You want to know what's wrong with our educational system? This. This story.
To the New York State Department of Education: Shame on you, you sniveling cowards.
Peace.
This story is what's wrong with our educational system. A few years back, some friends of mine had to go before a university tribunal to defend their decision to teach a Faulkner short story that contained the word "nigger" -- all because some history-challenged student filed a complaint. I was angry then. But this -- well, this just makes me furious.In a feat of literary sleuth work, Ms. Heifetz, the mother of a high school senior and a weaver from Brooklyn, inspected 10 high school English exams from the past three years and discovered that the vast majority of the passages — drawn from the works of Isaac Bashevis Singer, Anton Chekhov and William Maxwell, among others — had been sanitized of virtually any reference to race, religion, ethnicity, sex, nudity, alcohol, even the mildest profanity and just about anything that might offend someone for some reason. Students had to write essays and answer questions based on these doctored versions — versions that were clearly marked as the work of the widely known authors. (Full text here)
To the New York State Department of Education: Shame on you, you sniveling cowards.
Peace.