Posted on 10/18/2006 1:16:08 PM PDT by Sopater
Oct. 16 - KGO - It's no secret -- many middle school students now swear like drunken sailors. The question is how do you stop it? One Alameda school tackled the problem in a way that has parents hopping mad.
In Shane Vance's 7th grade class, his teacher put up a big piece of paper and had the kids call out every cuss word and racial epithet they could dream up. The idea? Demystify bad language.
Shane's mother Caren was not pleased.
Caren Vance, mother of middle schooler: "He said we got to write down all kinds of swear words in class today. I'm like, 'oh really."
Decorum and the FCC prohibit us from telling you the words that went up in the classroom but they were racially and sexually explicit.
ABC7's Noel Cisneros: "Was it appropriate?"
Judith Goodwin, Lincoln Middle School principal: "It was appropriate as a lesson that is going to support teaching tolerance."
Lincoln principal Judith Goodwin says the lesson's been taught for 10 years. This is the first complaint.
Judith Goodwin, Lincoln Middle School principal: "These are words that are hateful. We have a society where we need to continue to create an atmosphere of tolerance, particilarly amongst our students, of anti-hate and understanding."
Vance, who is also a pediatrician, says maybe parents didn't complain because they didn't know. The children were told not to discuss the lesson outside the classroom, which some interpreted as -- 'don't tell your parents we're swearing in class.'
Caren Vance, mother of middle schooler: "You have a very big problem on your campus. Profanity is socially unacceptable at this age group so if you're finding you have a lot of children of this age group who are swearing, you need to find a more effective way to address it."
Vance lobbied the school for, at the very least, a parental notification letter and an apology and got nowhere. But on Monday afternoon, the district told ABC7 News they will send home letters warning parents of the swearing class and giving them the option of opting out next year when they teach the class again.
Copyright 2006, ABC7/KGO-TV/DT.
Hey, Teach! They're called juveniles for a reason! Expect them to behave in a juvenile fashion.
Nearly everone swears, it is where you swear that is important. You must show respect to strangers and never assume they enjoy hearing it.
Some people would be less of what they were if they didnt swear.
Patton for instance.
This is a very poor idea.
This same mindset is used in sex education classes to expose kids to all kinds of graphic "educational" displays and talk.
Without a reference to absolutes there is no "bad" language. There are only momentary diversions from the cultural norm. The logical fallacies are hip deep in this "tolerance" class.
Worked in "A Christmas Story"!
Not so surprising actually. Your in 'normals-ville' where the kids listen to adults and ALL adults are in charge of ALL kids. Notice that you have not heard from the kids moms about 'yelling' at their kids? Of course not, for two reasons 1. The kids didn't tell their parents cause they know they were wrong and that their parents might punish them as well. 2. Even if some mom did hear about it they are HAPPY you took control.
That was Lifebuoy, not ivory.
Kids have ALWAYS been swearing like drunken sailors. The only difference now is that they're doing it within earshot of adults.
My mom used Lava. UUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!
Only a couple of times -- I learned to be vewy, vewy careful!
I did not swear in front of my parents or any adult when I was a kid.. My mother would have planted me in the wall... I am 50 and still do not swear in front of my mother or my children, in fact I hardly swear at all...
I actually had my mouth washed out with Ivory soap. Never cussed in front of my mother again.
Great! Give the kids a big list of new profane vocabulary.
Kids are going to use profanity. I did, and I recall trying to look up "bad words" in the dictionary with my friends. We found a lot of them too. The difference between now and then is that most kids had more of a sense of propriety about when and where they would use profane language. My friends and I wouldn't not have dreamed of cussing in front of parents or a teacher, because we knew there would be hell to pay. Of course, these days, a lot of adults themselves don't have a sense of propriety, (I was in a store once and heard a mother call her own children "mf's") and kids hear the use of improper language everywhere --TV, movies, music. I happened to be walking the lenghth of a half-block one day this summer and some teenagers were having a party outside with the usual blaring music, and in one song I heard nearly every foul word imaginable.
When adults start having a lot more class in regard to the way they conduct themselves and how they raise their children and the kind of world they are creating for their children, maybe the kids will start having more class too.
My husband tried this approach with a Nephew who thought cussing was so cool. He took our son and the Nephew on a camping trip and told them they could do all the swearing and dirty talk they wanted. After an hour or so it they kind of tired of it..like if it's not forbidden they don't want to do it. Of course my husband said they were not allowed to use that language again but I think it did kinda take the fun out of it. Not sure how it would work in a classroom setting.
We did the same thing with our oldest. He was about 3 when he started cussing (yes - we were bad examples at the time). So we didn't make a huge deal out of it and told him that if he wanted to talk like that he had to do it in his bedroom. He got bored and that was that!
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