I used to use some old textbooks called Jack and Jill, in which the words ‘ugly’ and ‘pretty’ were represented by pictures of an ugly girl and a pretty girl. Jack and Jill was published back in the ’70s, but not much has changed in the book I’m using now, Hip Hip Hooray, in which pictures of pretty and ugly mice are used to teach the same words.
There have however been some more significant changes in Hip Hip Hooray. Take the story of Jack and the Beanstalk for example. The original book had Jack hiding in a bread oven, stealing bags of gold, magic hens and golden harps, and finally killing the giant. The politically correct version has Jack hiding behind a stove, taking back the gold originally stolen from his father, and the giant suffers nothing more than a bruised bottom as he falls from the beanstalk.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is another. In the original story, Injun Joe kills the doctor with a knife, but in the modern day version, Tom and Huck witness some men stealing a box of money.
In the politically correct world of mail carriers, firefighters, police officers and flight attendants, I find it increasingly confusing when teaching non-native speakers. For the most part, my adult students learned postman, fireman, policeman and stewardess when they were in junior high school. Now it’s my job to ‘correct’ them, using words I rarely use myself.
When I first came to Japan, the word ‘homemaker’ was prominent in the books I was given. Embarrassingly, I had to call Head Office to find out it meant ‘housewife’, and since there are so many housewives (edit: homemakers) in Japan, I had to start learning this new lingo pretty quickly.
To be honest, I’m quite reluctant to teach language I don’t use myself, and I do have limits. When it comes to games, I’ll still play hangman instead of spiderman because I think avoiding the noose is far more motivating than seeing a spider grow legs.
I’d like to hear other people’s opinions on politically correct ESL, so please leave a comment!
