From the Bottom of the Sea
In April 2014 I was presented the McCormick Foundation’s Illinois Principal of the Year award. I received the Illinois Principal of the Year Award as a result of my efforts concerning our school’s newspaper and journalism program.
When I first became principal a couple of years earlier, I inherited a school newspaper that had been heavily monitored and censored by the previous sitting principal. As an individual and as an educational leader I have always been a strong proponent of freedom of the press and have fought censorship in many forms.
When I began leading as principal, our journalism program was suffering low morale as a result of the suppression. One of my first acts as principal was to discontinue any forms of censorship or suppression of student expression. In addition, our own school was thrust into the spotlight when the school district tried to ban a graphic novel from all schools across the district. This specific graphic novel was a required reading for our Advanced Placement program and was also a book we maintained copies of in our school library. Our students had been checking out the novel on a regular basis without incident. As a result of the attempted banning, all copies of the graphic novel were moved to the library where they could not be removed (public policy forbade removal of books from libraries).
As principal, it was a pleasure observing our journalism program flourish over the years after lifting all censorship of the school newspaper. After lifting the previous administration’s practices, our program thrived without any issues or any need to enact monitoring.
Chris
Referenced links and documents:
Are You Experienced? by Jimi Hendrix
Censorship Makes the School Look Bad: Why Courts and Educators Must Embrace the “Passionate Conversation”, 65 WASH. U. J. L. & Poly 091. 2021
Element Earth by Chris Dignam
The Silencing of Student Voices: Censoring Artistic Expression. Freedom Forum Institute. 2016
Why Teachers Must Defend The First Amendment? James Moore. Journal of Culture and Values in Education, 1(2), 23-41. 2018
