Warbler said:

TheBoost said:

But in all honesty, is it better to get a classroom of teenagers to confront these issues in a book that is 'censored,' or to deny them the work totally?

what is better is to protest the schools that would deny the students the original work or would teach an altered version and try to get their heads out of the sand(and for teachers to refuse to cooperate with such schools), instead of caving to their demands.

The demands are from people, usually parents, usually middle-class, usually white. (I'd be interested in any black leaders who want to censor to the language in "Huck Finn"). Schools don't make demands. Schools follow policy.

Principals and teachers are civil servants, not policy makers. Something like "Huck Finn" being on a banned book list is usually up to the elected school board. I think it would be very sad for a teacher to lose their job because they think "Huck Finn" is without worth without the N-word.

I'd love to see a School Board nominee run on the platform "I'll put more racial slurs into your child's education!"

If you want to eliminate banned book lists, get in line. While you're trying to change the fundamentally irrational, reactionairy, and painfully conservative underpinings of American public education, generations of students will be denied a chance to be taught "Huck Finn."