The kids are all right, even when you mention hurricans, Halloween or glaucoma
The kids are all right, even when you mention hurricanes, Halloween or glaucoma
I was happy to see some wonderfully stupid news out of New York City this week. NYC schools want to ban 50 words from statewide tests. The list of words is awesome. They're not actually words but categories of words, so the list really entails thousands of words.
For example, one of the words is "cancer." They don't want some helpless 6th-grader to be traumatized by the word "cancer" in the middle of a statewide standardized test. He might experience hypochondriacal panic, commence violently wheezing and die of asphyxiation, thus distracting him from completing the test. The actual entry for the word "cancer" on the list is "Cancer (and other diseases)". So I guess "glaucoma" is out, too.
Here's just a few words that would not be allowed on a New York City test, that are either on the list or implied by it: abuse, alcohol, hurricanes, homelessness, Halloween, dinosaurs, birthdays, politics, gambling, religion, pepperoni, unemployment, nuclear weapons, slavery, Christmas, war, other violence, witches.
It turns out Jehovah's Witnesses don't celebrate birthdays, so you can't reference birthdays. "Pepperoni" gives unfair advantage to Italians. Halloween is a pagan holiday, therefore offensive to some people.
Dinosaurs offend people who don't believe in them. Isn't that amazing? I've never thought unicorns and chimeras existed, but I've never been offended by their mention. How can anyone live, constantly being offended by things they don't believe exist?
In my day, when dinosaurs still walked the earth, nobody cared what offended me. In second grade just the sight of my teacher, Mrs. McGillicutty, was enough to offend and dismay me, and I made it a point to let her know it every school day, yet not once was the offending woman escorted from my presence.
They didn't care about my emotional needs. They started teaching us history in third grade, and right from the start, rather than avoid the frightening and disturbing subject of war, my teachers talked about practically nothing else. I'll never forget it. We started right in with the Hundred Years War, and I thought that section would never end.
For my first history test ever in my life, I was expected to know that there was almost constant war between France and England in a century I couldn't imagine, that some French girl named Joan got otherwise bored and disinterested Frenchmen enthusiastic about killing the English for a while, then she got caught and burned at the stake for being a witch. Then she was made a "saint," whatever the hell that meant (I couldn't find out; I was laughed at for asking.) That's at least four NYC no-nos: war, other violence, witch, religion.
Just so you don't think this proposal has no chance of passing, you should know that it is already forbidden in the state of Florida to mention hurricanes on tests, for fear of inciting apoplexy among the sensitive little twits. At home you can give your dumb kid nails and a hammer and put him to work boarding the windows before the big blow, but the school can't bring it up. In California you can't say weed, even if you only mean crabgrass, because the kiddies might be induced to giggle.
I'm torn by the whole thing. On the one hand, I feel that just the fact that New York City is contemplating this means that it's time to throw in the towel. Just admit that you can't ever teach anything that matters, if war, politics, religion and disease are all off the table. Spend every day leading the kids in repeat viewings of the same heavily edited "Pee-wee's Playhouse," rerun (all the naughty bits cut out). Test them at the end with a stick, to see if they're dead yet.
On the other hand, maybe the NYC proposal is just stupid enough to work! Look at me -- I was offended and traumatized all through grade school, and now I'm antisocial. We don't need antisocial. We need kids that can get along.