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From the Department of American Fundamentalist Terrorism (DAFT), two examples this week of why American education has Issues:
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In Southern California, a mother complained to a local school principal about the fact that one of the books available in her son's classroom contained filth and must be banned. The book? The Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. The filth? it defines "oral sex". The offending definition? Here it is: Main Entry: oral sex Function: noun Date: 1973 : oral stimulation of the genital. That's it. No details. No illustration. Just "oral stimulation of the genital."
Filthy! Disgusting!
The principal, rather than looking at the woman as if she were entirely daft and in need of counseling, immediately pulled the book from all the district's classrooms. Not only that, but "the district's Assistant Superintendent Karen Valdes has noted that while the dictionary, published in 1998, is a respected source, it contains a number of words/definitions that are 'age-inappropriate'." How much you want to bet that this prurient book also contains references to "penis" and "vagina" and similar horrors?
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The Journal of Higher Education reports that the Texas State Board of Education, which has a long history of raving, foaming-at-the-mouth stupidity, wanted to ban an author's book about Marxism (because, after all, if someone read it they might actually be magically converted to a *gasp* Commie Pinko) and thus ordered that DePaul University Philosophy Professor Bill Martin's book Ethical Marxism: The Categorical Imperative of Liberation -- which I'm sure any self-respecting third grader is just drooling to dive into -- be banned. Unfortunately, they instead mistakenly removed from their "approved book list" a book by Bill Martin Jr., author of that undoubtedly controversial chidren's book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, which is a classic rhyming book with tissue-paper illustrations, containing such subversive verses as "Blue Horse, Blue Horse, What do you see? I see a green frog looking at me."
The horror!
******
In Southern California, a mother complained to a local school principal about the fact that one of the books available in her son's classroom contained filth and must be banned. The book? The Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. The filth? it defines "oral sex". The offending definition? Here it is: Main Entry: oral sex Function: noun Date: 1973 : oral stimulation of the genital. That's it. No details. No illustration. Just "oral stimulation of the genital."
Filthy! Disgusting!
The principal, rather than looking at the woman as if she were entirely daft and in need of counseling, immediately pulled the book from all the district's classrooms. Not only that, but "the district's Assistant Superintendent Karen Valdes has noted that while the dictionary, published in 1998, is a respected source, it contains a number of words/definitions that are 'age-inappropriate'." How much you want to bet that this prurient book also contains references to "penis" and "vagina" and similar horrors?
******
The Journal of Higher Education reports that the Texas State Board of Education, which has a long history of raving, foaming-at-the-mouth stupidity, wanted to ban an author's book about Marxism (because, after all, if someone read it they might actually be magically converted to a *gasp* Commie Pinko) and thus ordered that DePaul University Philosophy Professor Bill Martin's book Ethical Marxism: The Categorical Imperative of Liberation -- which I'm sure any self-respecting third grader is just drooling to dive into -- be banned. Unfortunately, they instead mistakenly removed from their "approved book list" a book by Bill Martin Jr., author of that undoubtedly controversial chidren's book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, which is a classic rhyming book with tissue-paper illustrations, containing such subversive verses as "Blue Horse, Blue Horse, What do you see? I see a green frog looking at me."
The horror!
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2. Parents have way too much power
3. Administrators are wusses
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School administrators, like most bureaucrats go towards saying no. It's easier, and probably won't involve litigation, unless the troublemaking meddling activist parents put their noses into where they don't belong! Hehe. It's fun being one of 'those' parents. We used it sparingly, but certainly were meddling troublemaking parents...(at least in the eyes of the grade school at the time)
Best example of this -the 'zero tolerance' policy towards ANY medication, drug, etc. Doesn't matter if it's Advil. It's a pill, so, it's a drug. 'Pigs is pigs'
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Or maybe she should sue herself for teaching him to talk, because if he didn't know how to talk then he wouldn't understand Nasty Words and his purity and innocence would be protected.