The Language Police
How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn
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If you’re an actress or a coed just trying to do a man-size job, a yes-man who turns a deaf ear to some sob sister, an heiress aboard her yacht, or a bookworm enjoying a boy’s night out, Diane Ravitch’s internationally acclaimed The Language Police has bad news for you: Erase those words from your vocabulary! Textbook publishers and state education agencies have sought to root out racist, sexist, and elitist language in classroom and library materials. But according to Diane Ravitch, a leading historian of education, what began with the best of intentions has veered toward bizarre extremes. At a time when we celebrate and encourage diversity, young readers are fed bowdlerized texts, devoid of the references that give these works their meaning and vitality. With forceful arguments and sensible solutions for rescuing American education from the pressure groups that have made classrooms bland and uninspiring, The Language Police offers a powerful corrective to a cultural scandal.
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This book started slow and I skimmed quite a bit of it at first but I really liked the last three chapters, particularly the chapter on English literature and the one on history. Just confirms my beliefs that most textbooks are crap and only likely to get worse. The book is over 10 years old now so some of the current issues are different but many are still the same, or just come in different guises.
Does this sound familiar to any student, teacher or parent? “Today's literature textbooks are a pot pourri of fiction, nonfiction, social commentary, graphics, special features, and pedagogical aids. Even when the selections are good, the texts are almost painful to read because of their visual clutter and sensory overload”. It certainly describes the new reading book and the science book adopted by Seminole County Public Schools for their elementary schools.
A few other great quotes:
“Great literature is not ‘relevant' because it echoes the students' race, gender, or social circumstances, but because it speaks directly to the reader across time and across cultures”.
“The soul of historical research is debate, but that sense of uncertainty and contingency seldom find its way into text books”.
and finally “Intelligence and reason cannot be achieved merely by skill building and immersion in new technologies; elites have always known this and have always insisted on more for their children”. Are you listening our political masters? You are insisting that public school systems teach one way whilst ensuring that your own children are taught a better way. No, silly me, of course you are not listening.
