be a good idea.
I understand the frustration you guys have over this but is Robert's solution really workable? Are we going to make every book that's available in the library into a debate. The book in question wasn't even a classroom book it was just on the shelf in the library. The mother that found that book should have checked it out, shown it to her child and then taken her to therealcuba.com and explained to her what propaganda is and how people are always going to be trying to sell him/her something whether it's a product or an idea and that you can't always believe what you read. And Val it wouldn't surprise me if they did have Mein Kampf but also Adam Smith's, the Wealth of Nations.
I did a little research and discovered the following -- The book "A Visit to Cuba" by Alta Schreier is published by Heinemann as part of a series of books about other countries. The series is written for children 4 to 7 years old. The publisher's stated objective -- "Studying families from different places helps us to learn and appreciate both the similarities and differences between ourselves and others. Also, through exposure to cultures that are unfamiliar to them, children can learn to be accepting of people, lifestyles and traditions that may be very different from their own." There is a film, "My Family From Cuba," also for use in class, by the same author. This is a link to a PDF with discussion points for teachers to use after the children have seen the film.
http://www.libraryvideo.com/guides/K9076.pdf
One discussion point stands out -- "Using a Venn diagram, ask students to compare and contrast Daniella's family and social life with their own."
I don't know what kind of fact-checking Heinemann uses for their children's books. I can tell you from personal experience that reputable publishers submit even fiction books through rigorous fact checking. While I don't condone banning books, I don't think that a book with inaccuracies deserves a place in any curriculum or school library. The fact that this book was written for such young children also concerns me.
Without reading the book I can't judge it's content but the teacher's guide for the video that was linked in the comment above steers way clear of politics and ideology. What I take away from it is the idea of extended family. Of course the book makes Cuban life look hunky dorey but, as some of you have already mentioned, a heavier treatment would be innappropriate at that age level.
Believe me I understand the concern, but we're the ones that have to teach our kids values not schools.
Are we going to evaluate all the books and videos in the series?
MY FAMILY FROM BRAZIL
MY FAMILY FROM BURKINA FASO
MY FAMILY FROM CHILE
MY FAMILY FROM CHINA
MY FAMILY FROM COSTA RICA
MY FAMILY FROM ENGLAND
MY FAMILY FROM FRANCE
MY FAMILY FROM GREENLAND
MY FAMILY FROM ICELAND
MY FAMILY FROM INDIA
MY FAMILY FROM ISRAEL
MY FAMILY FROM ITALY
MY FAMILY FROM JAPAN
MY FAMILY FROM JORDAN
MY FAMILY FROM LAPLAND
MY FAMILY FROM LOS ANGELES
MY FAMILY FROM NEW YORK CITY
MY FAMILY FROM SERBIA-MONTENEGRO
MY FAMILY FROM SOUTH AFRICA
MY FAMILY FROM SOUTH KOREA
MY FAMILY FROM VIETNAM
MY INUIT FAMILY FROM CANADA
MY XHOSA FAMILY FROM SOUTH AFRICA
"That said, I wonder how long that book would last on library shelves if instead of communist propaganda it featured cartoons of the prophet Mohamed."
Exactly. And if you make a move to try to ban this book, they you lose the right to make this argument.
I don't know what the content of this book may be, however it sounds like a book of half-truths at least, which is fair for 7 year olds. As long as the "good" truths aren't exagerated, I don't see how the book can really be very controversial. Taking conductor's argument, I doubt the book about Brazil shows the shantytowns and armed, drug dealing youths of the favelas.
Wait a minute, I've raised children and worked in a school library. If we were talking about a Public Library, that would be one thing but a school environment is completely different. Books for schools are carefully chosen for content and age compatability. The parents are well within their rights to keep this book off the shelves, and just the opposite would be true in a Public Library.
Henry,
The whole point is that the Cuba book is most likely all fallacy. You cant possibly stay away from ideology or politics when referring to Cuba's children. they are indoctrinated at their schools. they are forced to do labor in the fields. their schools "files" are nothing more and nothing less than a way for their government to maintain control of their families and ensure compliance, however reluctant, with the official ideology.
The point is, DOES THAT BOOK SHOW ALL OF THAT? Does it depict how Cuba's children get by on rations while tourists consume lavish meals? Does it show how Cuban children are taught to hate the US in their classrooms?
Because if it does not, then it is nothing more and nothing less than propaganda in our elementary school libraries.
Like I said, I have no problem with the book being in the library, but certianly not in the reference section where these kids reading it might take it as reality. And I agree that parents SHOULD take it upon themselves to monitor what their children are reading. It's exactly what theyre doing now and complaining about.
Val -- The irony is that the publisher Heinemann recommends that the book (in fact the entire series) be placed either in general circulation or the reference section. The reference section to me means the place where I can find raw and verified facts, i.e., the population of Miami is x, Miami-Dade County has y square miles. It is not the place where I expect to find comments on those facts. So while I stand by my earlier comments against banning books, I do question whether this particular book (and maybe the whole series) is appropriate for an elementary school library. It is a matter of context. And I return to my previous point, if the book has inaccuracies, then why is it in a school library, which has a very special role? I think the argument for removing the book has to be framed in very narrow terms or it will be attacked as an attempt to quash free speech.
I am very familiar with that particular school, someone close to me is directly involved in this (I don't want to name him/her) and they were telling me over the weekend that there is more behind this story. The father at the center of the case is not an honorable man, to say the least, who has an agenda that goes beyond the book. The ruling on whether the book will be banned will be on April 17, and I was led to believe that, as it stands now, it will not be banned.
Does the date April 17, 1961 sound familiar to anyone?