I found out today that using the adjective “stupid” in any context will get you in trouble at the public school my son attends.

Doesn’t matter if you call yourself stupid or if you are struggling with a backpack zipper that won’t open.  If you utter the “s-word” (the one with six letters, not four) the teacher will formally punish you.

Glinda is not happy.

While I fully understand that stupid is a word with an inherently negative connotation, since when do schools get to go around with a list of forbidden words that aren’t considered curse words?

If someone were to insult a classmate by calling them stupid, then those circumstances certainly warrant discipline.  An insult of any kind should have swift repercussions, regardless of the words chosen.  However, merely describing a situation as stupid and getting into trouble for it seems… stupid. 

You know I had to go there, didn’t you?

Forget book banning, schools are now effectively selectively banning common words they don’t like.

I personally don’t think the term “ugly” is any better than “stupid.”  I can’t think of many situations in which one can use the word ugly in a positive way. Let’s ban that one next! How about “fat?” ” Emaciated”  doesn’t conjure up a big smile, either.

Hell, let’s just pool together a list of words that aren’t nice and forbid kids from saying them.  Then school is guaranteed to be a place that is always affirming and uplifting! 

Tomorrow, the Munchkin and I are going to sit down with a thesaurus.  I’m going to teach him the myriad ways in which you can convey the exact same meaning as the word stupid.  Some of them might even technically be worse than the word stupid.

Except those won’t automatically get him into trouble.