Did what to you?
Then you concur that parents should be involved in their child’s education (at least enough to know what’s generally being taught)? Because that isn’t what you seemed to be saying before.
Spoofe, you don’t know me, so how can you say if I’m an asshole or not? Am I an asshole on this board. About certain issues, yes. But from my perspective, you’re a fucking bastard who doesn’t seem to care that gay teens die when silence is the rule of the realm. That’s all that matters – those kids. Everything else is secondary.
Kirk
I feel like I’m in a chat room 
Okay, in order:
MR VISIBLE, we don’t know who the guy did or did not notify, but it appears he did [und]not[/und] notify the school. As he was required to do.
And if you have studies to show that 30% of homosexual teenagers kill themselves if not told about transgender issues at the age of 11, by all means trot them out. Once again – with feeling – I am not saying that kids should be told nothing whatsoever about homosexuality, ever ever ever. I am saying that 6th, 7th, and 8th graders do not need to be dealing with issues of what it’s like to be gender confused, as opposed to why it’s important to be tolerant of anyone who is “different,” no matter why they are different. The focus, IMO, should be “why it is wrong and hurtful to tease,” not “why it’s okay to wear dresses even if you’re a boy.” The former, not incidentally, is not controversial; the latter is.
GOBEAR –
Shame on me indeed if I had argued that. Fortunately for me, I didn’t. Again, we are talking about eleven year olds. We are also talking about transgender issues, which are exponentially more complex than garden variety gay love, especially for kids who are already dealing with self-identity issues, just as a function of being young adolescents, neither kids nor adults. I set forth my objections to the situation at issue here in my very first post, and none of them devolved down to “Let’s isolate gay kids and maybe they’ll all shoot themselves!” – despite the irrational way my posts have been construed. But as to that, I do not as a general rule think a school is the place for deep discussions of sexuality of any variety, be it gay, straight, or plaid, for the same reason I don’t think work is. This has nothing to do with being a bigot and everything to do with believing in the privacy of sexuality. I do, however, believe that children should be taught to be tolerant of gay people (as of anyone else who is not harming him/herself or anyone else) and that older children should know that resources are available to deal with issues of confusion or exclusion. I have never said anything else. Again, review my first post.
Thank you for your compliment – really – but you don’t know enough about me to speculate as to what I have or have not experienced or do or do not understand. I don’t tend to display the cracks in my armor on message boards for reasons I’ve alluded to in the past (emotional self-preservation being among them), but it is wrong of you to assume I don’t have any.
Allow me to point out that I am NOT a very conservative Methodist. I am in fact a pretty darn liberal Methodist. I’m pretty conservative by Seattle standards – liberal hotbed that I must pass my days in! – but they’d drum me out of a southern Methodist church in a New York minute. As for the rest, this is how I think of you, as well – “GOBEAR: He’s a decent person, just a little obtuse on some issues because he closes his mind on some subjects.” 
And though I appreciate the kind, if ambivalent, defense – and GUIN’s and others’ as well – where KIRKLAND is concerned, don’t trouble yourself. Only people I at least marginally respect have the power to insult me or piss me off. Since I consider him to be more than a few fries short of a Happy Meal, I’m not at all troubled by what he says. In fact, if I ever posted something he approved of, then I’d be worried enough to re-evaluate my position.
And speaking of the less than fully-fried, why on earth is anyone paying any attention to what HIS4EVER says? Has she learned to say anything new?
Let me explain . . . no, there is too much. Let me sum up: My objections were listed in my first post. They do not include slavering bigotry against gay people. They do not include wanting to keep teenagers from being aware of resources available to assist them with whatever problem they might be facing. They do not include desiring to maximize the rate of teen suicide. They do not include desiring to minimize the rate of peer tolerance. The include believing that parents should have the right to opt their kids out of presentations and programs they morally object to, and believing that 11 is too young for complicated issues of sexuality.
I would not want my 11 year old sitting through a presentation on transgenderism without my knowledge and consent. I think the teacher was out of line to schedule such a presentation without getting the proper authorization, which I think we all know he probably wouldn’t have received, which at the end of the day may well be precisely why he didn’t get it. Construe me as an Evil Homophobe if you will, but the issue IMO has little to do with homosexuality per se and everything to do with my right as a parent to decide when my kids are ready to deal with complex, controversial, and delicate issues.
And allow me to reiterate another point I’ve already made, which I think has been lost: Do you really want the government (through the public schools) to decide what your kids learn or don’t learn, and when and how, regardless of your beliefs or feelings? That’s a lot of faith in the gubmint from a group that usually doesn’t seem to approve of it.
I think what we’re all trying to impress on you is that a black-and-white principle can have grey areas in practice. You can’t just ignore the means because the end is good.
Parents should be able to know what’s being taught, but no special effort should be made on the part of the district to tell them. The job of public schools is to make good citizens and little cogs for the corporate machines, not to please mommy and daddy.
Kirk
That was addressed to Kirk
Let’s get the scorecard out here . . .
Kirk’s being an abuslive jerk. Check.
H4E is being a trollish jerk. Check.
Libertarian’s being . . . libertarian. Check.
Jodi’s being rational. Check.
’Spree’s being adorable. Check.
Matt’s being reasonable. Check.
Gobear’s being activist. Check.
andros is making a driveby post. Check.
All seems to be well with the world.
Carry on.
Actually, Gnat, in real life, the ends often justify the means. The end is black or white. Black - keep silent and dance on the graves of the gays. White - make sure very kid in every school by or during puberty knows that its okay to be gay.
That’s the end: before or as any kid in that school starts to realize they are gay, they have to have some positive reinforcement, tehy have to know what they’re beginning to go trhough is okay, and normal.
Whatever means it takes to get there, so long as the harm caused by the means isn’t worse than the problem attempting to be solved, should be taken. Which means that, so long as you’re not killing anyone, its okay, because the goal here is to save lives.
Kirk
Well, I think I made it obvious about who said it. My name is on the post. And the particular teacher in question thought it was age appropriate. And the Director of Curriculum and Instruction thought that a class in life skills is appropriate for that age group. And so on. I don’t disagree with your authority on what is best for your child at any particular age.
And, as a teacher, I would welcome your letting me know that you object. I would respect your right to have your child removed from my classroom for that particular discussion. What I would object to is the expectation that parents be notified about a discussion of every possibly controversial topic. I wouldn’t have thought that The Diary of Anne Frank would be considered controversial – but it is! And what about controversial topics that arise in class discussions?
If you are opposed to what the state allows in the way of academic freedom, you are certainly free to place your child in a non-state school that is more in keeping with your personal beliefs. That is one of the reasons that, unlike many of my fellow educators, I support vouchers.
By all means, if you don’t like the laws that are currently in place regarding academic freedom in public schools, then work to change the laws. Or work to get the school board to change the curriculum. But at this time you, as a parent, cannot refuse to allow public schools to teach anything that is not already forbidden by the law. Again, you have the right to remove your child from my classroom. You do not have the individual right as a parent to decide what I will teach the other students.
“Basic disciplines” cannot be taught without context. It is usually the context that is objected to. For example, I doubt that you would have objections to English classes. But you might object to my teaching the poetry of homosexuals and bisexuals such as Walt Whitman and Edna St. Vincent Millay. Or you might object to students debating laws on gay rights. (Debating is often part of the English curriculum.)
Hey, what about me?
You forgot someone. 
Kirk, no, it’s NOT so black and white.
LIFE is complicated.
You have some serious issues you need to work on. I’m seriously worried for you.
But people do discuss sexuality at work. Oh, not the mechanics (not unless they want a sexual harrassment suit) but in the “My wife and I just closed on our house” and the “My girlfriend and I are going to her mother’s house for Thanksgiving” sort of wayu. But if I say “My boyfriend and I are going out for Chinese after work” that’s “shoving my sex in their face” according to some people (not you, Jodi). That’s the scenario I would like some gay kid today never to have to face when he or she enters the work force, and if tolerance talks at school help, then I’m all for them.
Alas, there you have me. I am stubborn (some woul;d say pigheaded).
Point taken. I apologize.
Gomez, I actually wouldn’t have a problem with an NRA speaker talking about gun safety and the responsibility of owning firearms–as long as they didn’t politicize it too much, I wouldn’t see anything wrong with it.
Boy, this thread really makes me wonder if the SDMB’s mission is being accomplished. Truly, there have been some hydrogen bombs of ignorance dropped here.
I especially like the people who say some 11-to-13 year olds aren’t aware of sex. Tell me another one.
Okay, I was gonna email this, but I should be public about it.
Jodi, I’m sorry. In reviewing your posts, while I don’t agree with everything you say, I transferred some of what the fundamentalists were saying to you, and proceeded from that perspective. I was wrong about your position, and misrepresented it in my posts, and, in doing so, applied some of the… colorful vernacular that I tend to use on this section of the board, if only because I can’t use it in real life, or in my real writings. I went way beyond too far, particuarly given my misconception of what you were saying. Your recent post to gobear sparked my review of your posts, and I was very, very clearly out of bounds and in the wrong.
While I do not agree with your religion, nor do I believe that you are as supportive of gay rights as you sometimes say, and I do believe that kids should have to hear, repeatedly, throughout their academic careers, that its okay to be gay, regardless of parental qualms, I was way off the mark, and overshot it to boot.
I am guilty of misrepresenting your statements, and excoriating you in in an inappropriate manner, and I apologize.
While none of my friends, to my knowledge, consider me an “asshole,” as some here might say, it is well noted that I tend to have a problem of losing my sight on perspective and letting a snowball turn into an avalanche. My first reactions tend to be my most logical, whereas after too long I tend to fly off the handle into absurdity. Yeah, that happened here. Jodi was an undeserved victim of it, and I’m sorry for that.
Witch may have been, as well. I really don’t know about that one, I’ll leave that for others to judge.
Kirk
People are complicated. Life is simple.
Who doesn’t?
Don’t be. I’ve seen the darkest my life will ever be, October 1998. I have a scar on my wrist to prove it. Compared to that, life is all sunshine and beagle puppies nowadays. Of course, the sunshine is evil, and the beagle puppies have rabies, but I guess that’s just the way this malignant, evil world is.
Kirk
Diogenes The crunch question is would you like them to hold such a talk without your knowing about it? Would you be comfortable with someone teaching your child how to hold a gun, perhaps even showing your child how to hold one first hand? Would you be comfortable with your son firing live ammunition in the name of education?
All the while without your permission.
And even if you did, would you not think it infringed on the rights of those parents who did have a problem with it but who were not consulted?
You know, Gomez. gay people are not guns, we are not dangerous, and we don’t go off when you pull our triggers (OK, we do :D).
I thonk my Christmadswish this year is that when gayness is discussed, that people stop comparing my love and my affections to adultery, murder, alcoholism, Satanism, and gunfire.