Bag's Rants

Whatever does it mean?

Reading this article about kids using 'whatev-ah' in school. Read here.

Apparently our modern teachers can't seem to understand that although it is annoying to us it is used by the kids as a catch all for 'Who cares?' There is talk about a zero tolerance policy. What does that mean? Are they going to expel kids who say it. Should help with the crowding then as from what I've seen most of the kids in school use it.

The main reason seems to be it's not a swear word so besides the fact you just want to punch them there is not a lot you can do. Banning even badly articulated words seems a bit daft to me. They will just move on to 'Asyewish' or 'Idontwanatalk' or something. What will we do then? Ban all words not in the dictionary?

The issue comes back to two things.

1) Kids don't want to do what we tell them to do. And for the same reasons we didn't when we were kids. In those days we just screamed 'No' and so on and then went out a huff. Today's kids are no different. They just use different ways of expressing it.

2) Lack of parental control. When you want to punish them for being cheeky and unruly the law is on their side. So they know they can get away with it. This is the issue we should be looking at.

I'm concerned about number 2 but I don't see 'whatev-ah' as something to start putting people on the wrong track for.

The next generation of mindless drones being developed for our lords and masters are clearly not quite ready yet.

posted by Bag @ 8:01 pm