Your tax dollars at work (or at non-work), according to the AP:
BOCA RATON, Fla. – Students say they hear a lot of profanity on television, and a high school easing its penalties for swearing now says television is where they should look for model language.
Do we sense a pass the buck in responsibilities here. Read on (if you dare):
Boca Raton Community High School students used to be suspended from school for cursing. But school administrators found that last year, some of their best students were getting suspended, sullying otherwise clean records.
This year, Principal Geoff McKee said students caught swearing would get a less severe penalty.
“If a bad word is not used to threaten, but rather to emphasize a point … the student would receive an in-school suspension on the first offense,” McKee said. “Societal standards have changed dramatically regarding acceptable language. If our policies do not change with societal standards, we set up our students for failure.”
Ah. So if it’s to emphasize a point, it really isn’t vulgar.
Well, we almost &^%$ in our pants thinking that schools have become so $(*%!ed up so they don’t teach standards — which we believe must be taught and if you disagree you can &$@!@? me. (Missing words: shifted…messed….email…)
Students have been told to model their choice of words on television newscasts.
Uh, oh. We can just hear the students now:
“My teacher Edna Schmidlap had a defining moment today when she told the class they would all flunk. They told her to &^%!@ herself — a phrase to emphasize the harm to her self esteem that her threat created. She tried to change the subject and teach biology. One girl whispered that Mrs. Scmidlap was a dork. Mrs. Schmidlap could not be reached for comment. Informed sources tell us the class is tanking in biology. An ROTC student talking to his buddy told of about how the poor grades could shatter his life. Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia will now give us his perspective on this controversy. Larry:”
The newscasters improvise without using profanity, McKee said.
“It’s the only place where they work to have language that’s acceptable to all,” McKee said.
Sudents at the school said they hear profanity used as method of self-expression in movies, on television and from their friends.
AHA! So:
–from now on our culture defers totally to the values and standards set down by movies and TV.
–in this case a school doesn’t adhere to a standard but passes the buck to Hollywood script writers, and advertising agencies.
Holy $%!*! (Missing words: Chinese food. I’m Jewish.)
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.