Books Banned in Canada (a partial list)

September 12, 2011

Recently I posted a story about a girl who started a secret library of banned books. The location of her library was a locker at her school.  The article talks about a list of banned books that the girl found and she turned it into her own personal reading list.

That got me thinking about banned books. I did a Google search for “list of banned books”. The search returned over 25 Million results. I found Canada’s Freedom to Read site, which led to the “Challenged books and magazines list” that is released by the Canadian Library Association.

They don’t use the word “banned”, but that’s essentially what they mean. The association maintains a list of books that are prohibited by organizations and community groups. Any organization, group or institution can come up with a list of books they prohibit their members from reading. Whether or not the ban is actually upheld is a different issue entirely.

Because of the number of requests that come forward to ban reading materials, the  produces Canadian Library Association a list of books that are challenged in any given year, if for no other reason than to raise awareness about censorship.

For example, in 2010 in Canada, 74 titles were “officially challenged” by different organizations including:

  • Bateman, Colin. Murphy’s Law.
  • Canfield, Jack, et al. Chicken Soup for the Unsinkable Soul.
  • Lucas, George, Hisao Tamaki and David Land. Star Wars: A New Hope
  • Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter (7 books in series).
  • Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

This is only a sampling of the 74 titles that were officially challenged in 2010.

The site also points out that “Censorship studies usually show that most library challenges go unreported and undocumented.”

It’s hard to say what books have been banned (either officially or unofficially and quietly) by school boards across the country.

But for those of you with that same rebellious reading streak that I have, here’s a little gem I think you’ll like: The University of Pennsylvania maintains a list of banned books that are freely available online. 

Happy reading.

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Update – January 2018 – This blog has had over 1.8 million views thanks to readers like you. If you enjoyed this post, please “like” it or share it on social media. Thanks!

Sarah Elaine Eaton is a faculty member in the Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Canada.

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Posted by Sarah Elaine Eaton, Ph.D.

Girl uses school locker to start clandestine library of banned books

September 10, 2011

This young girl is my hero. Care 2 Make a Difference recently published an article about a school girl who is running an informal library out of her school locker. The “library” of 62 books, all of which are banned by her Catholic school. The books she lends out to her classmates are titles such as The Catcher in the Rye, Canterbury Tales, Paradise Lost and Animal Farm.

I was personally aghast at the list. I’ve read all those books. In fact, I had to read them either in high school or in university. In Halifax, Nova Scotia, the city where I grew up, the Catholic and public schools were integrated. So even though I went to St. Patrick’s High School and Saint Mary’s University, they were both considered public universities, though there was still the odd nun or Jesuit teaching here and there.

Now, apparently, things have changed and these titles are now banned in some school districts. So one student, who goes by the avatar name of Rekochan, brought a copy of the Catcher in the Rye to school, just to see what would happen. She got in a bit of trouble for it and that stirred some interest. A classmate asked to borrow the book, so she lent it to him. She started bringing more and more books to school and lending them out.

The result is that you have school kids who are suddenly motivated to read things like The Canterbury Tales. I mean, seriously? I’d hazard a guess and say that anyone who’s even attempted to read Chaucer’s classic work will agree that it’s not exactly light reading. Even if the English is modernized, it’s not an easy read. And these kids are hungry to read it.

I say, “Yahoo!” Let’s start a reading revolution! To the school boards and religious fundamentalists who want books banned because they contradict the Bible, I say, “Go ahead and ban them!” Today’s kids are smart — smarter than we give them credit for, in many cases. Yet, they’re just as rebellious as we were… Oh, and that sense of “entitlement” that Gen Y’ers and Millennials have that drives their parents crazy? Yes, that sense of entitlement is driving them to say, “You think you can tell me what to read? To heck with you! I’ll read what I darn well please!”

And they quietly sneak away to read a forbidden copy of Paradise Lost on their iPad as they snuggle under the covers.

Could it be that reading will be this generation’s revolution?

God, I hope so.

Related post: Books Banned in Canada (a partial list)

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Update – January 2018 – This blog has had over 1.8 million views thanks to readers like you. If you enjoyed this post, please “like” it or share it on social media. Thanks!

Sarah Elaine Eaton is a faculty member in the Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Canada.

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Posted by Sarah Elaine Eaton, Ph.D.

Business as a creative force that can make the world better

September 9, 2011

The other day I was having a conversation with a colleague about how universities have made drastic changes in how their operational and leadership models in recent years. The change is especially apparent in the Humanities, where scholars are deeply, viscerally offended by the idea of the numbers of “bums in seats” as being an indicator of a faculty’s success.

My friend remarked, “It’s totally a business model!”

I cringed, as I often do, when I hear remarks like that. I’ve worked in post-secondary institutions, with non-profit organizations, with small businesses and entrepreneurs and yes, even with corporations.

I replied, “That’s not a business model. It’s the worst aberration of business. It’s a business model in its most hideous and grotesquely mutated form.”

Don’t get me wrong. There is no doubt in my mind that some businesses exploit their workers, their customers and anyone else they can. There are some businesses who mistreat and abuse their employees. There are some businesses who misreport their numbers and mismanage their money. There’s no denying that.

But not all businesses are that way. In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins looks at the qualities that differentiate good businesses from truly great ones. He describes the characteristics of both and then goes on to give examples from industry. It’s a book that many business people know well. While he talks about profit as being one key indicator of success in business, it is not the only key factor. In fact, as the author points out, companies that are driven purely by profit often never make the leap from good to great.

Collins wrote a subsequent work that is less well known, though equally brilliant. Good to Great in the Social Sectors looks at what makes an organization — any organization — great. He shows what he means by focussing on schools, non-profits and other social sector organizations, demonstrating how we can define success in ways that have nothing to do with generating profit. In fact, he says that business can learn a lot from non-profit organizations.

Business isn’t always the great evil that those who work in education and non-profit think it is. The problem is that they see the worst mutations of business practices being employed as leadership models. When that is the case, how could they think anything else?

David Cooperrider, known to many as the “father” of Appreciative Inquiry wrote an article worth reading. “Business as an Agent of World Benefit: Awe is What Moves Us Forward” (It’s available as a free download. It’s 7 pages and it is worth reading.) In it he talks about trends in the business world relating to ethical business, green business and corporate social responsibility, ultimately arguing that business has the potential to unleash wildly creative, progressive, helpful and powerfully transformative change in the world.

I sometimes challenge my academic colleagues to talk to their spouses and friends who work in corporations about concepts like corporate social responsibility, ethics, green business practices and how their corporations are finding ways to give back to the community. It’s surprising how many people in the corporate world volunteer for community events and are committed to practices such as recycling, pursuing innovation and being creative in their work.

Educational administrations seem to be adopting the worst aberrations of business management models, becoming more self-absorbed, more self-serving and less caring, while business itself is evolving past those models and becoming more responsible, more ethical and pursuing excellence and creativity more diligently than some educational institutions.

Ironic, no?

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Update – January 2018 – This blog has had over 1.8 million views thanks to readers like you. If you enjoyed this post, please “like” it or share it on social media. Thanks!

Sarah Elaine Eaton is a faculty member in the Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Canada.

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Posted by Sarah Elaine Eaton, Ph.D.

Teachers’ competition for Social Media use in Formal Language Learning Contexts

September 7, 2011

How cool is this? Teachers’ competition for Social Media use in Formal Language Learning Contexts is a competition that aims to find the best practices of using social media for language learning in formal learning contexts (e.g. schools and universities.) The aim of this competition is to “identify and award language teaching initiatives with social networking technologies that take place in classroom settings in Europe.”

Stage one of the competition: The Top 10 entries have been selected for their best practices. Check them out.

Stage two of the competition: By mid-november the top practice (subject to a second round of selection among the ten best) will be announced.

I can’t wait to see who the final winners are!

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Update – January 2018 – This blog has had over 1.8 million views thanks to readers like you. If you enjoyed this post, please “like” it or share it on social media. Thanks!

Sarah Elaine Eaton is a faculty member in the Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Canada.

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Imagine: A reality TV show for literacy?

September 5, 2011

I don’t watch a lot of TV. Or at least, I didn’t a few years ago. My other half, however, is a television disciple. I have two degrees in literature and I liken his knowledge of television and movies to my knowledge of literature. He knows just about every major television show and movie ever produced, when it was produced, who directed it, who the actors are, and what other shows the actors have appeared in. He also picks up on cameo appearances of the director or the writer. He instantly understands intertextual references between shows (except that he calls them “Easter eggs”) and can point out in a second when a show makes reference to a show or movie before it. He’s really brilliant at this stuff.

I, being a somewhat stereotypical academic I suppose, tend not to watch much TV. But because it’s important to my other half, we sit down and watch TV. He works hard to find shows I like. We have found common ground in some competitive reality TV shows. Top Chef Canada was one of our recent favorites.

Competitors who excel in their field are gathered and given challenges. They compete against the clock and against one another in order to prove their skills. They are judged by experts in the field. Their work is critiqued, praised, applauded and trashed — all in the matter of a few minutes. Every week, a chef is sent home. No competitor escapes criticism and no one is ever perfect. Even the last chef standing has experienced harsh criticism from the judges and has been trashed by their fellow competitors. Despite it all, they continue to focus on producing their best work, every single time.

Imagine if there was a reality TV show for literacy programs. An episode might go something like this:

“Competitors: Your challenge this week is to develop a 3-hour workshop to teach adults how to write a resume. You will have 12 adults in your class, with reading levels between IALSS levels 2 and 3. Your budget is $50. You have 1 hour to prepare your workshop. The winner will receive a $5000 prize to make their workshop a reality. Your time starts… now!”

There would be no whining about a lack of funding. There would be no grumbling about being overworked. There would be no complaining about there not being enough time. There would be energy, hard work, inspiration, creativity, a deep sense of purpose and a heightened awareness of urgency to produce something amazing with severe financial and time restraints.

Imagine if we worked as if we were on a TV reality show… pushing ourselves to produce consistently outstanding results under ridiculously difficult circumstances, working through the fatigue, ignoring the trash talking by others and the lack of resources, time and budget.

There’s never enough time, never enough money and never enough resources. That is, after all, our reality, isn’t it? Passion, creativity and purpose drive what we do. It’s when we expect reality to be something other than what it really is that we lose our sense of urgency and purpose, let frustration take over… and emotionally, mentally or literally, we get voted out.

Accepting the limitations of any given situation can either mean giving in or using those same limitations as a challenge to fuel your own inner drive.

Achieve the impossible because of the circumstances, not despite them.

Be the star of your own reality show.

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Update – January 2018 – This blog has had over 1.8 million views thanks to readers like you. If you enjoyed this post, please “like” it or share it on social media. Thanks!

Sarah Elaine Eaton is a faculty member in the Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Canada.

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