The New York City Department of Education is pushing to have words they deem upsetting removed from standardized tests because they might upset students.
Right now, the tally of banned words is at 50 but rest assured that list will grow.
According to the CBS affiliate in NYC, the word “dinosaur” should be banned because dinosaurs suggest evolution which creationists might not like. “Halloween” is targeted because it suggests paganism; a “birthday” might not be happy to all because it isn’t celebrated by Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Here is the complete list of words that could be banned along my snarky comments:
Abuse – Yeah, because banning the word “abuse” definitely helps kids.
Alcohol (beer and liquor), tobacco, or drugs – How will they ask their students what they’re on? This is New York City after all.
Birthday celebrations (and birthdays) – Happy…you know!
Bodily functions – Did this one really need to be banned from tests. Were bodily functions really a strong meme in word problems. If Timmy had two bodily functions and Sam had three. How many bodily functions did they have? A. They might have irritable bowel syndrome.
Cancer (and other diseases) – Now if we could only ban the disease and not just the word.
Catastrophes/disasters (tsunamis and hurricanes) – Well, I guess we should scrap the science lesson on weather.
Celebrities – What about classic word problems like, “If celebrity Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan collected every original thought that ever entered their heads, how many would there be?
Children dealing with serious issues – So, it’s banned phrases too?
Cigarettes (and other smoking paraphernalia) – How can we tell kids how bad they are.
Computers in the home (acceptable in a school or library setting) – I assume this is because some kids don’t have computers in their home. But don’t they want computers in their home. I’d bet they’re aware that other people do have computers in their home. Why don’t we also ban “meat in the freezer.”
Crime – We all know the best way to fight crime is to ignore it.
Dancing – I’m seeing a movie in this. Maybe starring Kevin Bacon. Where a town outlaws talking about dancing and Bacon moves into town and maybe starts a big event where all the kids get together and talk about dancing. Hmmm…it needs a little work but there’s something there.
Death and disease – Uhm, teacher whatever happened to the old principal who fell down in the hallway grabbing at his chest? Why won’t anyone tell me?!
Divorce – Thank goodness no kids in NYC have to go through the mess of divorce and then actually read the word. Because that would put them over the top.
Evolution – The word is fine. Just put the word “theory” near it.
Expensive gifts, vacations, and prizes – So much for the quiz on game shows.
Gambling involving money –
Halloween – I wonder if “All Saints Day” and “All Souls Day” are fine? Probably not, right?
Homelessness – Wait, I thought ignoring the homeless was bad.
Homes with swimming pools – These kids do watch television shows, you know. And girls on those shows are constantly in bikinis. But oddly, you never actually see them swimming in pools. Maybe television has banned “homes with swimming pools” too. But not bikinis.
Hunting – A little too Red state, right?
Junk food – This one I agree with. Why just say, “Junk food” when you can be specific and talk about “bon-bons” and “ho-hos.” (Oddly the other meaning of “ho” is not on the banned word list.)
In-depth discussions of sports that require prior knowledge – Girls!
Loss of employment – Ironically, the Obama administration would also like to see that phrase on the banned list. At least until after the election when he can be a little more flexible.
Nuclear weapons – “Uhm kids, we’re just gonna’ skip today’s lesson on The Cold War.” (Extra benefit – by skipping that lesson they don’t have to talk about Ronald Reagan as much either.)
Occult topics (i.e. fortune-telling) – So much for that field trip.
Parapsychology – Half the kids in NYC can’t read that word anyway.
Politics – Seriously? Politics? The whole word is banned?
Pornography – What kind of tests was the school district giving that this word needed to be banned?
Poverty – Shhh. They won’t know they’re poor if we don’t say anything. They’ll just think some kids have pools and computers. Oh wait…
Rap Music – Cross out the question “If Tupac shot Biggie three times and Biggie’s posse returned fire…
Religion – You knew that one was coming, right?
Religious holidays and festivals (including but not limited to Christmas, Yom Kippur, and Ramadan)- I wonder if Kwanzaa is still allowed because that’s only pretending to be a religious holiday.
Rock-and-Roll music – Seriously. I wonder if jazz is still ok?
Running away – You know, because kids never get the idea of running away until they read it on a test.
Sex – Can we mention abstinence? Or is that still banned?
Slavery – That might make discussing the Civil War a little tricky.
Terrorism – Come on. They weren’t talking about that anyway unless you could talking about the terrorism of George W. Bush.
Television and video games (excessive use) – But references to casual use is good then?
Traumatic material (including material that may be particularly upsetting such as animal shelters)
Vermin (rats and roaches) – Come on it’s New York City.
Violence – Come on. It’s New York City!
War and bloodshed – Come on. It’s New York City!!
Weapons (guns, knives, etc.) – Seriously. Do I have to write it again. Come on. It’s New York City!!!
Witchcraft, sorcery, etc. – I guess that takes Harry Potter off the summer reading list.
March 27, 2012 at 7:00 pm
That is dumb as he!!
March 27, 2012 at 8:07 pm
Fahrenheit 451, anyone?
March 27, 2012 at 10:43 pm
They think kids in the middle of a standardized test are going to get upset about the word "politics"?
Maybe somebody did a study that indicated that.
But it doesn't really pass the gut test.
March 27, 2012 at 11:58 pm
This simply cannot be true.
March 28, 2012 at 1:39 am
Are they trying to make the children as ignorant as possible?
March 28, 2012 at 2:49 am
But…but…where are the snarky comments for gambling and trauma?
Vermin. Really?
This is just too ridiculous.
March 28, 2012 at 2:50 am
But…but…where are the snarky comments for gambling and trauma?
Vermin. Really?
This is just too ridiculous.
March 28, 2012 at 3:10 am
My husband used to write test questions for his previous job as an educational consultant for an educational software company. During conferences the 'powers that be' explicitly told him that if he wrote test questions about cooking or any household chore, he must use a male name doing the action. If a question was written about repairing a car or watching football, you guessed it, he had to insert a woman's name. There was also a big list of no no words similar to this, so this has been going on for awhile–he had that job from 1999-2004.
March 28, 2012 at 3:48 am
They understand neurolinguistics. Eliminate the word and there is no word to express or think about an idea. Much better and easier than redefining. The enstupidation continues. No one in their right mind would put their kid in a government "school".
March 28, 2012 at 3:48 am
Wow. They don't even do this in Japan, and "don't talk about unlucky things" is actually a rule of their etiquette.
When you're worrying more about words than people who believe in curses, you have a problem.
March 28, 2012 at 3:50 am
Yet the two words that struck fear into my heart as a child still remain in use:
STANDARDIZED TEST
March 28, 2012 at 4:18 am
Ha. Good point.
March 28, 2012 at 4:01 pm
Gambling involving money….banned. Strip poker, ok. After all, since they won't let the teachers smoke in the teacher's lounge anymore, they have to do something to occupy their free time.
March 28, 2012 at 5:32 pm
Wait a sec, it sounds like this list is only meant to apply to standardized test questions. There not saying kids can't be exposed to these concepts, or read books about it, or talk about not-"smoking cigarettes" in class.
Standardized tests are meant to be well, standardized-which means, as far as possible, normalizing for all other circumstances except for the one thing you are testing for.
Say a reading comprehension test involves an article about downhill skiing. If two children have the same reading comprehension ability, but one is the child of an Olympic skier who spends every break in the Rockies, that child is going to be better able to answer the questions about skiing whose answers they were supposed to have gleaned from the article. So, one concern in test writing is to try and make the stories/questions about something all children are fairly equally exposed to (either they all have prior knowledge of it or none of them do). Some of these words/topics seem to result from that line of thinking.
There's another reason I could see to ban topics/words from these tests-not upsetting kids while they are taking a test. There's a time and a place to talk about "hard things" with kids, but on a standardized test isn't it. Words like "cancer" probably fall under this category-a kid who's dealing with cancer in his family could be much more upset by this reference, and then not concentrate on the test than one for whom "cancer" is just another theoretical disease.
In all, these guidelines seem fairly reasonable…
March 28, 2012 at 8:12 pm
There's a time and a place to talk about "hard things" with kids, but on a standardized test isn't it.
Yes, hard things like birthdays, Dinosaurs, and Halloweens. Imagine how traumatized generations of children will be if exposed to such hard things on tests.
In all, these guidelines seem fairly reasonable…
I honestly fear for my country with people like you.
March 28, 2012 at 8:17 pm
One other thing:
. So, one concern in test writing is to try and make the stories/questions about something all children are fairly equally exposed to
This is almost literally an impossible standard. No two children are really going to have the same experiences. In fact, some of the words being banned are probably some of the few that most kids can relate to.