School bans dictionary

Here's a quote from Tinker v. Des Moines School District: "First Amendment rights ... are available to teachers and students. It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate. ... On the other hand, the Court has repeatedly emphasized the need for affirming the comprehensive authority of the States and of school officials, consistent with fundamental constitutional safeguards, to prescribe and control conduct in its schools."

Weighing those competing interests, I doubt that a school is required to carry any books. I'm sure it has discretion to toss them for any reason or no reason. They do it every day when making library orders and so forth or stocking classroom shelves. I can't recognize any First Amendment issues here. Just protected silliness.

 

This is not silly, it is moronic.


As for the husband of the complaining mother, his definition of oral sex is "what I'm never gonna get."

 

Its not like kids in school today don't know what that is anyway. So by banning the dictionary, it brings more attention to the case/word and makes more kids want to look it up.

Is this along the lines of School disctricts banning Huckleberry Finn because of the use of the "N" word? That's a bit shortsighted as well.

 

Has it really come to this? Is there anything more absurd?

 

If it weren't for looking up curse words, I doubt anyone in my sixth grade class would have ever opened a dictionary.

Next to ban: calculator, because you can spell out 7734 and 5138008 and 58008. But it's OK, under our Supreme Court, if you spell out 71077345.

 

The Huck Finn ban, I can understand -- not saying I agree with removing one of the greatest books of American literature, but a classroom with one black kid sittig there hearing his classmates' juvenile laughter is without question a hostile environment. I don't think I'd trust every teacher in the district to lead an intelligent discussion or adroitly defuse the topic.

But this is just stupid. The book is just sitting there. It's not going to affect the classroom in the least. Well, OK, now it will, because whatever dictionary replaces it, kids are going to rifle through it looking for dirty words.

It would serve the parents right if the next dictionary defined "shocker."

 

Maybe there was a photo with it.

 

Maybe if Bill Clinton's dictionary had included the definition... oh nevermind.

 

You may have this dictionary in the library for the same reason you may have a Bible in a school library; when used for research purposes, both of these publications are allowed in schools.

You can have a student look through the Bible, say, to use it as a tool for a geography lesson, but you cannot teach heaven and hell to students from it.

To play devil's advocate to the school board...

There are hundreds of dictionaries out there, and some are specific to elementary students because they do not contain words like slut, pussycat, "bigger", pussy, dick, fuck, clit and the like. They should have bought the proper dictionary for this school.

I am perfectly fine with eight-year-old Soosie down the street loosing some First Amendment rights if it means being able to look up the country of Niger and not having the word "bigger" for its next referenced word.

Oh, who uses a fucking dictionary anymore?

 

In related news, teen pregnancy is UP!!!

 

Who the fuck still uses a pay phone?

Sorry, just made me think of the line from the Cleveland "promotional video" that's been posted here before.

 

Technological sign of the times: my son's teacher suggested that he read a few books and rather than take a quiz, do a report on them -- in PowerPoint.

My son is in first grade.