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 "Dinosaur" is among the words New York CIty is looking to ban from tests, apparently over concerns it could bother creationists.
March 28th, 2012
07:19 PM ET
New York city schools want to ban 'loaded words' from testsBy Brian Vitagliano, CNN New York (CNN) - Divorce. Dinosaurs, Birthdays. Religion. Halloween. Christmas. Television. These are a few of the 50-plus words and references the New York City Department of Education is hoping to ban from the city’s standardized tests. The banned word list was made public – and attracted considerable criticism – when the city’s education department recently released this year’s "request for proposal" The request for proposal is sent to test publishers around the country trying to get the job of revamping math and English tests for the City of New York. The Department of Education's says that avoiding sensitive words on tests is nothing new, and that New York City is not the only locale to do so. California avoids the use of the word "weed" on tests and Florida avoids the phrases that use "Hurricane" or "Wildfires," according to a statement by the New York City Department of Education. In its request for proposal, the NYC Department of Education explained it wanted to avoid certain words if the "the topic is controversial among the adult population and might not be acceptable in a state-mandated testing situation; the topic has been overused in standardized tests or textbooks and is thus overly familiar and/or boring to students; the topic appears biased against (or toward) some group of people." CNN's Belief Blog – all the faith angles to the day's top stories Matthew Mittenthal, a spokesman for the NYC Department of Education, said this is the fifth year they have created such a list. He said such topics "could evoke unpleasant emotions in the students." "Dinosaurs" evoking unpleasant emotions? The New York Post speculated that the "dinosaurs" could "call to mind evolution, which might upset fundamentalists.” But what the tabloid failed to realize is that those "fundamentalists" who oppose evolution on religious grounds, believe wholeheartedly in dinosaurs. Young Earth creationists, or Biblical creationists as they prefer to be called, often point to dinosaurs in making their arguments. They say dinosaurs and humans roamed Earth together, citing legends of dragons and say the fossil record shows the earth is 6,000 years old, though few paleontologists and geologists share this theory. At the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky, the heart of the Young Earth Creationism movement, dinosaur models and exhibits fill the museum displays and gift shop. Follow the CNN Belief Blog on Twitter Apparently many of the words on New York’s list were avoided because of faith-based concerns. For instance, the use of the word "birthday" or the phrase "birthday celebrations" may offend Jehovah's Witnesses, who do not celebrate birthdays. A spokesperson for the Jehovah's Witnesses declined to comment on the use of the word "birthday." The Department of Education would not go on the record to explain the specific reasons for each word, which has left many to speculate and draw their own conclusions. Halloween may suggest paganism; divorce may conjure up uneasy feelings for children in the midst of a divorce within their family. One phrase that may surprise many, the term "Rock 'n' Roll" was on the "avoid" list. Piers Morgan's "Only in America": 50 banned words And not good news for Italians: the Department of Education also advised avoiding references to types of food, such as pepperoni, products they said "persons of some religions or cultures may not indulge in." The Department of Education said, "This is standard language that has been used by test publishers for many years and allows our students to complete practice exams without distraction." Stanford University Professor Sam Wineburg is an expert in the field of education and director of the Stanford History Education Group. When reached by phone said Wineburg, after a brief pause on the line, "the purpose of education is to create unpleasant experiences in us. ... The Latin meaning if education is 'to go out.' Education is not about making us feel warm and fuzzy inside." Wineburg questioned the idea that the New York City Department of Education would want to "shield kids from these types of encounters." He said the goal of education is to "prepare them," adding "this is how we dumb down public schools." CNN's Eric Marrapodi contributed to this report. soundoff (3,780 Responses)« Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 Next »
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The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.  |
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Hmm – seems that using a variety of words used to be called education. How about we add a class called "how to not be so gosh darn sensitive."
You couldn't pay me a million bucks to send my child to any public school in this country. Public educators can't even fricking teach anymore...too busy trying to follow every liberal, pc rule and agenda. No time and nothing left to teach.
Lets continue going backwards, eventually we can have it so the Bible is the only book being taught in school.
If the word, dinosaur, might offend creationists, shouldn't all the world globes be taken out of the classrooms, too?! World maps are okay because they are flat!
‘He stretcheth out the north over empty space, and hangeth the earth upon nothing’ (Job 26:7).”
The Bible foretold of the earth HANGING IN SPACE before science did so shut up, the Bible doesn't say the world if flat, I DEFEATED YOUR IGNORANCE! Enjoy the denial.
People shouldn't be scared of disease, war, or even zombies
They should be scared of stupid people taking over this whole country. They're half way there.
Unefenbelievable!!
rediculist
Here are some words that make me really mad lately... let's ban them:
"teacher" "school" "principal" "administration" "tests" "department of education"
watch "Idiocracy" by Mike Judge. The only wrong prediction in this movie, that he gave 500 yrs for stupitidy to get absolute power. I think its happenning much faster
hilarious movie!
I totally agree with you.
I think that we should ban all words. We can than all be like mimes and to try and communicate with each other. Wait....silent communication might be offensive as well. In fact, let's not have any contact with anybody. This politically correct culture needs to stop!
This is Orwellian to say the least. Read 1984, about the Newspeak movement. The government essentially banned language they thought may hinder them gaining complete control over the population. Its a small step between these words being banned from tests and then these words being banned from the classroom. Doubleplusungood!
All I can say is only in California and New York do these insanely idiotic things come up. What the hell is wrong with these people. You can try and protect everyone with careful words and live in a little world where all is nice but the real world could care less and believe me there are allot worse things that will happen to little Johnny than hearing the word dinosaur.
Texas does this the other way. You can't say "Capitalism" because it implies negative, it has to be free enterprise
This shows how divorced these "educators" are from the real world. To avoid all "controversial" topics isn't education, its a cowardly form of PC indoctrination.
Most Departments of Education are full of politicians not "educators". The "educators" are the ones stuck with the stupid rules that come from the DOE.
maybe the world is ending after all....................
people you fail at life. seriously, what the hell is going on around here. feels like ii woke up in an alternate universe.
I wish they would BAN the board Un educated . Who are this sicko's?
We'll all die from extreme political correctness
Time to pull the kids out of school, so they still will have some chance to grow normal
The only thing the NY department of education should ban is themselves.
1984
This is ridiculous. While I'm all for being sensitive, banning words like "dinosaur" and "religion" for the non-religious seems idiotic. How about we expose our children to the world? If that's not what you want, home-school them.
jonborg – well said.
Homeschool my family I will! You all can have your banned words. I can't believe how crazy the public school system has gotten. With all of the school shootings, bullying, etc. I'm surprised there's not more people doing it. Not to mention your kids being taught by total strangers... I mean really?
Funny how the further along the liberal PC agenda gets the more Orwellian it starts to look.
Please don't lump all thinking liberals into a group with morons who come up with things like this. It doesn't represent liberal thought any more than Sarah Palin represents conservative thought.
If anything this would look like a conservative idea.
What is funny is that most of the banned words are eliminated to appease crazy right-wingers. Look in the mirror, Rob.
It isn't LiberalPC that creates issues such as this. Typically books are burned/banned, words are deleted due to far RIGHT fundamentalists. That is the real issue here, attempts to kow tow to the false Christian Religion has created this monster. The only way to to have a free and open society, one that allows study and learning of all facts and principles worthy of knowledge/learning is to get rid of the lies of organized religion.
Censorship generally isn't part of the liberal agenda. Besides, as others have noted, most of these have to do with tiptoeing around various faiths. I don't really see the point; whether they learn what a dinosaur is before or after they graduate high school, they will still learn about them, and still be offended by them if it's actually possible for anyone to be offended by dinosaurs. If they learn these things later, they'll just be less able to deal with it.