LLANO COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD MEETING

OCTOBER 25, 2024

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              MR. WEI: Something that I have learned from volunteering at schools and being around my younger relatives: [pause] Kids always know more than you think.

Whether you like it or not, kids are introduced to the ideas of sex, drugs, and profanity to some extent by their classmates in school. Books, specifically banned books, touch on these extremely real topics, which is exactly why some people want to ban them. They want to maintain their innocence for as long as possible. It is not innocence they maintain however...it is ignorance. 

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At some point, they will face some adversity in their adolescent years.

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Books can help to be a safe space for children to explore their feelings through difficult situations and to understand what they go through [sic]. These books are not obscene or dangerous, they are reality.

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My cousin, Alexandra, had gotten addicted to crystal meth at an early age. Two years later, she saw the exact same thing happen to her little brother. After reading “Crank” by Ellen Hopkins, she has said:

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“‘Crank' saved my life, opened my eyes to the world I was exposing myself to and rapidly getting drowned in.”

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That very same night, she and her brother quit the drugs [sniffling].

Banned books build a culture that tolerates discussion of these sensitive topics. 

They can also help to facilitate a conversation between you and your child as well. 

However, this starts with building a good relationship first.

We can’t just say: “You can tell me anything”

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It’s all about vulnerability. You have to also be willing to let them know when you face some adversity. We are all not perfect, so why do we try to portray this? 

In this sense, we should strive to be more like a “friend” to their children. 

The last thing we want as a parent is for us to see our child looking down in anguish and when we ask them, “Are you okay?”...then they respond with a masked and meeked “Yes” 

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