Politically Correct, My Ass - by Philip

In addition to the woeful state of sex ballads in contemporary popular music that I mentioned in my last post, I have also been wondering about the curious state of childhood education in America today. First, I should say that I have no idea how I survived my own childhood. Within five minutes of getting home from watching Mary Poppins, my brother and I were jumping off the roof holding umbrellas. We used to hose down our driveway and ride our bikes full-speed toward the house, then slam on the brakes and skid to a halt just inches from our front brick wall. And don’t even ask what happened the day after we saw the “That’s Incredible” episode featuring a man who rode a motorcycle through a tunnel of flames. My melted shoes are probably still buried out behind the shed.



But all of these issues probably have more to do with neglectful parenting (Hi, Mom!) than with national policies governing the care and well-being of our children. Here are some examples of rules that are actually in effect at my daughter’s elementary school:

When I was a kid, we used to play Cowboys and Indians by making guns and bows & arrows out of sticks and chasing each other around the playground wielding them as weapons. At my daughter’s school, if children make a gun shape with any object, including their hands, they are automatically suspended. They also have to call the game “western frontiersmen in unfortunate conflict with Native Americans” and conclude each recess with a group hug and some legalized gambling. Okay, I might have made up that last part.

At my school, we played tag, crack-the-whip and football during recess. At my daughter’s school, they are not allowed to play any game that will cause them to come into physical contact with another student. Seriously.

From the age of six, I used to walk to and from school, crossing several streets including one major roadway. No students are allowed to leave my daughter’s school without being signed out by an adult. Sure, that’s safer, but what about the many students who live within a couple of blocks of school and have parents who are totally in the middle of a Mine Sweeper game and can’t get to school on time? Didn’t think about that, did you, San Francisco Unified School District?

I used to celebrate Columbus Day. My daughters celebrate Indigenous People’s Day. We also, for some reason, never celebrated Gay Pride Day at my elementary school in Louisiana in the 1970s. I’m actually happy about these attempts to increase children’s awareness of issues, but this post is all about pointing out the differences. Mainly, I just wish that I could have asked all of my school friends, “Did you get off on Gay Pride Day?” since that would have been hilarious.

One change that has been inarguably positive is that my kids are getting a much better education about how their bodies work than I did, which was none at all. At my school, the fifth-grade class was banned from submitting articles to the school paper because one of the pieces they wrote included the word “period.” My fourth-grader came home from school a couple months ago and said, “Our puberty teacher said we need to bring a period pack to school. I found the pads and the sanitizing hand gel, but I still need tampons and a heating pack for my uterus.” That is not at all the answer I was expecting when I asked how her day went.

Naturally, my question is whether these changes in how we raise our children are a good or bad thing. It’s great to make kids aware that their teasing, bullying and isolation of others have lasting negative effects. But doesn’t this make it difficult for kids to determine their social pecking order, which constitutes a major tenet of Darwinism? If little dweeby kids grow up with healthy self-esteems and outgoing personalities, then who will want to spend enough time in laboratories to invent the genetically engineered transplant organs that I’m going to need? It’s certainly not going to be those big dumb kids, whom I will need later to entertain me with their UFC bouts and hilarious mug shots.

Of course, I tend to err on the side that evolution has brought us to a more enlightened state now than we were in when I was a kid. However, I can't help but think that skinned knees and bloody noses teach as much about life as Geometry and English Lit. I have certainly gotten more practical use out of knowing, for example, what to do in case a teeny little gasoline fire happens to break out in my driveway, than out of knowing the Pythagorean Theorem. Anyway, I would love to discuss this further, but I have to go to a school meeting to prepare for the celebration of Our Huggable Vegetative Friends Appreciation Day. You may remember it as Arbor Day.

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