Re: Conceptual Tests

[Chris Horton <ChrisAHorton2@HOTMAIL.COM>]

Rick wrote:

> I will be Politically Incorrect here (not for the first time).  I assume
> these students intend to work in an English speaking society.  The school
is
> in IOWA!

PC rules are an unpleasant side effect of a revolution in behavior, the
effort to enforce decency on people who don't yet see the reason for it.
I've hated being called to account for being un-PC since my girlfriend, 30
years ago, gave me a verbal thrashing for calling her "little girl". I saw
her point - she was 5'6" and 150 lb, and knew some karate - but I felt
rejected because I wasn't allowed to "be myself" and be loved for it and I
resented the burden of self-monitoring it put on me.

But you know, I've never called a woman "little girl" since, and now it is
no longer a struggle.

 Perhaps some of us will live to see the end of the need for PC ness.

But recall the kind of world we inherited and the echoes of it we still have
to contend with.  The IQ test we still use today is a direct decendent of
the one which was developed to prove that Italian and Polish immigrants were
genetically inferior!   At the time - not so long ago, really - that seemed
like a reasonable conjecture to many learned people!

So let us argue from the evidence about what is best for all of our students
and take the burdens of PCness on with a wry smile

8-}

Chris Horton