Can't say "knife" in high school

denverpilot said:
So, back to the original question: What in the world makes a person charged with educating young people think such weirdness is normal, helpful, useful, or even congruent with "educating"?
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Are you asking this because you don't know or are you trying to stimulate discussion? I think the answer is rather obvious. Whether you want to accept it or ignore it is another story. How is this significantly different from the pop-tart story, or the one linked above, any number of other stories where any amount of discretion is removed from the educators and they are forced to follow insane zero/tolerance policies that have no beneficial effect? (Is that a run-on sentence?) To miss the trajectory that we are on either supremely ignorant or intentionally dismissive.
Edit: I forgot the obligatory IMHO.
Edit2: and this:)
 
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denverpilot said:
Mari has mentioned the "cooperate to graduate" mentality before. It's one thing to say that when the teacher isn't operating from some weird delusion that words like "knife" are bad.
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From what you have written in the follow up, isn't that what the kids are doing? They are going along with the teacher even though they think her idea is weird. If they didn't think that, they probably wouldn't have considered mentioning it to dad. My thought is that people pounce on anecdotal stories to try to prove that their view of "the other side" is correct. Not accusing you of this, but there are people who might take this story and run with it. The black and whiters make us think that the political opinion in this country is like a well curve when it's really more like a bell curve.
 
Cooter said:
Are you asking this because you don't know or are you trying to stimulate discussion? I think the answer is rather obvious. Whether you want to accept it or ignore it is another story. How is this significantly different from the pop-tart story, or the one linked above, any number of other stories where any amount of discretion is removed from the educators and they are forced to follow insane zero/tolerance policies that have no beneficial effect? (Is that a run-on sentence?) To miss the trajectory that we are on either supremely ignorant or intentionally dismissive.
Edit: I forgot the obligatory IMHO.
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No it's an honest question about HOW we get to this stage of people willingly doing such odd things totally against their own nature. (Teachers usually are deeply motivated to teach, far more than motivated to be political. Even the most political teachers I had in school were dedicated to education before politics.)

What changed to scare them into thinking they couldn't be educators first and political beings second? A small but vocal (and generally annoying to centrists, who are still the majority of people by huge margins) group of political activists?

I'm not even convinced that all school administrators are leftist... a majority perhaps, but I personally know one who isn't, and numerous righty teachers.

But the family thing made me realize that all you have to do is threaten anyone's job to get them to at least clam up for a while... which led to the thought that this is all really about bullying people by threatening to fire them if they do their job correctly...

And that's fairly insane, by any measure. So I wondered and posed the question... HOW did we get to that point? Too many people worried the minority political creatures amongst us normal folk will fire them and make them job hunt? That's one theory I'm not really completely convinced of yet, but the discussion seems to lead there. Others welcome.

I'm also not completely convinced it's all about "controlling the debate"... or the further whacked idea that it's all a big conspiracy. It's weirder and broader than that.

I grew up with parents who had deep political convictions (both sides, actually, and they were divorced so... got to hear both regularly) and neither was particularly shy about voicing them. Nobody got "offended" by them, or tried to get them fired from day jobs for it. If they disagreed they simply debated them, or didn't, their call.

But going all the way to banning basic vocabulary in one generation's time, half that, actually... seems to indicate some massive shift in peoples base fears happened. My folks (and I) aren't afraid to talk about politics with people, nor do we get all bent out of shape to the point of screaming that the world is coming to an end if they disagree.

But a generation raised to accept that certain words must be banned to make everyone feel "safe" from vocabulary... might be more willing to stifle their conversations about it.

Or so one would think.

But instead that generation is protesting elections...?

So yeah, it's an honest question. I'm somewhat confused by the underlying motivations as they relate to what we already know about human nature.

Teachers don't ALL willingly just stop being dedicated to education who've been educators for a long time, simply because society is pretending to be harmed by words and debate. And I mean real teachers, here... folks who deep down feel their purpose in life is education.

Trying hard here not to necessarily make the questions lead back to politics. Mostly because I don't believe the general BS that the "country is completely divided" or "only one side can win", that's overly popular right now. That's someone manipulating people to think so.

And maybe that's part of the equation. Make people think they need to be on a "side" and it's all just a two-team sporting event...

Don't know. Intensely curious though. Not a fan of the unnecessary drama and paranoia.
 
Sudden thought: Maybe having a far righty dad and a far lefty mom isn't such a bad thing after all... made it pretty clear that both sides screwed and helped each of them nearly equally while also seeing that neither was correct. Noted only as a side note, since I'm trying to figure out motivations of modern folks... they certainly were more motivated in their prime by simply trying to get by and both had some healthy skepticism of things politicians said and promised...

But I do wonder if they'd have worked in workplaces who had people willing to actively push for them to be fired over politics, if they'd have been scared enough to stifle their convictions just to feed us kids.

That's probably an interesting question to ask the one that's still alive, while I can. But I think the answer for the other one is "no", they'd have just found a different job for a different employer who didn't put up with tying job performance to anyone's politics.

(That's another oddity of the modern fear... bosses telling people in emails that if they voted for one side or the other, to plan on packing their bags and leaving their employ? I mean seriously... it's one thing to maybe tell people to stifle it ALL at work a little bit (people will still talk politics around the water cooler, those rules are generally ignored), but a CEO who's so paranoid they won't tolerate even employing anyone who disagrees with them politically? Or thinks their staff and teams are stronger when they're all on the same page politically?)

It's just weird. Very weird. I'd honestly be worried a bit about any workplace that bent on any particular ideology. Obviously some types of jobs attract people from a particular ideological bent, but it's going past that into threatening livelihoods over non-objective things unrelated to the jobs that need doing.

Sorry, just remarking out loud, because it's downright strange.
 
denverpilot said:
No it's an honest question about HOW we get to this stage of people willingly doing such odd things totally against their own nature. (Teachers usually are deeply motivated to teach, far more than motivated to be political. Even the most political teachers I had in school were dedicated to education before politics.)

What changed to scare them into thinking they couldn't be educators first and political beings second? A small but vocal (and generally annoying to centrists, who are still the majority of people by huge margins) group of political activists?

I'm not even convinced that all school administrators are leftist... a majority perhaps, but I personally know one who isn't, and numerous righty teachers.

But the family thing made me realize that all you have to do is threaten anyone's job to get them to at least clam up for a while... which led to the thought that this is all really about bullying people by threatening to fire them if they do their job correctly...

And that's fairly insane, by any measure. So I wondered and posed the question... HOW did we get to that point? Too many people worried the minority political creatures amongst us normal folk will fire them and make them job hunt? That's one theory I'm not really completely convinced of yet, but the discussion seems to lead there. Others welcome.

I'm also not completely convinced it's all about "controlling the debate"... or the further whacked idea that it's all a big conspiracy. It's weirder and broader than that.

I grew up with parents who had deep political convictions (both sides, actually, and they were divorced so... got to hear both regularly) and neither was particularly shy about voicing them. Nobody got "offended" by them, or tried to get them fired from day jobs for it. If they disagreed they simply debated them, or didn't, their call.

But going all the way to banning basic vocabulary in one generation's time, half that, actually... seems to indicate some massive shift in peoples base fears happened. My folks (and I) aren't afraid to talk about politics with people, nor do we get all bent out of shape to the point of screaming that the world is coming to an end if they disagree.

But a generation raised to accept that certain words must be banned to make everyone feel "safe" from vocabulary... might be more willing to stifle their conversations about it.

Or so one would think.

But instead that generation is protesting elections...?

So yeah, it's an honest question. I'm somewhat confused by the underlying motivations as they relate to what we already know about human nature.

Teachers don't ALL willingly just stop being dedicated to education who've been educators for a long time, simply because society is pretending to be harmed by words and debate. And I mean real teachers, here... folks who deep down feel their purpose in life is education.

Trying hard here not to necessarily make the questions lead back to politics. Mostly because I don't believe the general BS that the "country is completely divided" or "only one side can win", that's overly popular right now. That's someone manipulating people to think so.

And maybe that's part of the equation. Make people think they need to be on a "side" and it's all just a two-team sporting event...

Don't know. Intensely curious though. Not a fan of the unnecessary drama and paranoia.
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I'm having a hard time understanding your confusion, and an even harder time sifting through the mass of words to find out exactly what the confusion is. ;)

For one, you give too much credit to teachers. They can be just as shaped by political ideology as anyone else, and I would suggest probably more so.

Take a look at this link:
https://pjmedia.com/blog/the-obama-administration-debuts-its-latest-euphemism/

Shaping language eventually has the effect of shaping thinking. Go back and read the 1984 quote above, I was going to post something along those lines but someone beat me to it. There has been a huge shift in modern American thinking to accept this idea that you can create your own reality. I was first introduced to it through a group called the Avatars (this was before the movie and common use on the internet). But from Robert Shuler to many of the modern life coach types, this idea has really taken hold. This can take the form of speaking/thinking positive thoughts, or avoiding negative thoughts, words and phrases. The current administration doesn't want a war on terror, so they change the language to say that we have oversea contingencies. Think about the abortion debate, it became about pro-choice and reshaped the entire debate. Language is powerful. Saul Alinski was aware of this and he used it to advance his ideology. Read a little about him and you will quickly come to understand why the political discourse is what it is today. One of his disciples currently has the most public platform in the world and has been very faithful to Alinski ideology. Combine this with people's reluctance to think, willingness to follow emotion as their guide, and blind trust in their leaders and you can start to understand why teachers can act so stupidly. I can say more, but I'm sure it will begin to violate the ROC.
 
Cooter said:
I'm having a hard time understanding your confusion, and an even harder time sifting through the mass of words to find out exactly what the confusion is. ;)

For one, you give too much credit to teachers. They can be just as shaped by political ideology as anyone else, and I would suggest probably more so.

Take a look at this link:
https://pjmedia.com/blog/the-obama-administration-debuts-its-latest-euphemism/

Shaping language eventually has the effect of shaping thinking. Go back and read the 1984 quote above, I was going to post something along those lines but someone beat me to it. There has been a huge shift in modern American thinking to accept this idea that you can create your own reality. I was first introduced to it through a group called the Avatars (this was before the movie and common use on the internet). But from Robert Shuler to many of the modern life coach types, this idea has really taken hold. This can take the form of speaking/thinking positive thoughts, or avoiding negative thoughts, words and phrases. The current administration doesn't want a war on terror, so they change the language to say that we have oversea contingencies. Think about the abortion debate, it became about pro-choice and reshaped the entire debate. Language is powerful. Saul Alinski was aware of this and he used it to advance his ideology. Read a little about him and you will quickly come to understand why the political discourse is what it is today. One of his disciples currently has the most public platform in the world and has been very faithful to Alinski ideology. Combine this with people's reluctance to think, willingness to follow emotion as their guide, and blind trust in their leaders and you can start to understand why teachers can act so stupidly. I can say more, but I'm sure it will begin to violate the ROC.
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Fair enough. But I don't see the word "knife" as particularly negative or positive. It's just a knife.
 
denverpilot said:
Fair enough. But I don't see the word "knife" as particularly negative or positive. It's just a knife.
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Ha, to you it's just a knife. But once you stop and consider how much violence and aggression has been carried out by those who were empowered by knives, you'll understand that they represent something much more sinister. To some, it's just a tool to butter their bread, or open a letter or package. But for others, it's a reminder of all the atrocities that have occurred at the end of a sharpened blade. In your protected, privileged, upper middle class American life, you can choose to support this silly American love affair with knives, or you can choose to show love to those who suffer and bring them in from the margins. Will you stop this insensitive, calloused, and hostile talk of knives? Will you stop the hate, and stand up for those who are hurt by this hateful word?
BAN BOSSY!! I mean, BAN KNIFE!!
Sorry, I momentarily confused my propaganda.
 
Cooter said:
Ha, to you it's just a knife. But once you stop and consider how much violence and aggression has been carried out by those who were empowered by knives, you'll understand that they represent something much more sinister. To some, it's just a tool to butter their bread, or open a letter or package. But for others, it's a reminder of all the atrocities that have occurred at the end of a sharpened blade. In your protected, privileged, upper middle class American life, you can choose to support this silly American love affair with knives, or you can choose to show love to those who suffer and bring them in from the margins. Will you stop this insensitive, calloused, and hostile talk of knives? Will you stop the hate, and stand up for those who are hurt by this hateful word?
BAN BOSSY!! I mean, BAN KNIFE!!
Sorry, I momentarily confused my propaganda.
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LOL... you're pretty good at that. I'm pretty good at ignoring those who rant that sort of silliness, but I guess it works on more people than I think it does.

A big clue that sets the BS meter to pegging the needle and flashing the overload light for me is anytime the phrase "hateful word" is mentioned. There's very few times I've heard words be hateful... :)

"Insensitive, Calloused, and Hostile", is just the name of my attorney's law firm. Haha.
 
I'm just glad that I grew up in a day and place where all of the boys carried bladed hand instruments in their pockets but none carried leaded projectile expulsion devices though we all had them at home and all fights were settled with just our fists. I can still write/say fist, can't I?
:confused:
 
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