The IU School of Education is hosting a Door Walk Celebration tour of student-decorated doors in honor of the American Library Association's Annual Banned Book Week. The event will begin at noon on Thursday, Sept. 22 in the School of Education Atrium.
Participants were asked to interpret the American Library Assocation’s theme for Banned Books Week 2022: “Books Unite Us! Censorship Divides Us!” Banned Book Week is important to recognize even though it’s a complicated and contentious issue, said Christina Jones, head of the Education Library.
Related: [The Monroe County Public Library to recognize Banned Books Week beginning Sept. 18]
According to an American Library Association poll , 71% of voters oppose the removal of “banned” books from public libraries, including bipartisan majorities. Seventy-four percent of public school parents express confidence in school librarians’ discernment regarding book content, and many contentious books have majority support for their accessibility on an age-appropriate basis.
Banning books is against intellectual freedom, Jones said. When children see themselves in books, she said, they have a sense of belonging to a wider community and are more empathetic.
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The event is the conclusion of a two-part Career Connections Workshop Series aiming to celebrate reading freedom and allow education students the opportunity to improve their visual literacy skills. The first portion, where students learned how to create engaging visual displays and registered to use those skills decorating doors, was held Sept. 15.
Jones said the event is useful for future teachers because it both allows them to learn about the issue of banned books and gives them instruction on how to provide information through visual elements. Teachers are often called upon to make visual displays in their classrooms but aren’t always given training on how to do so, Jones said. This event brings these two education issues together.
