The New York City Department of Education wants to eliminate the word “dinosaur” from standardized tests. Yes, you read that correctly — the NYC Department of Education wants to get rid of the word dinosaur.
Why? Because reading the word dinosaur, might make kids think about dinosaurs and then be all “rad, dinosaurs are awesome”. Oh, no sorry, actually the NYC Dept. of Education believes reading about dinosaurs might make kids think about evolution, which could make kids who don’t believe in evolution “feel unpleasant”.
Have the people running the NYC Dept. of Education ever, I dunno, seen or talked to a real kid? It seems unlikely. No child in history has ever, ever “felt unpleasant” thinking about dinosaurs. I don’t care if a kid’s parents have been making them listen to Rush Limbaugh and kneel before a shrine to Pat Robertson since they were born — you don’t have to believe in evolution to like dinosaurs. As a kid I never thought robots turning into cars was a real thing, but that never made me “feel unpleasant” while watching Transformers. In other words, just let kids have their f–king dinosaurs. Gawd.
Dinosaur isn’t the only word the NYC Dept of Education wants to get rid of — I kid you not, they also want to do away with “Halloween”, “birthday”, “dancing”, “video games” and “rap music”. While they’re at it they may as well go all out and get rid of “laughter”, “joy” and “childhood” too.
via io9
kid with dino via Shuttershock
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We should USE this as a measurement. Any kid who feels unpleasant because dinosaurs make them think of evolution; we get to beat their parents with science textbooks.
I once saw a catholic priest beat a homeless man to death with a Richard Dawkins biography.
Maybe that was just Gallagher and the homeless man was a watermelon. Whatever, I still had a raincoat on.
Of those two scenarios I’d rather watch the homeless man beating.
Why should a generation of kids have to suffer for the stupidity of their parents? On top of that, you send your kid to a public school they get a public school education. Want to ignore evolution and learn about the bible send them to a catholic/christian school.
The Catholic Church has actually published works favoring evolution and sees no conflict. That whole Galileo thing happened 500 years ago, get over it already.
Besides that was more political than theological.
Correct – I was taught evolution by a priest in private school. He also refused to mix religion in it – it was purely secular.
My catholic school science classes had zero mention of intelligent design or creationism and not a single complaint was raised.
Catholics are pretty cool with evolution, its usually more the fundamental/evangelical protestant groups that have the issue (note that it is a predominantly large issue in the South where such groups hold sway).
I went to catholic schools from kindergarten to college. Evolution was taught there as well. I was just making a point that you shouldn’t have to change the curriculum when there are other options available.
More like BORED of Education, amirite? Ehhh? Ehhh?
I’m with the DoE. what can kids possibly find entertaining about GIANT FUCKING REPTILES THAT RULED THE EARTH ?
We all know learning is wrong! You can’t… I dunno… EDUCATE kids about things.
You know what made me feel unpleasant when I was a kid? Getting beat up on the playground. Everything else was fine.
This doesn’t make sense even with the most crazy of fundamentalists. Their contention now is NOT that dinosaurs never existed, but existed 5,000 years ago with humans. Like the Flintstones!
Lets not forget evolution brought us religion… Now, we need to evolve beyond religion..
Thanks for straying off topic, Thread Ender. That was a truly inane contribution.
As a teacher, I think this is the right call. Sometimes, in class, students get upset when I say the word “Pythagorean” because they think of polytheism, which flies in the face of Christianity. I propose we eliminate math.
Well obviously, as well as the kids might think you were referring to Pythagoras, the Greek God of Geometry.
I always found gym class unpleasant. I think they should cut out gym class because…it…hurts Jesus?
As an American of Irish descent, I find the color orange offensive. Can we remove it and any references to it from public schools?