A colleague of mine brought a certain article to my attention earlier today that I am simplied speechless over. Well, at least was. Now I've grappled with it and can verbalize my absolute disgust. An elementary school in Menifee, California actually came up with the idea of banning dictionaries from school classrooms. Yes, and institute of education has made the conscious decision to stop the learning right when unknown words come about.
This controversy started over a couple of playful 9-year-olds who expressed curiosity over the term "oral sex". After discovering the definition, they did what any other kid with that information would do- tell absolutely everyone they know. So eventually, the teacher found out, an uproar occurred and "Merriam-Webster" was no longer a classroom name.
There is really no point in laying out all the reasons that this extreme solution was an incorrect one. Students will never be able to look up new words or even ones they come across everyday and are just not sure the definition. Nouns, adjectives, verbs all mesh together into indecipherable jibberish, with a serious lack of vocabulary. Kids shouldn't be allowed, let alone encouraged to learn on their own terms!
So how long is long enough before these prepubescent brats get their dictionaries back? I suppose it doesn't matter. After all, if you can't look up "oral sex" in a dictionary, just wait until after school when the kids sit at dad's computer and look up "oral sex" on the internet. I'm sure Google can provide a much more vivid image than Merriam-Webster ever could.
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