‘A Separate Peace’ removed from 10th grade English class

Update: “Life of Pi,” which has been challenged in classrooms before, has been added to the sophomores curriculum in replacement of “A Separate Peace.”

“A Separate Peace” was removed from the 10th grade curriculum for unclear reasons on Monday, Feb. 5.

The banning of an intellectually challenging and thought provoking book is wrong in it that it blocks a student’s understanding of the world.

The book was removed halfway through the curriculum after students had already completed numerous daily grade activities and quizzes over the chapters to test their understanding of the book. It was this level of understanding that caused the novel to be shut down.

For over four years, sophomores have read, “A Separate Peace” in their Pre-AP classes. From the beginning of this semester students have said the book seemed to have gay undertones. There was not a day in classes that the idea that the main character, “Gene,” had a romantic interest in the other male character, “Finny,” did not come up.

In 2018, after so many moves have already been made in favor of gay rights, not just in America but all the across the world, to ban a novel that isn’t even confirmed to be about a gay male is wrong in a educational sense.

Students come to school to have their ideas and beliefs challenged. They are thrown into an environment with other students with beliefs different from them. If a student has never been or is strongly against a relationship, like the one presented in the book, to remove it from their education is putting a void in their understanding of the world.

Students who have a strong disagreement about this kind of relationship won’t have a chance to expand their mindsets. The point of school is to question the world and learn to think for yourself. This could be a student’s only chance to be exposed to something like this before they are thrown into the real world.

At this age students are still being molded into the people they will become, which includes their morals and beliefs. Schools should not teach that censorship is right. It violates their rights, and it will teach them that if something allows you to think for yourself than it should be stopped. Censorship of books only stops the flow of new and challenging ideas through a school.

Let’s not ban a book from everyone just because some students still feel the need to be sheltered. If it is such a problem then students should have to bring home a permission slip and have it signed saying it’s OK for them to participate in the reading of the book. If not, then they can have an alternate assignment. Not everyone still wants to be in middle school.

The book has never been an issue in the past and still should not be an issue. Just because it makes someone a bit uncomfortable that they have to think does not mean it should be shut down and removed half way through the curriculum.

Censorship of books is censorship of thinking for yourself.