Parents of Shallowater High School students, near Lubbock, Texas, had plenty to say recently about an assignment they didn't understand.
When a teacher there was introducing kids to gender roles in the age of chivalry, she gave boys and girls each sets of instructions for behavior.
Girls were told not to "show intellectual superiority if it would offend the men around them,” and to "obey any reasonable request of a male."
As for boys, "Gentlemen will rise when a lady walks into a room. Gentlemen should bow when greeting a lady," etc.
The assignment had been used the year before, but this time, a local journalist tweeted a copy of the instructions, and parents erupted in indignation.
They seemed to think that the teacher was giving serious real-life instructions, not simply showing how bizarre and different life was in the 1300s. The assignment drew such outrage that the district withdrew it.
To be fair, older Americans know that these forms of "chivalry" didn't really start to die until the 1960s. But still.
It seems that Texas needed to raise its educational standards starting about 25 years ago.
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