Education in the desert, part five

I've had a bit of a crisis lately. It goes something like this:

What the f- am I doing here?

(-uck omitted so my mum doesn't get too upset and stop reading)

There have been some retarded things going on in the academic world over the past six months, but a recent occurrence takes the cake. As usual, I'm going to have to do a little eggshell-walking in relaying it to you, so bear with me.

I've heard that the home-schooling movement, particularly in the United States, grew from fundamentalist (in the religious sense) roots. While researching the issue many years ago, I came across a piece that talked about the great disdain these pioneering religious nutters literalists have for the words "jeez" and "gosh" and its role in the home-schooling movement. The reasoning must have gone something like this:

"Jeez" is an abbreviation of "Jesus Christ," and "gosh" is something like "God" in disguise. We don't like to say the words "Jesus Christ" or "God" unless we're praying, so we don't like to say "jeez" or "gosh" either. Not only do we not like to say them, we don't want to hear them or read them. But there are so many people in the world who use "jeez" and "gosh," and so many books that have those words written in them. What to do, what to do? Wait! I've got it! We'll remove our children from society and not give them anything to read except bible stories.

Well, take that wackiness and multiply it by about eight million. Then imagine a bunch of young adults who have been so brainwashed and sheltered that the mere sight of "jeez" or "gosh" in a piece of writing nearly brings them to tears. It offends them. It makes them sad. Their solution? Never, ever, read anything like that again. Maybe just never read at all. That would be safe.

Now I'll tell you what offends me. I'll tell you what makes me sad. And I mean really sad. Sad with a capital S.

These kids weren't born this way. Someone intentionally did this to them.

If that isn't sad, I don't know what is.