We removed the fourth verse of the song "America" from the recent music textbooks.

National Public Radio - Your Turn Discussion Group ^ | August 25, 2003 | Phil Stinson

[risk]

Diane Ravitch: Censorship of Language Attacked (from http://www.educationupdate.com/archives/2003/june03/issue/spot_ravitch.html)
by Sybil Maimin

The battles over what we teach our children continue, and Diane Ravitch, author, advocate, and professor of education at New York University, has taken a strong stand against “the new literary terrorists from both the left and the right” who demand that certain words and concepts not appear in the texts our children use in school. She spoke passionately about her book, The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn, on a panel at The New York Public Library that included Alan Brinkley, professor of history and incoming provost at Columbia University, and Erin McKean, senior editor for U.S. dictionaries at Oxford University Press. Marlene Springer, President of CUNY’s College of Staten Island, was moderator.

Ravitch explained that at publishing houses, textbooks below college level must be approved by “bias and sensitivity” panels that regularly remove words that “might offend someone.” Publishers, who want to avoid controversy and sell lots of books, “agree to everyone’s objections.” Mega companies that have forced out smaller publishers believe sales and profits are best realized by capitulating to pressure groups and producing bland, homogenous, nonprovocative texts. Ravitch provides numerous examples of bias and sensitivity panel pronouncements. Words and subjects that cannot be used include, “owls” because they are a symbol of death in certain cultures, “Mt. Rushmore” because it is sacred to an Indian tribe, and “peanuts” because some children are allergic to them. African-Americans should not be depicted as musicians or athletes, and Asian-Americans must not be presented as a model minority. Books about slaves and migrant workers are to be avoided. The elderly must not be depicted as frail, and mothers should not be shown in the kitchen. Ravitch reports that the National Council for Teachers of English bans use of the word “guy.”

Brinkley sees in the sensitivity panels “an enormous level of condescension toward our children.” He explained that, “Our culture has changed enormously in the past 30 years and what was once appropriate no longer is.” It is “good to be more sensitive but that is a long way from the censorship and bureaucratization that have taken hold.” He sees the “institutionalization of right thinking” overseen by “people who are not teachers or scholars.” “What we teach and learn should not be driven by textbook publishers or an institutionalized bureaucracy. Using common sense, writers of educational material should be sensitive to things that are offensive to large groups of people.” He objects to a bureaucracy controlling what we teach and learn, not the attempt to be gender neutral and sensitive to race and cultures.

As an editor of dictionaries, McKean explained, “we are doing our damnedest to put words in, not take them out.” She spoke of “teachable moments” that certain words provide. “These words are opportunities to teach about bias. It is not good pedagogy to pretend these words do not exist.” Ravitch does not call for elimination of bias and sensitivity panels but rather for their work, now behind closed doors, to be open to public view. She believes that teachers or school districts rather than state officials should choose books for the classroom, which would decrease the power of pressure groups and lessen uniformity. She has confidence that “language evolves in response to social change. Lots of words disappear naturally,” she promises.

[ladylib]

Why kids hate dull, pc-ladened textbooks and have no interest in learning anything from them.

[goldstategop]

If's its totally bland, why bother? There's nothing to challenge or uplift the soul.

[sauropod]

Morning dear. Dr. Phil needs a missive from you.

[Lockbox]

Let see, the US Senate opens with a prayer.

At the beginning of each daily meeting, the presiding officer accompanies the Senate chaplain to the rostrum for an opening prayer. (source = http://www.senate.gov/visiting/common/generic/Senate_in_session.htm )

Does that mean under the ‘separation of church and state clause' of the US Constitution that all actions and laws by the US Senate are therefore un-constitutional?

Thanks ACLU, no more taxes, etc.

[Henk]

Substitute "Allah" for "God" and I bet you won't be so worked up about it's removal.

[2timothy3.16]

Sometimes it is best to just let the Lord God Creator of all things speak for Himself: "Whosoever therefore shall confess Me before men, him will I confess also before My Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father which is in heaven." The Lord God, Creator of all heaven and earth, Christ Jesus.

[hellinahandcart]

It reminds me of what happened if you fell out of favor in ancient Egypt. They'd simply efface your name from every stone into which it had been chiseled.

[smith288]

Sometimes it is best to just let the Lord God Creator of all things speak for Himself: "Whosoever therefore shall confess Me before men, him will I confess also before My Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father which is in heaven." The Lord God, Creator of all heaven and earth, Christ Jesus.

So in summary... Give God his due or you will get yours. Pray for our country.

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

Gee yoy mean we can't play The Battle Hymn Of The Republic.

[StACase]

Substitute "Allah" for "God" and I bet you won't be so worked up about it's removal.

You know Henk, Smart @$$ liberals like you abound, and they always ask that same stupid question, and the answer is always the same, censorship is censorship.

The flip side of that question is, would liberals be censoring Allah from books and monuments? I know that they revere and preserve the petroglyphs in the southwest.

[hellinahandcart]

Substitute "Allah" for "God" and I bet you won't be so worked up about it's removal.

Removing the entire category of sacred music from music study doesn't strike you as shortchanging the kids in their education?

It's not establishing religion. It's history.

I'm pretty worked up about "Huckleberry Finn" becoming a verboten book too. As things stand now it will only be saved if they go through the book and replage ever "n*****" with "person of color".

And I'll bet a million dollars that it's okay with Dr. Phil for kids to hear all about environmental junk science and "gender fluidity" and the benefits of communism.

[vannrox]

.


"... I'm happy and proud to have been a part of (the)decision (to censor American History)..."


.

[Capitalism2003]

Burn the flag.
Trash the bible.

Pass out condoms.
Give lessons (with instructions) on homosexuality to 6th graders.

Gotta love liberalism.

[CatoRenasci]

you forgot to say where this discussion is in the NPR site

[HamiltonJay]

Just one more reason why my kid will never be exposed to the public school hell.

[sweetliberty]

"Liberals get easily offended at the drop of a hat."

I get offended every time a liberal opens its nasty, lying, God-hating mouth. It doesn't keep them from doing it though.

[sweetliberty]

"Eradicating verses = burning books"

They do that too, figuratively anyway. Wonder how many public school libraries have copies of the original version of Huckleberry Finn and The Scarlet Letter. In fact, I'm wondering how hard it might be to even buy non-politically corrected versions of many classics and children's stories.

[WorkingClassFilth]

Yet another reason to hit the delete button on our national version of PRAVDA.

Just think how many more scholars could be funded if NPR had to hold a bake sale to fund themselves and all of their pork was given to the homeless, the needy, the working poor, the women and children living under male oppression, the disenfranchised, the quadro-sexuals that live in daily fear for their very lives in a hostile land of hetero, homo and tri-sexual bigotry...

[I still care]

Censorship is alright as long as it censors Christianity.

Otherwise it's book burning, right? I remember our local library having fits over this kind of thing, but I am sure this particular example doesn't bother them at all.