One of the school boards in Texas found themselves on the hot seat after one of their lesson plans got leaked on Twitter. The history assignment on gender roles in the middle ages was met by parents brandishing pitchforks and torches. Apparently “chivalry” is indeed dead. It’s no longer anywhere close to politically correct.
School Board cancels Chivalry Day
Teachers in Lubbock County’s Shallowater Independent School District are longing for the days when all they had to worry about was getting infected with Covid-19. Things got medieval when the faculty tried to get young gentlemen and ladies to understand how “the code of chivalry and standards set in the medieval concept of courtly love carries over into the modern day.”
Short answer, it doesn’t. Not by a long shot. The meaning of the word has changed a lot and the words they used to bring it up to date only poured gas on the fire.
Back in Medieval Europe, armored knights on horseback had a strict code that governed their conduct. “Nowadays, when we say that chivalry is not dead, we are alluding to the high standard of character and conduct typically associated with gallant knights,” the assignment explained.
They lost everyone right after that. The parents didn’t get that lesson when they were in school either so the whole concept shocks them silly.
Literate people don’t blame the district for trying to make it fun “while giving them a better understanding of how pervasive gender inequality was in medieval times.”
The problem is that literate people aren’t the ones obsessively following Twitter. Those people didn’t get much out of school either. They look at only the list of “rules” for girls and totally burn down the internet over it.
Here’s a really … interesting … assignment on chivalry from @shallowaterisd. They are requiring the female students to lower their heads and curtsy for men; clean up after men; cook for and bring a drink to the men’s class. This goes on for the entire day … even at home. pic.twitter.com/i81Zr2iAva
— Brandi D. Addison Davis 🗞 (@BrandiDAddison) March 3, 2021
Dress to please male students
You can imagine what the lesbian-leaning students at the high school were thinking when they got instructions that for an entire day they had to “obey any reasonable request of a male” and dress to “please” male students.
They can object all they want now, but back then they would have been burned alive for coming out of the closet. The Twitter post left out all the instructions the males had to follow. A list which “many parents would be happy to see their teenage boys embrace.”
As part of the role play assignment at school, “male students were instructed to wear coats and ties, rise when a lady enters the room and greet her with a bow, and refrain from vulgar words and phrases, among other niceties.”
The girls were encouraged to “address male classmates respectfully with a bowed head and curtsy.” The were asked to “refrain from showing intellectual superiority,” “dress in a feminine manner to please the men,” and “not complain or whine.”
Even after the kids got home from school, they were supposed to remain in character and have their parents sign off on their performance. Girls were expected to “clean up after the men.” and “bring in root beer, ginger ale or sparkling cider for the gentlemen.”
As the assignment states, “All ladies deemed worthy of the honor by the gentlemen will receive 10 points for every signature at the end of the day. Fathers and other adult males must insist on following the rules into the evening and may report to the judges (redacted) on these matters.”
