Shallowater School’s Chivalry Assignment Is Rightly Canceled
I'm rarely surprised anymore as stories circulate from either side of any worldview. Whether it be wokeness or snowflakes or ultra-conservative, I've come to expect that people being offended in this hyper-sensitive world is just the current normal. I think one reason I'm rarely surprised by these stories is that I see myself as a fairly open-minded individual that tries to see both sides of any story before making any judgment if I feel the need for judgment at all.
Rarely does anyone need my judgment. But every once in a while a news story flashes by my face that absolutely stuns me.
That happened this morning when I saw a press release from Shallowater ISD that said, "This assignment has been reviewed, and despite its historical context, it does not reflect our district and community values. The matter has been addressed with the teacher, and the assignment was removed."
I hadn't seen the original assignment, so I assumed this was petty outrage about somebody's version of equality. But it was so much more. Here's a copy of the assignment from BrandiAddison on Twitter:
The assignment wants to let all the nice young women at Shallowater High School get a taste of what it was like in medieval times. Seriously. The "concept of courtly love" includes making the fillies of Shallowater dress in a way that's pleasing to men. But please keep it within the guidelines of the school dress code.
They also must curtsy, not complain, cook sweet baked goods, not initiate conversations, and more. The craziest one implies that in the halls of Shallowater, ladies should not show "intellectual superiority" to avoid offending the boys.
The assignment stops just short of encouraging the girls to contract the Bubonic Plague and get married to the first person she saw in homeroom.
Kudos to the Shallowater ISD administration for shutting this down, but my question is how was this ever even sent out to the parents? Was it a rogue teacher taking it upon themselves to enforce the dark ages again? Teachers have an incredibly difficult job to make lesson plans that keep the students engaged and are more than worksheets, but this is such a blatantly stupid assignment that I'm shocked it got past the planning phase.
Is there no oversight on the lesson plans? No bouncing of ideas of a couple of coworkers?
Teachers are (mostly) awesome. This assignment, however, was not, and the backlash was swift and just.