Americans are looney...

Other Off topic
1

and once again taking PC too far:

War On Words: NYC Dept. Of Education Wants 50 ‘Forbidden’ Words Banned From Standardized Tests

‘Dinosaur,’ ‘Birthday,’ ‘Halloween,’ ‘Poverty,’ ‘Divorce’ Among NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — George Carlin is rolling over in his grave.

The New York City Department of Education is waging a war on words of sorts, and is seeking to have words they deem upsetting removed from standardized tests.

Fearing that certain words and topics can make students feel unpleasant, officials are requesting 50 or so words be removed from city-issued tests.

The list of suggested offensive words:

Abuse (physical, sexual, emotional, or psychological)

Alcohol (beer and liquor), tobacco, or drugs

Birthday celebrations (and birthdays)

Bodily functions

Cancer (and other diseases)

Catastrophes/disasters (tsunamis and hurricanes)

Celebrities

Children dealing with serious issues

Cigarettes (and other smoking paraphernalia)

Computers in the home (acceptable in a school or library setting)

Crime

Death and disease

Divorce

Evolution

Expensive gifts, vacations, and prizes

Gambling involving money

Halloween

Homelessness

Homes with swimming pools

Hunting

Junk food

In-depth discussions of sports that require prior knowledge

Loss of employment

Nuclear weapons

Occult topics (i.e. fortune-telling)

Parapsychology

Politics

Pornography

Poverty

Rap Music

Religion

Religious holidays and festivals (including but not limited to Christmas, Yom Kippur, and Ramadan)

Rock-and-Roll music

Running away

Sex

Slavery

Terrorism

Television and video games (excessive use)

Traumatic material (including material that may be particularly upsetting such as animal shelters)

Vermin (rats and roaches)

Violence

War and bloodshed

Weapons (guns, knives, etc.)

Witchcraft, sorcery, etc.

We might as well go back a couple million years and start grunting at each other whilst pointing at what we want…

2

There has been a slew of stupid school bannings in the last days.

For one, Hugging is out.

So is having a best friend

As are walking aids for the disabled.

Bizarro world this is becoming.

3

Utterly frickin’ insane. Of course, our own government would just love to do similar things - thank ye gods they are too incompetent to enforce any of it. :slight_smile:

4

Is it just me or is the western world slowly becoming China only through a different mechanism?

5

That is exactly the impression I am getting. Like China, except without brains.

Then we have this:

Facepalm.

No, Double Facepalm.

640×512 47.6 KB

6

Umm surely the whole point of educmacation is to prepare kids for coping with things?? Imagine not knowing about any of the things on that list? You’d have to be a chronic agraphobe to not encounter any of those!

I taught an American kid once and she saw a picture of a shack and was like “How long ago was this picture taken?” … It turns out she thought everyone lived in brick houses with electricity, water TVs… She was visibly shocked when she realised this was not the case!!! It really was news to her (She was 17)… Maybe some parents already have this policy!!!

7

I wonder if it has occurred to them that the word “test” might in itself also be upsetting, not to mention having to write one…

8

Haha totally -well at least if they had a mass ban on these words in wider literature the bible would be out far too much rape, murder, slavery, death, disease and occult! So of course would pretty much anything :frowning:

9

The kids would not even be allowed to read Andersen or Peter Pan. These PC and “child-friendly” folks are utterly loony.

10

If this was a South African initiative the following words would be on the list as well:

Toilets
Taps / Running water
electricity

feel free to expand… >:D

11

I’ll probably never fully recover from the trauma of hearing for the first time of houses with swimming pools.