Free speech is one of the key conditions we were granted when we created this country. Free speech and freedom of religion are two of the greatest freedoms we have. However, now you only find these freedoms only if you share the same ideologies as the majority. Teenagers are becoming more involved with state, national and world politics and political issues. A growing number of teens are learning that it’s ok to think their own thoughts and not to believe what is told to them solely on the basis that someone told them. I would say that it’s unfair to limit the voice of America’s youth. School newspapers and research papers are two specific places where free speech is scrutinized for the high school student. But what’s also worse, is that not only is the student’s free speech revoked in high schools, but the teacher’s as well.
This past week in Indianapolis, Indiana, a teacher was fired for trying to use The Freedom Writers Diary in the classroom. (The Freedom Writers were a group of students who were at-risk students that the system gave up on and deemed “unteachable.” But a teacher named Erin Gruwell came in and showed them comparisons between Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl and Zlata’s Diary: A Child’s Life in Sarajevo and their own troubled lives in Long Beach, California. It touched a nerve, and thus began the love of writing. She got them writing about their lives and the adversity they deal with, including gangs, violence, welfare, drugs and alcohol, broken families. All 150 of those students not only graduated high school but went on to college.) However, the school board didn’t like the fact that they used some crude language and talked about drugs and violence, so they denied her request. The teacher sent out permission forms to all of the parents of these students, and 149 of the 150 sent the form back with permission to use The Freedom Writers Diary as part of the required reading in the classroom. The students were into it; everyone was excited to read it. Kids were learning, and they were happy. That is, until the school board decided that it wasn’t appropriate and fired their teacher for insubordination.
A few years ago, another Indiana teacher was fired for saying, “I honk for peace,” as a response to an elementary student’s question of whether she would ever join in at a peace march. She took her case to the federal court, saying that her freedom of speech rights had been violated. They simply told her that as a school teacher, she had no rights.
How can we effectively teach our students, some of whom are only a few years away from being adults themselves, that you have the right to express your ideas? Evidently that’s not true. Is this just another case of false advertising? I never remember seeing in the history books under the Bill of Rights an asterisk explaining that these freedoms no longer apply if you are under 18 or are a teacher. If we have to explicitly state that coffee is hot on the side of a coffee cup, then maybe we should have a warning on our teaching licenses:
Beware your nationally-given right to free speech which your forefathers fought for is immediately revoked upon receipt of this teaching license issued from the State of _____. P.S., your students are not allowed to think anything other than our state-mandated thoughts which we specifically hand out at predetermined intervals. Thank you for complying. Your job is appreciated. Please enjoy this meager monetary gift that will never get much larger than your first year’s pay for all the hard work you do and added BS you have to put up with that was conveniently left out of your contract. Oh, and by the way, you have five (5) years to get your masters degree, which is also solely on your own bill. Good luck with paying for that, since you still have no idea how you’re going to pay for your bachelors degree.
What are we really teaching our students? We make them read about Martin Luther King, Jr. and President Kennedy and President Lincoln and our Founding Fathers and others who stood their ground on key issues. But we’re contradicting ourselves when we show them great role models and then telling them, “You can’t write about teen sex and teen pregnancy in the school paper. That’s reserved for the school play review and sports write-ups.” What is journalism really about anyway? This world never got anywhere by playing it safe. Why aren’t our high school students reading The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, or On the Road by Jack Kerouac, or The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, or Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger? Those are books that have helped shape our literary history. Our high schools are very much lacking when it comes to preparing our teens for life after high school and preparing them to be mature adults. We can teach facts, but we can’t teach them to think. We give them art and music and drama, but no place to express themselves. There should be guidance but not limits. We can’t teach our students to express themselves when our teachers cannot. Oh, we could be so much more.
