- Position1 of 3›
- No, schools should not be able to ban books
- Argument‹4 of 4
Books can be our best teachers
There is an abundance of information we can learn from reading.
The argument
The case against allowing schools to ban books rests on what books do that other teaching materials cannot. Books have the ability to give an abundance of information to readers, and the argument is that the gain is not only in quantity: a sustained piece of writing can hold a subject long enough to develop it, which is what turns information into understanding and increases intelligence rather than merely adding facts. The distinctive claim concerns history. Literature is able to teach history in context, placing events inside the lives of the people who lived through them rather than presenting them as a sequence of dates and outcomes. Through characters, readers can gain something close to first-person experience of a period, learning not only what happened but what it was like to have it happen. Proponents stress that this holds even when the book is fiction, because what the reader acquires is the texture of a situation, and a novel constructed around a historical setting conveys that texture whether or not its particular characters existed. It is an alternative way to learn about history, from a direct perspective rather than a summarising one. The same mechanism produces the second benefit, which proponents treat as the more important of the two. Books can teach readers empathy. By reading about characters' experiences, and by occupying the point of view of someone whose circumstances differ from their own, children gain a better understanding of emotions: first recognising what a character feels, then feeling compassion, then sympathy, and finally empathy, which is the capacity to enter another person's position rather than merely regard it. If books are capable of teaching in these ways, the argument concludes, then removing one from a school removes a teacher rather than a diversion, and a school that bans books is narrowing the range of experience its pupils are able to reach.
Premises
Counter-arguments
Children can learn through other mediums besides literature. Teachers, family, and the news all are capable of teaching the same information books can. Literature is not necessary for teaching, therefore should not be considered a teacher.
Rejecting the premises
[Rejecting P4] Literature is not the only thing that offers these benefits.