School Libraries should be bastions of intellectual freedom. Tragically, the School Library has always been a battleground in the struggles between those that would protect our rights and freedoms and those that would impose their beliefs on others.
This has become all too evident in the U.S. in recent years, and sadly we in Canada are not immune. Provincial Ministries of Education, School Boards, and individual schools and school libraries have been sucked into the current climate of extreme political polarization. Attacks on the freedom to read are on the rise, and include recent decisions made by the government of Alberta. The following are quotes from the response of Canadian School Libraries:
“Individual parents have the right to decide on their child’s reading, but they do not have the right to impose it on everyone.
The selection and availability of school library and learning resource materials should be made by trained professionals, not politicians and bureaucrats.
Not every book in a school library is meant for every student. Schools need to have a wide range of age and developmentally appropriate resources that cover the needs of the student population.
School library collections, with a richness and diversity that allows students to see themselves and experience lives other than their own, are developed within the lens of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the rights and freedoms it affords to all Canadians, including children.”
Find out more about Canadian School Libraries
Lord Tweedsmuir Secondary School Library 