http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages_(historiography)
Now here is a list of the 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.
To me, for the most part the list above sounds more like a brainstorming session of interesting topics to talk about and less of a list of words to avoid. Maybe times are changing and there is no room for debate in our society anymore. If there isn't, opinions must have changed to facts and that means there is now one opinion that is the right one.??
If school is supposed to be about learning, then shouldn't we be learning how to live together in school? In my opinion, if you ignore the differences at school, the kids will not see that there are differences. When children are with their families, they are with like-minded people. When they are with friends, they are with similar thinking people usually. When they doing activities, they are with people who are doing activities that either they all enjoy doing or all are made to do.
So, it seems to me that one of the best times that children can experience diversity is when they are in school with other children that are from different backgrounds, different cultures, different religions, and different beliefs. So they have an opportunity to see those beliefs and to experience ideas that are outside of their normal exposure. What a great opportunity for them to learn that there are other ideas out than what they have exposed to. What an awesome time for those kids to see that even though people may have differing ideas, they can still play together and get along. It may even be a time to learn how to express those ideas to each other in ways without having to cause harm or injury to others.
So, growth and tolerance can come out of these scenarios for these children. Maybe the only issue is that parents fear their children may grow up to have different ideals than they did because their children learned about different viewpoints.
I am glad that NYC DOE voted this down, but will some other DOE try to pass this in the near future? I hope not, but I fear they will try and succeed.
As I said earlier this action brings up thoughts of history. It also brings to mind one of the first episodes of SouthPark. All of the families were getting upset because of the Christmas program and the different beliefs. S, they had to make a program for Christmas time that had to reference to anything offensive. It took Mr. Hankey the Christmas poo to talk some sense into them. The Christmas program always cracks me up.
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