Or maybe, Jay, you're letting your imagination run wild and reading more into the assignment than necessary? Just an observation, of course.
When I was growing up during the reign of Shirley Temple movies dancing with Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, I wanted those beautiful, what was known as "Shirley Temple" curls. Not because she was a blonde blue eyed beauty, which she was/not that anyone could tell what color her eyes were on those black and white TVs back then. I just wanted to tap dance down that staircase with Bill "Bojangles" Robinson with my curls bouncing and flying. I mean I did have the hair for it. Lots of hair.
Jay, mama tried. She really did. With a pencil, water, and a little oil, I got my wish. Beautiful thick, long "Shirley Temple" curls hanging below my shoulders. Not blonde ones, of course. Then humidity and playing outside would set in, and WHOOSH! I'd have this huge afro. Now, afros weren't popular then and likely weren't even known on this side of the globe. That would come nearly a decade later. So you can imagine the ragging I got when those curls turned into this huge bushy, what would later become popular, afro. With name callings like bush princess, bush woman, Zulu queen. I'd be so embarrassed. Back then, we'd been misled to believe anything associated with Africa was a primitive place where people still swung from trees and wore bones in their nose, and not the earth shattering beautiful continent we'd later learn it actually was.
Would it be an issue with you if a child said they would change their name to Einstein? Marie Curie? Valentina Tereshkova? The first female, Soviet, to fly in space? Lieu Yang? The first Chinese woman to fly in space in 2012? Mae Carol Jemison? Doctor and engineer, the first black woman to fly in space, 1992? Ernest Everett Just, black marine biologist, who, during his lifetime, believed the cure for most cancers could possibly be in the study of marine animals? From his observation, marine animals appeared to have a high resistance to the often deadly illness? It would be many decades later, and after dying of cancer himself, the study of marine animals as a potential cure for most cancers would be considered.
All these and more, without regards to their gender or the gender of the student who might pick their names?
Jay, if my knees would allow it, I'd still like to dance down those steps with a Mr. Bojangles Robinson-like dancer, but I don't think my knees will allow it.
Jay, after our bumping of heads with one another and speaking truthfully with one another a few times, I came to understand your side more and also came away with a different perspective of you. A much better perspective, and even respect. But I think you're really stretching things quite a lot here, and letting your imagination run wild.
Brenda Washington
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I'm too old and skeptical of today's education bureaucracy to accept this as an innocent assignment. It strikes at the very identity of a kindergartener - typically a five-year-old. It's intrusive and inappropriate; it's a way of getting kids to question their parents' authority - any old school teacher would tell you this (and I'm related to a couple). And, to be blunt, it's a common Communist technique that was practiced in the former Soviet-controlled states and in present-day China by the Chinese Communist apparatus.
Further, in today's corrosive atmosphere of child victimization - with trafficking, abuse, manipulation, the introduction and spread of Social-Emotional Learning and other bureaucratic and state-sponsored intrusions - it's precisely the type of assignment that should be setting off alarm bells with discerning parents. In my day, it probably would have been better considered as a fun discussion topic rather than an assignment (as the original writer described it). However, considering today is certainly not the innocent age that Brenda Washington and I were brought up in, caution about the appropriateness of these kinds of assignments is most certainly warranted.
Some people will likely make fun of such caution, and more power to them, but in today's environment in which public trust has so often been abused if not disregarded, such trusting blindness is foolish - particularly when it comes to children.
Brendan Jennings