To set the tone for my blog, and to reinforce my thesis that musicals can be especially helpful to our discussion, I provide you with a sampling of the Tony-award winning hit, ‘Avenue Q.’ The show is inspired by, and is in the style of, the children’s educational program Sesame Street, but instead of pre-schoolers chanting the alphabet, the characters are in their early-to-mid twenties, and they face very adult problems. The result is spectacular satire, if not a complete perversion of everything we remember and loved about Big Bird and Kermit the Frog.
This song is one of my favorites, though the validity of the message is dubious. Is it true that ‘everyone’s a little bit racist’? Should we tolerate ‘ethnic jokes’ in the interests of good humour? Has political correctness gotten out of control in today’s society? We all have our boundaries. As teachers, is it wiser for us to play it safe by being conservative in these boundaries, or should we be flexible depending on the situation and the student? For instance, most of us would chastise a student for a harsh racial slur, but do we also ban all those banal jokes that begin with "So a priest walks into a bar and..."? While we're at it, do we ban blonde jokes, too? At what point are we oppressing students' rights to self-expression more than we're protecting them from discrimination?
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1 comment:
Kristen,
Wow! This is fantastic...what an interesting and thoughtful perspective you're bringing into your blog. It's a pleasure to read, and I look forward to doing more of it.
See you in class!
Lisa
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