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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?

Tags: education, evolution, history

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Permalink Reply by annet on March 28, 2012 at 10:56pm

Bizarre and disturbing. Very 1984-like.

Schools are always walking on egg shells trying to please everyone and so pleasing no one.

At least religion is on the list since it might upset the little heathens. :)

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Permalink Reply by Bizu Dana on March 29, 2012 at 1:07am

"offensive"? i can't be happy for your country's educational system. I don't understand why sensitizing children in perception of reality is a good idea. They should train their minds to think objectively about facts. On the other hand, i can't be happy for my own countrys ed. either. It's failing according to the last polls. I wonder what global statistics look like :(