TOPEKA, Kan. (September 4) - The Kansas Board of Education rejected the use of man-made stone tools Tuesday, dealing a victory to Neanderthal special interests who are increasingly challenging education in U.S. schools.
The 12-member board, ignoring pleas by more highly evolved Cro-Magnons, voted seven to five to embrace new standards for school curricula that eliminate the creation of stone tools and the fire bow as the underlying principle of educational advancement.
"It good thing," said Zog-who-live-in-big-cave-high-on-hill, a Neanderthal hunter-gatherer and school board member who helped create the new standards.
"Fire hurt," Zog said, adding that the use of stone tools and fire by students was "bad thing."
Individual schools can continue to teach higher forms of tool making, in classes between elementary and high school. However, knowledge of the creation and use of hand axes, and understanding of how to start a fire by rubbing two sticks together, will not be required and will not be needed to pass state-sanctioned tests.
School board members who were opposed to removing tool use from the curriculum recoiled at the change.
"Fire good. Fire is friend. Stone help kill animal. Get more food. Leave more little ones. Big smart babies," board member Oothar-Moon-Watcher, a Cro-Magnon, said.
Fire husbandry is traditionally thought to have been developed many seasons ago by the legendary Alley-Oop the Great. Use of fire, which is a creative as well as a destructive force, has been controversial ever since, leading to many attempts to ban the teaching of new technologies.
Stone tools are even older, dating back to Australopithecene use nearly 3 million seasons ago.
Prior to Tuesday's vote, the presidents of Kansas' six public universities wrote a letter saying the new standards "make Kansas weak. No fire is no stone tool and no spears. No spears is no fight Wakabu tribe! Wakabu come, take women. Make fiky-fik. Make Wakabu babies. Bad."
Prior attempts by Neanderthal groups to discard tool using in school curricula included a failed attempt in Arkansas in 2003 to ban the use of the wheel.
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