Doublespeak in the classroom.

So I came across this little jewel on facebook. I was skeptical at first given its source, but there are others confirming it:

http://foxnewsinsider.com/2012/03/28/you-decide-is-the-nyc-departme...

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/28/new-york-city-schools-ban-...

It seems, the NYC schoolboard has created a list of 50 words that are to be sanitized from standardized tests and substituted with less "offensive" words. The list includes:

Wildfires
Hurricane
Dinosaurs
birthday
Halloween
Divorce
Religion
Television

This is insane! You can't teach kids about the world by sanitizing it. This is starting to sound like Orwellian Doublespeak. History is full of offensive events. All of the most important events in history are by their very nature offensive. (Such as every war that ever happened, social injustice and oppression, genocide, etc.) Otherwise, there is no conflict, nothing happened and no lesson is to be learned. Science as well has nothing to do with whether it makes you feel bad, or its against you PERSONAL religious beliefs. Neil Degrasse Tyson said it best: “The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.”

Thoughts anyone?