Posted on 04/12/2005 10:06:43 AM PDT by crv16
Dan Horwich's English class is a bastion of clean language, where students read the classics and have weighty discussions free of invective and profanity. But when the bell rings and they walk out his door, the hallway vibrates with talk of a different sort.
"The kids swear almost incessantly," said Horwich, who teaches at Guildford High School in Rockford, Ill. "They are so used to swearing and hearing it at home, and in the movies, and on TV, and in the music they listen to that they have become desensitized to it."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
> Are they best expressed in four lette words as well?
Generally, no. Expletives are typically most effective I find when used to either denote some unpleasantness... or as a modifier to denote "powerfully emotionally affective and shocking extreme."
I *dare* anyone to come to Utah in June, camp out near Thiokol, and watch the planned RSRM static test and *not* use words akin to those I used: "Holy Shi..."
But for negative situations, nothing sums things up quite as succinctly as a simple four-letter muttering - or yell. Imagine Kerry had won the election. What, no expletives? Be honest...
> You argue that NOT cussing HIDES your true feelings - I argue that it DISPLAYS self-control
Being entirely self-controlled is not a positive, in my book. If someone is P.O.ed at me, I want to know about it.
> Both my husband and I are baby boomers.
So it's YOUR fault...
Never mind.
What, you don't like my answers?
This is the key. Without a moral compass, people are free to do what feels good. The tolerance movement has brought our society to a place in which it is wrong to criticize others for their behaviors, no matter how vile and disrespectful.
The surgeries were in the past. They were necessary, but not necessarily pleasant, but I didn't expect them to be. It isn't that the expletives are not an outlet for me. They just don't do any real good in the long run for anyone. Angry outbursts have never solved any problem. But there is more perfect "outlet" for all that frustration! And it gives a peace that one just can't understand. :)
> Angry outbursts have never solved any problem.
You might want to reconsider that opinion.
> But there is more perfect "outlet" for all that frustration! And it gives a peace that one just can't understand. :)
Yes, good old 12-gauge and .45. Blowing holes in things is a hell of a stress reliever.
fear of impotence perhaps?
In the case of greed and extortion you can say that the fear of not feeling good or fear of neglect is the motivation.
Depression:
Greedy hog: I don't want to mop up the mess from this leaky ceiling anymore. This house is falling apart. I better get rich!!!
neglect:
Greedy hog: I don't want to live in the gutter and I don't want my family to think i'm a loser. I better get rich!!!!
Complaining about lack of discipline in schools is like complaining about crooked politicians... if you don't vote them out, whose fault is it when they continue to be crooked?
The fact is that schools will only do what parents will tolerate; no more and no less. The example in this case occurs about twice a month in my class. Some little vulgarian utters an epithet in my class. I write a referral (the documentary portion of the disciplinary process). As part of this process, I call home to inform the parents of the referral. Later, the assistant principal will also call to inform the parents about the punishment decided. Both phone calls inevitably result in long, angry discussions with parents who complain that either the child should not be punished so "harshly" (usually an after-school detention or the like) for something so minor, or that they do not understand why the behavior is being punished at all.
Compare this with the manner in which principals and school boards fall all over themselves for every irate parent, and you will see the full measure of the problem. Every parent is all for strong discipline... so long as it is not their child.
The only parents who care enough to aggressively lobby principals and school boards about disciplinary problems are those parents whose kids are in trouble. Sure, every few years some parents will get involved and start really pushing the school board to address whatever the flavor-of-the-month issue is, but the movement inevitably falters as soon as one of the parents who is active in the movement has their little darling run afoul of the rule they have just worked so hard to create. Then it is back to the same old routine until the next brief uprising...
Sorry, but every single problem in public schools is caused, in part, by parents who don't care enough to get the problem changed. As someone who sees daily the great lengths that school administrations will go to mollify angry parents, there is no question that a concerted effort on the part of parents would change any problem they focused their energies on. But this is the great pitfall of government entities: because the institution is "free" and run by the government, the people who use the service feel no pressure to monitor it or take responsibility to see that it works correctly.
Kids will do whatever they can get away with (children need boundaries, and they push until they find them). When a school sets rules that it believes that the community wants, we expect the teachers and administrators to enforce those rules. But when parents are either indifferent or openly hostile to the enforcement of those rules, teachers and school administrators quickly learn that it is more trouble than it is worth to continue to strictly monitor those rules. And parents express their approval of this strategy through their silence. Schools reflect the community in which they operate, and their are serious problems in many American communities. Don't expect schools to change until the communities do... they are simply serving their populations...
Parents can discipline as much as they want. The control they have at home is complete, BUT when the child goes out into society and is faced with vulgarity as the norm it undermines what good parents are trying to teach.
I banned MTV in my home pretty much from it's inception. My daughter survived without it, but that does not mean she did not see it at friend's homes.
Movies, Cable TV, Music, Video games... all of these contribute to a coarsening of our culture. Like it or not it's not just about the parents.
> the development of our language (and isn't that what we're discussing?)
Nope. Perhaps you should pay a little more attention.
I don't really believe in "foul" language. It s only shocking because we give it that power. If everyone woke up tomorrow and decided that "mountain" was a dirty word, and everyone agreed on it ... then we would see outrage evertime it was said.
Certain actions are offensive, but i've never given my kids a hard time about "bad" words.
The bigger deal you make of them, the more they say them. Take away the shock value, and it is no longer entertaining for them to say. There are to many other things to worry about than if your kid utters an expletive, IMHO. I think the reason we are where we are is because of the focus on such nonsensities.
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