UNDER THE MICROSCOPE

NEW SPECIMENS OLD SPECIMENS THE SCIENTIST MY LOG CONTACT ME
2002-06-04 - 9:57 a.m.

THE ENTRY THAT WASN�T

Some people mistakenly think that there was no entry yesterday. It�s not that I didn�t write an entry yesterday although not writing certainly would have been forgivable. It�s true that I spent yesterday going to work, picking Kat up with all of the junk from her locker, helping Kat study Spanish verbs, picking up Day-Hay and her friend A. from school, making sure their homework got done, getting them into costume, hair, and makeup for dress rehearsal for dance, being class mom for Day-Hay�s dance class at rehearsal, helping Day-Hay study her power words for English class, finding (maybe, just maybe) a caterer for Day-Hay�s bat mitzvah, and filling out and dropping off religious school forms for next year. It�s true that a lesser person would have been tempted to just blow off an entry and instead would have spent the computer time preparing an outline for the study session she�s running for Kat�s friends from history class. (I really wish that woman would learn to teach what she tests on but that�s a story for another entry.) But none of that explains it. I did write an entry. But the people who write the New York Regents Exam edited it for me and apparently not a single word was unobjectionable enough.

For those of you not in the know, the New York Regents Exams have existed for as long as I can remember. They are mandatory tests in various subjects that high school students in New York must take. This weekend, we learned that the literary excerpts used on the English exams are not true excerpts at all. Instead, the sensitivity guidelines caused such heavy editing of passages that, in many cases, the meaning is distorted. In other cases, the guidelines resulted in a substantial change of tone. The questions on these passages, however, often were questions that the original words answered far better than the edited versions.

Even with this explanation, you may be puzzled. �What could mild-mannered Plankton have written that would not survive?� you may ask. Well, I�m female and middle-aged and I said so. I probably shouldn�t have said so. Gender and age references could make some people uncomfortable. I spoke of my religion and I might have used the word �God.� I should have known those were no-nos. As I recall, I mentioned my hopes that the exercise program I started on would continue and I may have implied that I wanted to lose a little weight. Weight makes some people uncomfortable. I know I didn�t swear but they seem to have decided that saying, �ARGH!� was too much for tender sensibilities. Oh, yes, and they removed my reference to a rat race because some people like rats and race is on the list of forbidden topics, even if the point of the passage were a commentary on race relations which a reference to a rat race decidedly is not.

We can debate whether the New York Regents should try to ensure that their tests not offend anyone or contain any passage that they believe would be �uncomfortable� for a student to read. I�m not a big believer in sanitizing life so that nothing that matters can be said but I�ll accept that some people like writing that way. Writers may write to any standards or specifications they deem appropriate, however silly those standards or specifications seem. But the key here is that the Regents writers were not writing their own material. They were materially changing the works of others and passing the works off as the real thing. The writer in me is outraged.

What is writing but word choice? Being careful with words matters. As the poet Carl Sandburg once pointed out in �Little Girl, Be Careful What You Say�:

For words are made of syllables
and syllables, child, are made of ari-
and air is so thin-air is the breath of God-

To change a writer�s words without the writer�s consent is to damage the writing. Some words may be a little finger and others the heart all matter. The tone of some words may be just a passing mood of a piece while others are a character trait but even passing moods are part of what the piece ultimately is. Worse, to change the piece and act as though it is the original is to make the writer into someone he or she is not and was not. Removing the Jewishness from Isaac Balshevis Singer�s works is a betrayal of who Singer was.

So, rather than let the Regents make �my� writing betray me, I didn�t post.

Any way, that�s my story and I�m sticking to it.

LAST YEAR: The Wife of My Office
LAST YEAR YESTERDAY: I Married a Latent Philatelist

previous - next

|

Weblog Commenting and Trackback by HaloScan.com
Copyright 2006 by Ellen

join my Notify List and get email when I update my site:
email:
Powered by NotifyList.com

On Display Ring
[ Previous | Next ]
[ Previous 5 | Next 5 ]
[ List Sites ]

about me - read my profile! read other DiaryLand diaries! recommend my diary to a friend! Get your own fun + free diary at DiaryLand.com!