Astronaut Neil Armstrong’s first remarks as he set foot on the moon stand among the most famous lines in history. “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” he exclaimed.
Every schoolchild learns those words. Unless you happen to be a student in New York. There, you might just find on the state’s standardized test for high school students something like this: “That’s one small step for a person, one giant leap for society.”
No, that’s not what Armstrong said. But it is a sanitized, politically correct, gender-neutral form of what Armstrong said, which we just made up.
To some New York educators, such sanitized language has been more important than the truth. The state’s Education Department has acknowledged that it routinely alters famous lines from speeches and literary texts when they are used to frame questions on the mandatory Regents English exam.
The state educators say they have been cleaning up quotes that use mild profanity or have a reference to a person’s race, religion, ethnicity or sexual preference so no student will be “uncomfortable in a testing situation.”
In one case, a writer’s description of a “gringo lady” was changed to read “an American woman.” In another, a boy described as fat was changed to “heavy.” In a third, the word “thin” was substituted for skinny.
It’s fine for New York’s educators to choose their own words carefully if they seek not to offend anyone.
It’s fine if they wish to pen some safe, comfortable mush. But these aren’t their words.
These are the words of some of the finest writers in the world. They were written to entertain and to educate and sometimes to enrage. They weren’t written to be sanitized by some test-giver who thinks he can turn Anton Chekov into a more sensitive guy.
Some of those authors whose original writings were revised for the Regents exam joined forces with groups opposed to censorship. They protested a practice that essentially re-writes history–history that some students may never have been exposed to in the first place.
The authors and artists were joined by outraged parents, and on Tuesday, the New York educators conceded defeat. Education Commissioner Richard Mills announced that the wording of texts on the Regents exams will no longer be changed for political correctness.
One suspects this decision comes not because the educators suddenly got smart, but because they were profoundly embarrassed by the widespread ridicule heaped on them after this silly practice was revealed.
At any rate, they’ve decided to let Faulkner be Faulkner. What a novel idea.
