Nature Words Dropped From Children’s Dictionary
“Humans seldom value what they cannot name.” -Elaine Brooks
To make way for modern tech terms such as BlackBerry, blog, voicemail and broadband, the latest edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary has opted to drop terms pertaining to nature. No longer can a child check this dictionary and learn more about the blackberry, dandelion, acorn, heron, otter, magpie, sycamore, or willow.
Why were these words deemed expendable? A statement from the Oxford University Press clarifies:
the 10,000 words and phrases in the junior dictionary were selected using several criteria, including how often words would be used by young children.
I’m sorry, maybe I’m missing something here…but which word does your child use more? Broadband…. or dandelion?
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As a self-proclaimed word nerd, I am outraged.
To learn something’s name is to make it your own, to give it a place in your mental library. There is a world of difference between knowing that birds exist, and knowing their names: chickadee, towhee, titmouse, jay. Heron, magpie. Knowing the names, learning the distinctions, gives clarity and nuance; life and personality.
You cannot love a thing until you know it, and when you know it you call it by name. It belongs to you.
While I can understand adding technology words into the dictionary, I cannot understand taking nature words out, devaluing their relative importance. Studies already show that children can name more Pokemon than wildlife species. They need more accessibility to nature names, not less.
The Oxford University Press claims that it has removed these nature words because they are less relevant to today’s plugged-in child. So our role as parents is clear: we need to make these words once again relevant to our children. We need to give children enough time and solitude in nature to experience the sacred quiet that nature affords. We need to travel to see the marvelous diversity and majesty of nature, but also find the commonplace wonders in our backyards- like dandelions. We need to teach our children the names, the distinctions. We can involve them in programs like birdcounts and spider webwatches that authenticate this learning. We can set up bird feeders and go on hikes. We can experience, observe, and call all the species by name.
We can make a wish and scatter dandelion seeds. And maybe then they’ll put dandelion back in the dictionary.
What do you think? Is it valid in today’s world to favor BlackBerry over blackberry?
Photo Credit: boyghost under Creative Commons
I love technology in our lives, but this is an ABSOLUTE disgrace. So sad. I think that most children understand the majority of terms they added in the “technology” realm by the time they can speak, while they’ll grow up without learning about some of the world’s greatest assets. Unbelievable. Don’t suppose there’s a petition to change their minds? They should at least be made aware of their inane decision making.
It pains me to think that children need to know a BlackBerry over a blackberry. To me, it is more telling about the parents’ priorities than the interests of a child. Sad.
This is the first I’ve heard of such an atrocity, even though on Shaping Youth we cover ‘media and marketing’s impact on kids!’ egad! I know the ‘urban dictionary’ offers slang, and the “Visual Thesaurus” adds media components, but I’d never believe this swap out would be sanctioned…I MUST look into this…and um, blog it. sigh.
p.s. This is a piece I wrote called “Media Savvy Kids & Nature Deficit Disorder” along those lines: http://blog.shapingyouth.org/?p=131
Someone has to tell this story to Richard Louv!! ack!
[...] whole thing broke in the UK back in early December, and the story just now seems to be infuriating “green” parenting bloggers here in North America (tho we read about it first at Next Nature), who are all posting pictures of [...]
Many of the other words that were dropped from this particular dictionary were Christian ones. I’ve heard the revamp was an attempt to make the book seem “less biased” towards traditional Anglo culture (the current editor is of South Asian heritage).
They removed “dandelion” and added “celebrity”. Maybe in the next version Britney Spears and Paris Hilton will be in the dictionary. They might need to remove “sun” and “moon”, however.
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