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New school bans the word “school”
by Scott Gilbreath ~ January 2nd, 2009
More politically correct absurdity in the UK. Last week, it emerged that hundreds of schools have forbidden teachers to mark with red ink for fear of upsetting children. Now this:
A new £4.7million school has opened to controversy after banning the word ’school’ from its title because it has ‘negative connotations’.
Critics have slammed the decision as bowing to political correctness.
Sheffield’s Watercliffe Meadow, where the 481 primary school pupils are allowed to wear slippers instead of shoes, is instead to be called a ‘place of learning’.
“Learning” what, exactly?
A local MP beings news from planet Earth:
Sheffield Central MP Richard Caborn added: ‘I’m always open to new ideas but the reality is education is about preparing young people to live in the real world.
True, but a place of learning school that encourages pupils to believe that foolish euphemisms can ward off “negative connotations” isn’t living in the “real world”.
h/t: The Pearcey Report
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January 2nd, 2009 at 02:44 PM
I hope they are as successful in locating a PC employer with the same standards
Whether you like Bill Gates or not…this is pretty cool. Here’s some advice Bill Gates recently dished out at a high school speech about 11 things they did not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teaching has created a full generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept sets them up for failure in the real world.
RULE 1 Life is not fair – get used to it.
RULE 2 The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world
will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
RULE 3 You will NOT make 40 thousand dollars a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice president with car phone, until you earn both.
RULE 4 If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. He doesn’t have tenure.
RULE 5 Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping they called it Opportunity.
RULE 6 If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
RULE 7 Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
RULE 8 Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
RULE 9 Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.
RULE 10 Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
RULE 11 Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.
January 2nd, 2009 at 03:54 PM
Thanks, Steve. That’s all very sensible; unfortunately, common sense is in short supply in public education these days.
January 2nd, 2009 at 06:35 PM
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January 2nd, 2009 at 09:05 PM
Ahhh, while the world’s population continues to increase, it’s IQ remains the same…
January 5th, 2009 at 02:38 PM
STEVE L:
Good advice, but you have been the victim of a popular pass-along. Gates NEVER said those things in an speech to high school students. That was debunked several years ago. I don’t know if such a speech has ever been given by anyone to high school students. It should have been, and I’d like to believe it has been, but NO SOURCE for that advice has EVER been identified.
January 5th, 2009 at 03:43 PM
PP I wish I’d said it then. Regardless it’s a good dose of reality that youth should be aware of. My 11 y/o grandson seem to have the idea he can take his present personal habits and coolness into a work place and doesn’t understand Mom won’t be there to get him out the door and to work on time. Who ever wrote it, and SOMEONE had to should be awarded something.