California lawmakers passes bill to teach gay history

Great Debates
1

Rejoice, for history in the Golden State has just gotten more fabulous!

I’m happy this happened and I cannot wait until 2015 when they adopt the new textbooks. Hopefully, a crazed Republican takeover won’t happen between now and then and reverse this. With the biggest state in the nation doing this, I hope this will spur other states to adopt these new guidelines.

It reminds me of a topic from a few months ago where Texas decided to go back in time and insert more emphasis on what they consider “good” history while at the same time placing less importance on minority contributions. This was a big deal because Texas apparently has a lot more centralized curriculum and their size gives them disproportionate influence on textbook authors.

At the time, I said I hoped California would do something similar, only in the opposite direction in order to balance out the lies that the conservatives in Texas wanted to put into the minds of impressionable youngsters. Now we’ve done it and its about damn time.

Of course, looking at the Yahoo user comments, one can see exactly why this is needed. To answer some of those dumb shits, the reason why minorities need to be mentioned in history is precisely because they’ve been oppressed and marginalized throughout the years. Ignoring history, or forgetting it, has terrible consequences. You cannot learn from past mistakes, lies are more easily spread without concrete data from which to learn, and it makes future tyranny that much easier. Even when history is remembered, without proper context, it may be misinterpreted. I was very disappointed to learn that some of the same people who marched for their rights during the Civil Rights era were some of the staunchest opponents of LGBT rights during Prop 8. They don’t realize how exactly the fight for civil rights for blacks and minorities parallel the same fight gays are having now

Moreover, when things are forgotten from history, either through inaction or purposeful erasure, others with an agenda would find it more easy to substitute their own version. I believe the Armenia Genocide happened, but most people don’t even know about it. I had to do research and read on my own to find out what the hell it was. The vehement denial on the part of the Turkish government whenever the subject is raised tells me that we cannot let those with ulterior motives other than the truth dictate the conversation.

If gays had a more prominent place in history, we would not have the level of ignorance on giving them something as basic as marriage rights. Whenever people talk about how marriage has never changed and we’d be redefining it if we allowed gays to marry, I cringe at their stupidity. Teaching gay history won’t stop that, but hopefully it will mitigate it just a little bit.

2

I agree that, in principle at least, this is a great move.

If nothing else, it’s an official recognition at the governmental level that gays and lesbians are a part of history and worthy of our attention and understanding. As someone who currently teaches U.S. history in the California public university system, and who tries to incorporate GLBT content into his courses where appropriate, i’m happy that our undergrads will come to us with a better knowledge of such history.

I also find this comment from one of the Republican opponents hilarious:

Bolding mine. What a fucking joke.

Not because that last line is necessarily wrong, but because politicians, both Republican and Democrat, in California and across the United States, have consistently and obsessively attempted to tell educators what should and should not be taught in our schools. Every state, including California, mandates specific content areas and dictates requirements at different grade levels.

Sometimes this sort of thing is determined by the legislature, and at other times it’s determined by the education department, which is often influenced by political considerations. Education is never simply left to the educators. The education system is, and has always been, politicized, and for this asshole to claim that this particular piece of legislation is somehow unusual in this regard is completely fucking ridiculous.

My only problem with this legislation is the same problem that i have with all such narrowly-targeted educational requirements: every time you add a specific requirement like this, you make it harder to design a curriculum, because of all the particular individual requirements that have to be incorporated. It becomes very hard to put together a coherent and meaningful program of study when every decision has to be made with one eye on a laundry list of required components.

Despite this concern, which i’m realistic enough to appreciate isn’t going away any time soon, i think this is a good decision by the legislature. I hope Brown signs it.

3

Sorry, but I disagree here. I think this is a slippery slope to every minority agenda being mandated into the curriculum. What’s next? P.E.T.A. getting a bill to require teaching about animal cruelty? The N.R.A. getting a bill requiring the teaching of contributions made by gun owners?

4

As a general principle, i understand your point. Previous battles over state standards show that attempts at inclusiveness can lead to claims from small minority groups that they should be represented at a level the exceeds their importance in history. The whole thing sometimes gets messy and, as i suggested in my first post, unworkable at the level of curriculum design and pedagogy.

But your examples are godawful.

Being GLBT is not the same as being a member of an organization like PETA or the NRA. If the legislation mandated teaching about the history of a specific organization like GLAAD or the League for Civil Education or The Mattachine Society, you might have a point, but it doesn’t, so you don’t.

5

CA’s public schools are producing graduates who don’t know the meaning of Independence Day Zombie Americans have forgotten why 4th of July is a holiday!!! - YouTube. They’ll be just as successful with an additional subject.

6

I’m unconvinced of the usefulness of this bill. Except of course if kids in the USA have so much time devoted to history classes that they’ve covered every major event, every major social issue, and so on…
What is “gay history”, by the way?

7

Probably opening myself up to something awful here, but I don’t support this legislation.

I have never really grasped the concept of ‘black/gay/latino/inuit’ history as an emphasis in a general history curriculum. It seems that if an historically significant even happens, it may include individuals from any of these minority groups…or the event may be exclusive to a group. If that event impacts society generally, then by all means teach it, and even emphasize the gender/ethnicity of those involved…which, I believe is already done to some extent, glbt probably currently being underrepresented.

However (bracing myself for impact), I think it’s a little silly to find potentially trivial events to include in a curriculum just because they involved a minority group…even if they have been underrepresented or discriminated against in the past.

Edit - I see nothing wrong with elective history classes that focus on minority history.

8

Personally, I dislike History as Political History focusing on “Important People” “Wars” and “Dates” - that tends to be what High School History classes are. To me, that’s BORING.

I think there is a definite place in U.S. History classes to talk about some specific topics that aren’t “wars and dates” - i.e. they are historically significant movements or experiences, not historically significant events. The experience of immigrants. Western Expansion. And Suffrage and the U.S. Civil Rights movement. When you start down the path of talking about giving women the vote - fairly important U.S. History - then start talking about the 1950s and 60s Civil Rights movement - fairly important U.S. History - that leads easily into the 60s and 70s women’s rights movement and the gay rights movement - and yes - other movement on rights - disability rights comes to mind.

You don’t need much (I’ve taught this curriculum to fifth graders in Sunday School - Civil Rights focusing on African American Civil Rights and touching on the topics of rights for other classes of people) on gay rights. Stonewall, AIDS Activism. As a History topic, I’d mention the fight for marriage rights, but to me that’s a current event. But one of the ideas behind studying History is to understand what is happening today. You can’t understand why gay marriage is an issue today, at this point in time, without Stonewall and AIDS Activism.

9

It doesn’t say in the article what the curriculum will actually include. Why do you assume that they are “trivial events” and not things like Stonewall and other historical events that may have simply up to now been ignored?

10

Ok, this in conjunction with last part of Dangerosa’s comment…

Sorry if I wasn’t clear. I believe that significant events should absolutely be included, particularly those that have been ignored in the past.

I’m just wary of having what may amount to minority trivia included for the sake of inclusion.

11

I don’t know that Civil Rights for any human being should be considered minority trivia.

I could argue that you could teach American History successfully ONLY in the context of Civil Rights. From rights being significantly better for White Male Landowners at the founding of our country to today. Including controversial preference programs like Affirmative Action (which certainly had a place when it started, and may or may not have a place now - and arguably can be considered preferential rights). Sovereign rights for Native Americans and how we got there. Its a rather interesting path to take from the founding of our country. To me, much more interesting that who was president when.

But as I said, I’m not really a fan of “History as Events” to start with. Its far more interesting to look at the History of Ideas. So framing History as a Civil Rights journey is interesting to me.

12

I’m not doing a very good job of communicating today, am I :smack:

Feel bad that I’ve used 3 posts to explain myself, let me try once more.

I am trivializing not Civil Rights! Absolutely teach civil rights, as the topic relates to any or all groups. We do it pretty well with black Americans already, somewhat so with Native Americans. I know that it can be done better for other groups, lgbt, immigrants, etc…and it should be done better.

I just wonder if, in the rush to include gay or other history, events or individuals will be included not due to their importance or impact but simply due to their identity.

But then, maybe not.

I dislike ‘history of events’ as much as the next 8th grader, but I think it does serve as a foundation to build discussions of concepts and ideas. And even thinking back to event-and-date-bases history classes, there was still discussion about the ideas that surrounded the events.

I hope that clears up my position a little. Carry on!

13

Is being a member of P.E.T.A or the N.R.A. a protected class? Sexual orientation, like race, sex, color, creed, religion, is.

14

Don’t feel bad or anything. And you’ve done anything but kill the thread.

I guess I don’t see what difference it makes if other groups are included. I wouldn’t want high school History to be “lets spend all our time talking about how we’ve mistreated minorities of all kinds for all these years.” But I doubt that this will do that.

In fact, reading the article it really just says “you need to include the accomplishments of GBLT people in the classroom.” I suspect this will become more of a “Did you know all the things George Washington Carver did with PEANUTS!” inclusion. And frankly, since I can’t name one person who is gay that did anything with peanuts (or science, or politics - other than Barney Frank - the Arts is easy), that might not be bad to let GLBT kids know that they have options other than becoming Truman Capote.

15

I think we’re on the same page, for the most part.

As an aside…does it matter if it’s LGbt or GLbt? Seen it both ways, and I don’t have a dog in the fight as I am not L, G, B or T. Personally, I think LGBT sounds better.

16

Doesn’t make a difference, sometimes there’s a Q (and more) at the end too.

17

Not under federal law, nor under the law of most states.

18

One thing I suspect (and hope) it will wash out as,“This person did something pretty important, and BTW, he/she was gay/lesbian.” Whitman and Turing were the 1st names that jumped to mind.

19

Sheesh, you’d think I could have said it that clearly! Yes.

Interesting about Turing, didn’t know that.

20

One thing I hope it doesn’t turn into is “claiming” historical figures who were not out and perhaps not even gay.

Oscar Wilde - gay…

Eleanor Roosevelt… Abraham Lincoln…James Buchanan…Condi Rice… - well, there ARE rumors, but I don’t think its appropriate to teach rumors.