h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm just a grumpy pre-geezer. But thanks for the far-sighted comment.

I think California is trying to outdo Texas on educational idiocy...

http://www.care2.com/causes/education/blog/no-sex-please-were-just-kids/

One mother requests that Merriam-Webster's Collegiate dictionary be removed from the Menifee Union School District because her child looked up "oral sex". No biggie there, 9600 similar requests against other books were made between 1980 -2008 according to the A.L.A.

Oh, wait... THEY AGREED!

I'm not sure what they were objecting to.

--the fact that the term was listed?
--the definition that was given for it?

What definition were they expecting?
How trustworthy do they think a dictionary can be if it doesn't list the things people want to look up and give authoritative answers?

The mother was indeed objecting to the mere existence of such a term in a dictionary that her daughter had access to in school. Because, words can hurt your children. Words are DANGEROUSSSSS!

!!!!!!

This stuff really infuriates me.

However,
I remember in 10th grade, George Marchetti and me scouring that very same dictionary for new epithets. I was so thrilled when I found "priapism". We giggled riotously (and got in trouble for disrupting class) at the idea of calling someone a "a persistent and often painful erection."

Somehow, I've fallen down a rabbit hole into a universe in which dictionaries are now banned books and Berkeley is dumbing down their educational system...

It gets worse, MR. In a faraway land with a lot of sand and a few camels, there are religious leaders who insist that you can't be a good [fill in blank] unless you believe that the Earth is flat, and the universe orbits around it. The point is that these things were here all along, and the media had not discovered or highlighted them yet. Are you and I better off for knowing of these things?

All it takes is one parent to complain and a Virginia school district pulls The Diary of Anne Franke: The Definitive Edition.

http://rawstory.com/2010/01/school-district-pulls-anne-franks-diary/

Maybe Hypatia can say whether challenges to books in schools/libraries get more numerous when unemployment is high.

Paul, good suspicion. Unemployed =>poor=>jealous=>bite.

I don't know if anyone out there is still subscribed to this or not. But since it started out talking about an autistic child, I think this is the appropriate place to post about an incident Tuesday evening at the library.

We often work with the juvenile court to allow kids in trouble to do community service at the library. This is a great nuisance to us for a couple of reasons. First, it's hard for us to find things to keep them busy that they are capable of doing. And second, they always resent being here and generally do a substandard job - with attitude - at even the easy tasks we assign them.

We have had two 13 year olds this month. It's bad enough when we have one at a time, but two always creates problems. Tuesday evening they were taking a break from the onerous task of dusting the stacks. An autistic boy walked in and sat down at the same table. The more problematic of the two CS boys started winding the autistic boy up and then hit him sharply on the head with the handle of his feather duster. So the other CS kid, one who is actually a good kid, stood up and went to look at he boy's head to see if the skin was broken. The autistic boy misinterpreted the gesture. He stood up and punched the good kid, twice. The good kid now has a nasty bruise on his face from it. Then the bad kid pushed the autistic boy. The good kid did not retaliate in any way. He just walked away.

The mother of the autistic boy called the juvenile authorities and accused both boys of attacking her son. Now the good kid, who was the only one actually injured and who did nothing to provoke the kid is in even more trouble. The entire incident was caught by our security cameras. Unfortunately we only have video. No audio to prove that the good kid was actually trying to soothe the autistic boy and in no way attacked him.

If you know that's how it happened, presumably there were witnesses who could make statements to the juvenile authorities?

Fb

I hope it all works out, for both the good kid and the autistic one. Neither should be punished for this. The bad kid needs tending to, of course, but probably not in the way that the juvenile system will handle him.



I find today's attitude to juvenile behaviour to be very troubling. With zero tolerance policies and the criminalization of playground fighting it's as if our society has forsaken common sense with regard to our children. We don't trust teachers' and administrators' judgment anymore. Instead we rely on pure policy. If A then B. Our schools are becoming more and more like prisons. I'm appalled every time I hear about a kid... A KID arrested for pushing someone on the playground. I've heard of an elementary school that has instituted a strict "absolutely no contact" rule.

These are 13 year old boys. They will get physical. Yes, they should be punished. But the punishment needs to fit the behaviour.

I know of absolutely no male from my school days that didn't get into at least one fight. Now, for the same thing these kids are being arrested. I don't condone fighting and violence, but let's have some reason. IF it's a heinous case of violence then certainly the justice system needs to be involved. But not EVERY case.

The original incident happened a year ago. I wonder if Hypatia could fill us in on how things turned out?

Oh, wait, I've just gone back and reread Hypatia's post, and it was osted 5 hours ago. Sorry about that....

The mother of the autistic boy and the parents of the good kid have gotten together and reached an understanding. I think the lawsuit is no longer threatening. What a relief.

The sad thing is that this is causing me to rethink our policy to let the kids put in their hours here. My first responsibility is to the library and keeping us out of court.

<>

out side washing windows is allways a good one, give them domestic type work to do first and then promote those who 'Man Up' to library type jobs, shows the others that effort is rewarded

I do have them clean windows, rake leaves, etc. whenever possible. But sometimes I can't find anything for them to do. It's frustrating for all of us.

Paris Hilton gets CS again, the judge says you can come to my house and paint my portch, thinking that will keep her busy for a week

half a day later Paris declares she has finished and points out

its not pronounced portch but porche and anyway it wasn't a porsche but a ferrari

Where did you hear that one?

That's an oldie. I remember it from my school days.

If it weren't for that joke, I'd probably still be pronouncing it "porsh".