The Issues of Youth Censorship
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[Music]
[Applause]
when i was in grade six one of our final
assignments in english class was to
create a ted talk
we were to choose a topic that was
important to us and share it with the
rest of our class
i had recently made the switch to
veganism and thought this was the
perfect opportunity to educate my
classmates on something that i was
passionate about
from the start i was asked to keep it
mild and not too graphic which i agreed
to
we were about a week away from
presentation day when my mom got an
email from the teacher
saying that i was no longer allowed to
present my talk in front of my
classmates
and my only other option was to do it in
front of the teachers
my teacher said i spoke to your mom
about the fact that the grade six class
may not be quite the right audience for
the mature substance that you have
shared
i’m sorry what i’m fairly sure that at
age
10 we’re aware that meat comes from
animals i’m also pretty sure
that 10 year olds know that in order to
eat the animal
you have to kill it first it wasn’t like
i was explaining in detail
how the animal was killed all i was
sharing was how killing an animal is
never humane
no matter how you do it
the definition of censorship is the
suppression or prohibition of any parts
of books films news etc that are
considered obscene
politically unacceptable or a threat to
security
there are many different kinds of
censorship and not all of them are bad
censoring mature content from
five-year-olds to keep them young and
safe
can have its benefits but sharing
one-sided
biased opinions not allowing other
voices that contradict that biased
opinion
or shutting out the voices of people who
are trying to share an important topic
or a different view
is a real problem i’m not the only kid
who’s been censored for wanting to share
views facts ideas or beliefs so many
kids around the world have been censored
maybe for different reasons but the
cause is usually the same
parental censorship can stem from
concerned parents who don’t want their
kids to grow up with views that are
different from their own
or parents might simply feel unsure
about how to approach a sensitive topic
so they don’t approach it at all this is
usually an attempt to keep the child
pure or in the line of a certain belief
but can often result in unresolved
questions from the child’s youth
or no knowledge about the world that
they will grow up in
censorship in schools usually comes in
the form of removal or manipulation of a
topic or facts
or when a sensitive topic is brought
forward educators feel the need to
censor it
kind of like what happened to me
an article on school censorship says
that the censorship we see in schools
usually comes from a desire to ensure
that our children grow up making the
choices and following the beliefs that
we desire for them
by removing any other options but by
doing this
we’re not allowing the child to grow
explore and create their own ideas on
the world that they will inherit
if our children continue making the
choices and following the same beliefs
that we desire
for them nothing’s ever going to change
but what if instead of censoring an
important topic we encourage a
discussion about it
if i was allowed to present my talk it
could have opened the doors
to a mature conversation it could have
been very educational and enlightening
but instead my classmates were left
wondering why i wasn’t allowed to talk
about something that i was passionate
about
i can’t help but wonder what would have
happened if i was allowed to speak my
mind
i was sensitive for wanting to share
information at about veganism at school
by the teachers
this is a pretty small form of
censorship and in all honesty
it really isn’t that bad but the
question is
where does it stop how far are we
willing to go to keep a voice silent so
that we don’t have to feel uncomfortable
or challenged
are we really better better off just
sticking our heads in the sand and
ignore
and pretending that other views don’t ex
don’t exist
i want everyone to ask yourselves how
far are you willing to go
so where does it stop why are we afraid
to ask questions
why are we so afraid to discuss things
that are controversial
if we can’t learn how to be okay with
other people having different opinions
we could be heading towards a world
where we’re afraid to speak our minds
we need to learn how to be uncomfortable
we need to learn how to listen to other
people’s opinions
even if they may contradict our current
ones we’re all afraid of what we don’t
know and that’s okay
it’s just human nature but it’s not okay
to silence and censor for the sake of
your
own comfort so parents
be open with your kids if they want to
learn about something let them learn
about it
and support them it’s okay to be
uncomfortable with the topic but it is
not okay to tell them
that they that they can’t learn talk or
or talk about
things that they are passionate
questioning or just curious about
let them change the world let them
discover themselves
let them learn and the same goes to the
educators out there as well
teachers should be helping their
students get their voices out and learn
about what they want
not shutting them down let’s learn how
to have difficult conversations
i truly believe that when we allow and
encourage other voices to speak up
and when we learn how to question our
own beliefs the world will be a better
[Applause]
place