To think that the Lowry Academy should not be removing books from pupils

[HoppityBun]

I’ve seen no comments on here on the Lowry Academy action to remove some book and reorganise others. It’s been reported as a book ban, which seems inaccurate. Nevertheless it seems that some censorship is going under the radar. There’s some suggestion that even books like 1984 are being removed.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gv7y9jvydo

Trust me, the librarians are talking about it! We are in fear for our jobs and can see many of the same factors in play as the BBC documentary about the US censorship: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002kkmj

The fact of the matter is there is no statutory support or guidance for school libraries even though librarians have been campaigning for exactly this reason. Without set guidelines every school will take their own approach and MAT’s will always take the cheapest on top of that. In this case it has cost this poor librarian her livelihood, she won’t be hired as a school librarian again now with safeguarding issues being involved.

My understanding that they were organising books by new age categories. Is that not right?

@CurlewKateThey were acting on complaints or perceived complaints and used AI to flag books, completely circumnavigating their librarian who did have age appropriate restrictions in place.

Instead of supporting their library and their students freedom to read they used a flawed tool and doubled down on removing books. They haven’t released the prompts but AI and SLT flagged books for race and sexual content despite some of them being GCSE set texts.

The librarian was also flagged to safeguarding despite many of the books being there before her.

Both of the banned books mentioned in the article aren't age appropriate though. 1984 & twilight (i've read both) contain sexual content

My daughter studied 1984 for A level, so I presume it's thought suitable for 6th form. I think it's ok to ban it for under 16s. The problem isn't so much the school banning books but using AI to do it.

Banning 1984 is so ironic! Of course it is suitable for under-16s. I read it when I was 12 or 13.

The problem isn't so much the school banning books? Banning books is always a problem.

Twilight contains sexual content? It’s basically abstinence propaganda!

Yes.

In fact the 50 shades books were written as twilight fanfic with sex. (As far as I remember)

What age, though? At 16 you can legally have sex and, with guardian / parental consent, you can marry and you can join the army. There’s also a strong push that 16 year olds should get the vote.

I was really shocked by this news story when I first saw it, and was glad to see the BBC following it up. There’s more information and a list of the ‘banned books’ in this article (link from the BBC article). One of the books on the list was Michelle Obama’s autobiography, which was removed due to ‘racism and political themes’ 🙄 I haven’t read it myself, but I would guess she writes about racism she experienced, and the impact of her husband’s political career?

Index on Censorship article

@honeyrosesandwich 1984 is often a set text for GCSEs, so the removal from a school library is rather hypocritical. Is there much sexual content in Twilight? I read it years ago, and I recall there’s a plot point about Bella not sleeping with Edward until they are married in the later books.

I'm not surprised that librarians are up in arms about it. All power to their elbows.

Heh, yes.

Perhaps next they could burn Fahrenheit 451.

I read 1984 when I was about 14. I'd say it would be suitable for most secondary school children with a bit of maturity (and are the immature children really likely to be perusing the school library?)
And the Twilight books are teen fiction I think?
Just bonkers. Scary, too- a few years ago I'd have thought this couldn't happen in the UK, only in Alabama.

Out of interest, which country are you from that still allows marriage for 16yo’s?

Make it make sense. 1984 is on the curriculum! It is taught to year 8 and 9 students.

Sorry! I forgot it had changed

Eh? What are you going on about? I did 1984 for O'level.

Same

Yes, because original Twilight didn’t contain sex. Slow clap. FFS at least read the books you’re claiming you know. BREAKING DAWN is the one in the series that alludes to sex. Allusions are not explicit descriptions.

There is no sexual content in Twilight. They have sex after marriage only, and even then there is no description of it, it is just alluded to. Twilight is objectionable for other reasons, yes, but is probably appropriate for 13/14 years upwards.

The legal age for marriage, even without parental consent, is 16 in Scotland.

It's also legal to marry at 16 in much of Canada and in some US states.