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NYC Bans Mention of Dinosaurs, Dancing, Birthdays On Student Tests
New submitter SchroedingersCat writes "New York educators banned references to 'dinosaurs,' 'birthdays,' 'Halloween' and dozens of other topics on city-issued tests. That is because they fear such topics 'could evoke unpleasant emotions in the students.' Dinosaurs, for example, call to mind evolution, which might upset fundamentalists; birthdays are not celebrated by Jehovah's Witnesses; and Halloween suggests paganism. Homes with swimming pools and home computers are also unmentionables — because of economic sensitivities. The city asks test companies to exclude 'creatures from outer space' as well — for unspecified reasons."
April 1st is a few days away still yet...
...puts T-Rex in a corner.
And there was a time when people would strive to find things that challenged them, if only to learn more about themselves.
I am John Hurt.
You know something is wrong when real life seems like a South Park episode.
Shouldn't they just ban the tests, since tests make many students feel uncomfortable?
This is about the stupidest thing that I have read all day. These people need to grow up.
Why is it that most of the people that I encounter seem to have been shat from the Sphincter of Mediocrity?
Question: A man walks into his house and flips the switch to his 60-watt lightbulb for 8 hours. How many kWh does the lightbulb use?
Answer: None, because his electricity was disconnected several months ago due to the economic downturn.
"Test", because it evokes unpleasant emotions.
"New York", because it could be associated with stupidity.
"Student", because that could be mistaken for somebody that wants to learn and has an open mind.
Seriously, there is a limit. Modern human beings should have a reasonable level of tolerance for ideas that are not their own, and only reject them after they have looked at them carefully. (Yes, that includes actually looking at creationism and concluding for yourself that it is stupid.) They absolutely must have an open mind for all things scientific.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I hope they get rid of those two. Because I just lost all my faith in humanity. “I Don't Want to Live on this Planet Anymore”
please excuse my apathy
Dinosaurs, for example, call to mind evolution, which might upset fundamentalists; birthdays are not celebrated by Jehovah's Witnesses; and Halloween suggests paganism.
Once again, religious sensitivities prevail over having an eclectic set of experiences in the world around us. And mentioning swimming pools equates to classism? We're asking our kids to not acknowledge things in existence. What next? Closing down art museums because holy-hell, some features paintings with naked people? For real, can we get a grip already? Dinosaurs. They're worried about mentioning. Fucking. Dinosaurs.
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
MATHS TEST FOR STATE SCHOOLS
Name:
Nickname:
Gang Name:
1. Simon has 0.5 kilos of cocaine. If he sells an 8 ball to Matt for 300 quid and 90 grams to Ollie
for 90 quid, what is the street value of the rest of his hold?
2. Damon pimps 3 bitches. If the price is GBP40 a ride, how many jobs per day must each bitch
perform to support Damon's GBP500 a day coke habit?
3. Crackster wants to cut the kilo of cocaine he bought for 7,000 quid to make a 20% profit. How
many grams of Strychnine will he need?
4. Trev got 6 years for murder. He also got GBP350,000 for the hit. If his common law wife
spends GBP33,100 per month, how much money will be left when he gets out?
Extra Credit Bonus: How much more time will Trev get for killing the slapper that spent his
money?
5. If an average can of spray paint covers 22 square metres and the average letter is 1 square metre,
how many letters can be sprayed with eight fluid ounce cans of spray paint with 20% extra paint
free ?
6. Liam steals Jordan's skateboard. As Liam skates away at a speed of 35mph, Jordan loads his
brother's Armalite. If it takes Jordan 20 seconds to load the gun, how far will Liam have travelled
when he gets whacked?
MATHS TEST FOR PRIVATE SCHOOLS
Name:
(If longer please continue on a separate sheet)
School:
Daddy's/Mummy's Company:
1. Harry smashes up the old man's car, causing x amount of damage and killing 3 people. The old
man asks his local Chief Constable to intervene in the court system, then forges his insurance claim
and receives a payment of y. The difference between x and y is three times the life insurance
settlement for the three dead people. What kind of car is Harry driving now?
2. Fiona's personal shopper decides to substitute generic and own-brand products for the designer
goods favoured by her employer. In the course of a month she saves the price of a return ticket to
Fiji and Fiona doesn't even notice the difference. Is she thick or what?
3. Tristram fancies the arse off a certain number of debutants, but he only has enough Rohypnol left
to render 33.3% unconscious. If he has 14 tablets of Rohypnol, how is he ever going to shag the
other two thirds?
4. If Verity throws up 4 times a day for a week she can fit into a size 8 Versace. If she only throws
up 3 times a day for two weeks, she has to make do with a size 10 Dolce & Gabbana. How much
does liposuction cost?
5. Henry is unsure about his sexuality. Three days a week he fancies women. On the other days he
fancies men, ducks and vacuum cleaners. However he only has access to the Hoover every third
week. When will he stand for parliament?
There's a reason JWs don't celebrate birthdays. Both mentions of birthdays in the Bible, one in the Hebrew Scriptures and one in the Greek Scriptures, ended up with the birthday boy ordering someone's execution. See Genesis 40:20-22 and Mark 6:21-27.
Does anyone realize that some test-takers don't know what a "pillow" is? So yeah, the poor kid will stare at some word, wondering what it is, get a worse than accurate score, because the test is testing something that WASN'T TAUGHT IN CLASS. That's what this little rule is trying to avoid. Fair testing for all. 'Bout time.
Cranky educator.
I think it's slang for a thought locked inside a necklace.
I knew a woman who worked as a kindergarten teacher. She had a bunch of Jehovah's Witnesses kids in her class. When any of those JW kids annoyed her past her tolerance limit (which if you are a Kindergarten teacher must be pretty high to start with) she would send home a note to the parent mentioning that they would be celebrating another kids birthday that week. When the JW parents saw such notes they would yank their kids from school for that day - thus instant relief! The kicker was that the parents never worked out that they celebrated more birthdays during the year than there were kids in the class.
.. on Christmas day .. with kids in tow. Talk about cruel to the kids.
And to dick with the parents some more she used to make sure all the kids knew how to sing "Happy Birthday".
On the flip side I once had some JW come to the door soliciting their beliefs
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought ... should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
My guess is you can't mention that 2 + 2 = 4 either because there might be some offended dilholes that believe 2 + 2 = 5. Honestly, we have all kinds of people out there. Some of them believe some pretty outrageous stuff. While you can try to be polite to people of all beliefs, you really can't try to tailor reality to them. If some religious dude doesn't want to hear about dinosaurs, have him go to a religious school or be home schooled. The rest of us can't pretend there weren't any such things. We would be creating a society of people who lacked basic science information and couldn't compete with people from places where education teaches you reality. If some other person's family doesn't believe in celebrating holidays, that's fine - the family has the responsibility to teach the child why they don't agree with having birthday parties and why it "seems" to the kid like they are the only "mean" family on the block. If someone is upset that they don't have a pool (hell, I don't have one), teach them about the value of hard work combined with a smidgeon of luck.
Reality folks - that's where we live. Believe what you want. My beliefs shouldn't affect you, your beliefs shouldn't affect me. And I sure as hell don't mind having my kids see yachts on a test even though we can't afford one. They can show churches on a test too - even though I don't go to one.
and Halloween suggests paganism.
You mean the religions that most of the christian holidays are based on in the first place?
That's a problem with everything. The position as you state it is a conservative claim, and an extension of similar claims about such things as the National Endowment for the Arts, which inevitably picks some artists viewpoints (and 'art as a form of speech') to favor over others. it sounds pretty logical to many libertarian types.
BUT, it applies to everything! (which is what the people who came up with this argument can't stand to see addressed): The Amish don't want their tax dollars spent on grading high speed curves by the Dept of Transportation. The people who seriously believe the Moon landings were fake don't want a NASA budget just to 'do more fake moonshots'. The Pacifists oppose spending anything at all for the Dept of Defense. The anti-vaccine persons oppose the Center for Disease Control, at least as it stands today. Just ask the nation's 50 million Pot smokers if they want a single dime of their taxes to go to the DEA, or even the BATF, FBI, and others. Many people would claim to oppose a tax on moral grounds if it got them a bigger refund (or whatever) regardless of whether they had an actual moral opinion. If every person has a right to not pay taxes if they run counter to his or her beliefs or alleged beliefs, then there will be next to no taxes at all, and government itself becomes unaffordable. Ultimately, you are demanding absolute Anarchy..
That's fine if you are really an Anarchist. The problem is, are you? Most of the people advancing your argument want it to apply to the parts of government they don't see a need for, and not the rest. Are you willing to apply your argument to Police, Courts, National Defense and such, or just to the things you want "justice tested"
Do you want all taxes to be voluntary, or do you want some of yourrs to be avoidable while mine continue to be manditory?
Who is John Cabal?
This is tyranny of a set of minorities, who all expect to have their irrational beliefs respected and tolerated. Is this another instance of what the ecologist Hardin called the Tragedy of the Commons? By making use of simple, seemingly reasonable demands, a large number of individuals exploits a shared resource (culture, education) up to the point where the total of the actions disables the system. Religious and political freedom may now destroy the education system and with it the environment that makes these freedoms viable in the first place.
Stupid dancing birthday dinosaur.
I say it's worth it then.
The new secret is to propose stuff so preposterous that it numbs the sanity checkers into a coma and then gets passed. I mean, don't "promote religious tolerance", ban everybuddy's favorite prehistoric animal, Dinosaurs, because ... wait for it... a TurboFundy Christian might be upset.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
While I acknowledge the apparent insanity of the political correctness that seems to be the cause of this case, these sorts of exclusions are there for a reason. Tests should evaluate the topics they're designed to evaluate, not grade people on how "normal" their family background is. As an example, my mom was a nurse for a head start preschool and when she was going through records she noticed one kid had been labeled as having a low IQ. She could see he clearly wasn't dumb, so she looked into where the label came from. One of the main causes was that during an IQ test the kid was shown a picture of a birthday cake and he didn't recognize it and said it was a candle pie. A little research showed that he was a member of a religious group that didn't believe in celebrating birthdays, so he literally had never seen a birthday cake before.
PCness can certainly get out of control, and it sounds like it has in this case, but this is a serious topic. There are consequences for low scores on tests. This kid had been labeled dumb because he had never seen a birthday cake. When low scores are based on some sort of cultural gap, that's punishing kids who come from social groups that are out of the mainstream. Kids from _all_ social groups should be required to learn the same material, and as an example, I strongly object to parents keeping their kids from being taught evolution because of their religious beliefs. At the same time I think it's wrong to test kids on topics related to evolution (including dinosaurs) before the school has taught you about them.
They banned mention of Halloween because it suggests paganism.
Hallowe'en is short for "All Hallows Eve" is a Christian feast coming before All Saints Day (see Wikipedia). While it was conveniently timed to coincide with a traditional pagan holiday so was Christmas. Hence Hallowe'en suggests paganism as much as Christmas does.
I suggest a new rule: those put in charge of education should be required to have had one.
Not so. Shabbat elevators can be found all over NYC.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabbat_elevator
For those buildings where the True Believer nutjobs can't afford such a fancy elevator, they can simply bring in a Shabbat goy - a non-Jew to do the "work" of button pushing for them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabbos_goy
The world is not so small as to be comprised of only "urban legends" outside your realm of experience.
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!