Education should lead to open mind
by Chris Taylor, editor-in-chief

    The majority rules. That should be a phrase that everyone is familiar with. It is also a common misconception that our government works that way.

    In a true democracy, the majority would make the rules, but we live in more of a democratic republic. We try to be fair to everyone.
Check the Constitution; you won’t find the word democracy anywhere in it.

    These misconceptions bug me when something controversial comes up for a vote. The Mansfield Independent School District recently came under fire because of the book Of Mice And Men.

    A high school girl decided that the book was too offensive, took it home and showed it to her parents. The parents then went to their pastor, who, in turn, went to the school board in an effort to have the novel removed from the curriculum.

    The whole book-banning circus was never necessary, however, because the teacher had already agreed to let the girl read another book.

    Of course, the angry book-banning group that showed up at the school board meeting saw themselves as the majority in attendance and thought they should have gotten their way.

    The school board did the right thing and didn’t let the group dictate the rules for everyone else. Many (those who supported the ban) in attendance were furious that the system didn’t work.

    Well, the good news is that it did work. It just didn’t work the way that group wanted it to. This group doesn’t understand what it’s like to be the minority. If they were the minority, then they would want everything to be fair.

    And what ever happened to school being a place to learn new things? Can anyone so easily offended survive in today’s society?

    This girl has made a conscious decision to completely close herself off from new experiences. A long time ago, schools used to make students read many things that might not be politically correct or that might even be offensive to some.

    Now we have let politics enter the school system, and we don’t even attempt to make our future generations think for themselves.

    Maybe if the girl had given the book a chance and read it, she could say it was awful and back up her complaints.