Should gay themes be introduced to primary grade-schoolers?
Posted
November 20, 2006 at
4:09 am by
Jessica
One routine debate that comes up on The Imperfect Parent forums quarterly is the introduction of gay lifestyles into the public classroom. The debate is contentious and emotional and almost always ends with name-calling.
Dennis Prager, a conservative radio show host, contends that the gay marriage debate will be a defining factor in our nation, one that further separates and divides us much in the way abortion has. In some ways, it’s even more divisive, but the issue is not solely owned by the conservative movement. Given that 9 stated voted on banning gay marriage and only one moved not to, it is becoming clear that conflicting beliefs span over party lines.
It’s been my experience that more liberal leaning parents tend to side with integrating gay/bi/trans issues into early education, even as early as preschool; as a means to teach tolerance. My experience also tells me that more right leaning parents are opposed to it, arguing the rights of parents to introduce these types of issues and using tax dollars to what they see as indoctrination of children. While the deciding votes may be left up to the moderates, it becomes a heated debate in which people cannot help themselves from issuing personal attacks against each other.
In the recent past, news stories have surfaced about “diversity programs” in which young children in public schools read books that feature two dads or two moms, or organizations, designed to spread positive feeling and viewpoints about gay/bi/trans people. It usually makes news when a parent protests and asks why there wasn’t an opt-out program or why they weren’t informed and lastly, why this is part of the natural academic curriculum. These parents are either chastised or praised, according to ones personal beliefs.
This issue is still such that we are in the throws of determining a general consensus and a cultural and societal position on gay marriage, it’s no wonder it always become so explosive and heated. More and more, it is becoming about the norms that are mandated by the government and imposed on children. Children become the pawns of the political wars and at what cost? If we agree that there needs to be clear division of church and state, can we not see that the same of political agendas? Children get caught in the middle of whatever their parents political viewpoints are, which is fine at home, but is it okay at school?
For me, it’s not a matter of gay rights or whether or not alternative lifestyles are moral or immoral, but rather what is appropriate for young children. I also don’t trust schools and administrators (we all know how well American schools are run, right?) to teach a young child a complicated, grown-up matter in a way that preserves a child’s self-identity. In other words – doesn’t confuse them as to what being gay/bi/trans really is. I would rather leave that up to parents to explain to their children, even if that means some parents might pass on values and judgements that I don’t agree with because whether I agree with them or not, that is their right and unfortunately, their children will have to suffer the consequences of those teachings.
In my mind, children need more reading, writing and arithmetic and less responsibility for every-one’s self-worth. I hear small children made fun of by other parents for being naive, instead of celebrating their innocence. Let small children be little for just a little longer. Schools can teach universal acts of kindness and tolerance without expecting them to fight the battles of grown-ups and for that my friends, I am often times accused of being a bigot. You will have to take my word for it, that I am most certainly not a bigot and I wish no ill-will on gay couples or gay individuals, nor do I think they are doing anything wrong. What I do think is that relationships are complicated. Sex is complicated. Life is complicated — too complicated for small children to fully comprehend.
What do you think?
Should gay/bi/trans lifestyles be introduced to children as young as preschool?
Tags: conservative, gay-rights, gay/bi/trans-issues, liberal, News & Politics, Social Issues |
17 Responses to “Should gay themes be introduced to primary grade-schoolers?”
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1. Jessica Carlson said:
November 22, 2006 @ 7:32 am
2. Bon said:
November 24, 2006 @ 2:21 pm
lol! actually i did…i got all didactic and wrote a three paragraph post - and then picked up the baby and he whacked the keyboard and erased it all. so…i’ve just been building up the wherewithal to try again.
long comment short, i think you’re missing the point when you use the term “gay themes.” sure, if you’re going to explain the ins and outs (no pun intended) of same sex nookie to preschoolers, then that’s probably more than they need to know. and certainly it sounds lovely and inflammatory in your title.
but most of the same sex themes i’ve seen in preschool and elementary level curricula (i’m a teacher) are actually just about depictions of families. and i don’t think there’s any need or reason to say more than “some families look like this, other families look like this” when addressing the issue. we don’t feel compelled to tell kids all about the details of vaginal sex when looking at a picture of Dick and Jane and Spot and their nice heterosexual family…and i don’t think there’s any need to say more when looking at “Heather has two Mommies”. if you automatically think “perverse sex” when considering gay representations of family…you’re ignoring the fact that sex is at the root of most family arrangements (except those where the children are conceived by IVF, basically).
i don’t think there really is a “neutral” family - i guess that’s the difference between the way we see this issue. sure, to many white, two-parent heterosexual families (and i’m a part of one) their own reflection in the mirror looks nice and neutral and natural, but there’s actually politics involved in any family makeup…politics of race and gender relationships and allegiances and religion, etc. to a child from a single parent family, or a family of colour, or a family with two dads, or one with a number of step-parents and step-siblings, my family looks just as unfamiliar and non-neutral as theirs might to my child. i think the school system does a disservice to kids if it doesn’t represent all different types of families in the materials it uses in curricula. it doesn’t mean preschoolers need to hear about explicit sex, though…of any kind.
3. Jessica Carlson said:
November 24, 2006 @ 7:15 pm
My kids are exposed to all kinds of people, including gay people as we live near a huge, multi-cultural, metropolitan city, however I do not buy the argument that straight, traditional parents are political in their make-up as it’s a natural, biological necessity that men and women are together to continue our species.
Any discussion to pre-school children or elementary children beyond acknowledgement of different family make-ups and tolerance of people in general, I would consider inappropriate and ought to be left up to parents themselves to discuss with their children. If a small child asks, “What is gay?”, that isn’t the responsibility of a teacher to discuss with a child of that age.
I can only speak for America, but we spend the most on our education and have some of the poorest outcomes. I would hope that our focus would be on academics, rather than political ideals. There is plenty of time for that, and very young children need not be pawns for any political agendas and I include religious fundamentalists agendas in that too.
I think adults, seeing from a mature perspective of equality and fairness aren’t be respectful of really young children and their naivete. Let them be naive in a world that forces them to grow up too fast as it is. JMHO.
4. Sonia said:
November 26, 2006 @ 4:01 pm
As a preschool teacher by trade, I have worked with a variety of curriculli that have tried to make the discussion of family more inclusive. The best ones that I’ve worked with asked teachers to bring up discussions of family as simply as we brought up discussions about healthy foods and how to make friends. When teachers bring up “tough” issues in this way, all children feel part of the discussion and are free to bring up things they feel, have heard and wonder about. There are not wrong answers or questions. And teachers spend much less time on the touchy subjects of “alternative families” (which 50 years ago included Divorce, Adultery, and mixed marriages - including Lutheran and Catholics) than they would if they were trying to avoid the topics altogether.
Think of how much time you spend (or spent) trying to come up with the perfect explanation of how a baby comes into the world after your child asks how the new baby in the family/down the street got there; when all she/he wanted to know was which person brought them home? We complicate too much of what children want to, and need to know about life in our world. Just give them the chance to ask their innocent questions, give them brief and appropriate answers (i.e. babies grow in mommies when there is space in a family and lots of love to share) and then move on to all the other amazing things children need to know.
And do what, I think, Sister Theresa always said to do - It’s easier to ask forgiveness than to wait for permission. (And if you are a parent who doesn’t want to bring up these issues with your child, then you may want to keep them sheltered from any and all free discussions, reading materials, television shows, movies and theatre productions that bring up new ideas, because children are innocent but far from stupid.)
5. Jessica Carlson said:
November 26, 2006 @ 4:46 pm
Are you suggesting that teachers ask forgiveness instead of permission? Uh, that’s not how it works!
Furthermore, just because a parent chooses not to explain trans/bi/gay issues with their preschooler does not mean that they don’t read to them, keep them sheltered and squelch new ideas etc. First of all, even if that were the case (which I am a perfect example of disputing that suggestion and accusation), it is their RIGHT. People forget that even though they choose to bring up different topics at different times, does not mean that people that feel differently or ignorant or without their right to do so.
Our kids are not doing great academically as a whole, in America, so why don’t we go back to teaching them academics instead of pushing adult agendas that kids don’t care about. Preschoolers really don’t care about why someone went from being a man to being a woman or why men date each other. Those are adult issues and I think that adults care more about their own feelings than considering whether or not a child cares or can intellectually process what they’re being told. I agree that we should keep it simple and age appropriate, but I don’t agree that parents who choose to with-hold such information until they deem appropriate are somehow ignorant or sheltering (which you implied). Parents outside of your own belief system ought to be respected to and think it’s horrible that teachers demand the respect from parents, yet are often times the first to judge parents that parent differently from themselves.
Like I’ve stated before, my kids see plenty of gay couples and unlike what is suggested by the ultra left, they don’t inquire about it all the time and are super interested in what they’re doing. It just doesn’t come up, and when it does, I will explain it in a way that teaches tolerance, not in why that might confuse them. I don’t trust teachers to do that quite frankly. I think most teachers have a political agenda they want to push. JMHO.
6. Ruth said:
November 27, 2006 @ 2:05 pm
Our country is so very founded on individual freedom. No state-run institution has the constitutional responsibility to “manage” socialization.
We just need to get back to the three R’s in school.
For those concerned about the many social issues in our country today, and about the children who are not adequately cared for in that arena - I suggest taking personal responsibility and devoting a little time to a disadvantaged child. Modeling tolerance and kindness to them will probably go a very long way without the necessity to “indoctrinate” anyone.
And our laws need to be enforcable, enforced, and communicable.
7. Sonia said:
November 27, 2006 @ 2:59 pm
To all, especially Jessica,
I do think that academically, we are allowing students to be left behind other nations. That is a crime, not just against our children, but against our nation, because we are relying on the educational system to prepare a new generation for participation in a world community. Hard to do when so few young people are taught to love and be involved in engineering, high level math and sciences. All these are well beyond the three R’s - which we seem to do okay at. And this is ALL OF OUR FAULTS, not just teachers. Another topic, surely.
I also believe that everything in the media today brings up “adult” issues. I don’t mean to say that a teacher should or be allowed to belittle any parent’s style of raising their child.
But I do feel that many parents avoid issues that their children are dealing with because they don’t think the child is mature enough. How many people talk to a kindergartener about drug use? About dating relationships? About body issues? Maybe some do, and I applaud those who do, but gay/bi/trans issues go right along with those. I know quite a few gay/bi adults (and quite frankly, a few preschoolers who most likely were as well) and those adults told me that they knew of their attraction to someone “out of the norm” at age 4 or 5. If a child is dealing with any of these HUGE issues, having an adult gently, and appropriately open a discussion about them doesn’t teach them what to believe, but it does teach them words to use to share their thoughts and beliefs.
These issues don’t “appear” in adolescence or adulthood. They are just more apparent later in life. And no one can be indoctrinated to be tolerant. It’s just a respect and an awareness of other people.
And I have spoken freely with my preschoolers about the truth that not everyone thinks its okay for children to have two Mommies/Daddies, but I also talk about how that doesn’t mean that it’s okay to be mean to a child who does. (& not okay to be mean to the child who thinks it’s not okay to be gay/bi/trans).
I always welcome each family into my classroom and share with them that we are open with discussions about family and all aspects of life. I can’t always predict what conversation will come up each day, so I make sure that parents share their own thoughts on what issues they would like us to talk about. Death, birth, marriage, divorce, moving, illness, loss-of-employment, God and or no belief in God… all these ADULT issues have come up over and over. I just don’t think there should be any topic that is taboo for a teacher to have as an open and honest discussion- hold only that the teacher keeps a neutral and respectful-of-all control over that discussion. I guess that’s easier in my preschool classroom than it may be in high school, but not less important.
True, no state/government-run entity has the sole responsibility to socialize. I add that we are all in this socialization together, where none of us are alone or completely individuals coming up with thoughts or ideas. We just need to figure out that we aren’t all at war with each other, and maybe things would go more smoothly.
8. Jessica Carlson said:
November 27, 2006 @ 8:43 pm
Sonia, you said, “How many people talk to a kindergartener about drug use? About dating relationships? About body issues?”
Holy shit. I hope not many!!
9. amax said:
November 29, 2006 @ 10:08 am
“Holy shit. I hope not many!!”
Hmmm. I hope a lot are.
Jessica - I would think that there are plenty of people who talk to their small children about alcohol and tobacco in various ways and they are drugs. They are, however, societally accepted or I should say, legal. My boy has had those two drugs discussed as appropriate. If I were an illegal-drug-addict or in a relationship with such an addict, then talks about other drugs would surely be appropriate also.
I would also think there would be plenty of people talking to little kids about body issues - health, weight, height etc. My 3.5 year old knows that his Granny always says “I’m fat” when she looks in a mirror (or her wardrobe); she’s not particularly fat, but she sure does have a crappy body image and I do my best to put her comments into an understandable form whereby my child would not assume that women her size are ‘fat’.
Dating relationships. Well, we’re in the process of blending families and that has entailed some discussion with our children as to the nature of my partner’s and my dating relationship.
In my opinion a child should have a wide-reaching, all-encompassing, respectful view of their world. And I believe firmly that it takes more than two people (The Parents) to fill a child’s head with understanding. If a child’s questions are just trying-to-figure-it-all-out questions surely they deserve clear, timely answers.
So I’m with Sonia … “I just don’t think there should be any topic that is taboo for a teacher to have as an open and honest discussion - hold only that the teacher keeps a neutral and respectful-of-all control over that discussion.”
As for more of the 3Rs, I’d like to see kids explicitly being taught more life-skills. e.g.
~How to communicate openly and effectively.
~How to listen in the same way.
~How to balance a budget.
~How to feed a family of four on $5.
~How to cope.
~How to understand your own emotions and own them.
Those kind of wacky things.
10. Shannon Alday said:
November 29, 2006 @ 10:35 am
Oh, my goodness. Sexual preference should NEVER be taught in school, I don’t care what age. We have pro athletes making millions of dollars who cannot read or write. Our teachers need to be teaching reading, writing, and arithmatic. If they want to teach social issues or political issues, they need to get a night class and teach adults, not preschoolers. Our babies are being forced to grow up too fast as it is.
11. prescott said:
November 29, 2006 @ 10:54 am
Hmmm, I’m not sure why it’s so crazy for some to think that just because you are comfortable discussing a topic in your own home doesn’t mean it is A-OK for a teacher to discuss it in class. Did it ever dawn on you that perhaps it’s not solely that they want to keep the kids ignorant, but rather that they want to be responsible for the direction of the conversation??
I know it’s nice to believe that all teachers are smart, tactful, and full of sunshine and kittens, but the truth is that a large number of preschool/elementary school teachers are not equipped to discuss these topics in a way many parents would find appropriate, so they shouldn’t even try.
I love that the common complaint from teachers is that parents “want us to raise their children”, but then when some stand up and say, “uh, no, actually we don’t”, it’s this big issue.
12. Shannon Alday said:
November 29, 2006 @ 3:16 pm
Prescott,
I never thought for a minute teachers would want to keep kids ignorant. I just don’t think some things should be dealt with at school, certainly not with preschoolers.
Personally, I believe our children should be raised by the parents and educated (RR&R) by teachers. As it is, we have proof surrounding us, that parents aren’t raising their children and the teachers aren’t teaching them.
It seems as if so many people these days do not want to accept responsibility for raising their duties. It is our duty as a parent to raise our children in the home. It is a teacher’s duty to teach that child.
And you are so right, a teacher’s belief on certain subjects may not be what some parents want their children to know. This is why I think some things should be kept out of the school setting.
13. Jessica Carlson said:
November 29, 2006 @ 6:17 pm
amax, quite frankly, your child’s emotional baggage with his grandmother shouldn’t really be another preschoolers problem. \
If you feel so strongly about teaching your babies about sex and drugs, then go to town! Nobody’s stopping you! Worry about your own kids.
14. Shannon Alday said:
November 29, 2006 @ 7:10 pm
Thanks, Jessica.
15. amax said:
November 30, 2006 @ 7:44 pm
Jessica,
I never suggested for an instant that my “child’s emotional baggage with his grandmother” ought to be a standard preschooler education. It’s just that your “Holy Shit I hope not many” comment was so rude and denigrating. The comment was in response to Sonia saying parents avoided issues talking to their kids about hard stuff - that wasn’t just about teachers alone or teaching curriculum.
Everyone’s circumstances are different and I do not deserve your judgement for explaining where I felt it is perfectly appropriate to talk about ‘issues’.
16. Jessica Carlson said:
November 30, 2006 @ 8:53 pm
My response was fair given that talking to preschoolers about sex and drugs is highly controversial and representative of a POV far outside of majority and mainstream. If one is going to make such a provocative comment (in which they are certainly entitled to do!), then one must expect a vastly different point of view from those mainstream to moderate (or even conservative) parents.
[quote comment="10665"]Everyone’s circumstances are different and I do not deserve your judgement for explaining where I felt it is perfectly appropriate to talk about ‘issues’.[/quote]
I am not judging you. I don’t even know you. I was speaking purely from vantage point of the original topic, which questioned whether or not public schools and public school teachers had the authority to discuss controversial topics, such as the ones we’re discussing here, with very young children. Obviously a parent has the right to talk to their child about whatever topic they’re comfortable with, the debate is whether or not it’s appropriate with children who haven’t even started grade school yet, or who are just in grade school.
17. Jessica Carlson said:
November 30, 2006 @ 8:59 pm
So I’m with Sonia … “I just don’t think there should be any topic that is taboo for a teacher to have as an open and honest discussion - hold only that the teacher keeps a neutral and respectful-of-all control over that discussion.”
[/quote]
Oh, and one more point. You did say the above in the post I was responding to, so we are merging two very different conversations here.
It seems that there is a conversation going on about what parents should be able to discuss with their children, which is a non-debatable topic.
The first and original is whether or not teachers should be able to discuss any “taboo” topic with a preschooler/young, prepubescent child. A controversial debate in the blogosphere.