Ok so I am taking Public Speaking as one of my classes this Semester. Now my class is tought on a different campus in fact it's being tought in a public elementary school classroom. Now I have nothing against homosexuality. So I am sitting in class and I look on the wall to my right and I see a poster done by a Gay Right's group. The Poster says "How to tell if a students Parents are Gay?" Is that appropriate in a public elementary school classroom setting? I will try posting a picture next time I go to class.
What is your Take on this?
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U2democrat
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In elementary school I didn't even know what gay meant other than happy
It seems kind of odd...
BVS
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Justin24 said:
How is this aimed to the students?
If it was aimed towards the students, wouldn't it say, "How to tell if your friend(or peer, or fellow students) parents are gay?"
I just don't get the purpose...
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80sU2isBest
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Justin24 said:
Not only do I think it's not appropriate, I don't really understand the purpose of it. What does that have to do with school? Why should anyone that would see that poster- students or teachers -need to know if a student's parents or gay are not? Gay or straight, it shouldn't have any effect on the kind of education the student receives. Isn't that what school is about - education?
Irvine511
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i really think i'd need more information to understand this situation.
the poster would make sense, to me, if it were part of an awareness campaign for the teachers, not the students, because teachers can probably safely assume that their students (being pre-pubescent) do not have a grasp on their sexual orientation, but they don't necessarily know this about thier parents, so perhaps it's to create some sort of awareness amongst teachers?
i really don't get it, to be honest.
the poster would make sense, to me, if it were part of an awareness campaign for the teachers, not the students, because teachers can probably safely assume that their students (being pre-pubescent) do not have a grasp on their sexual orientation, but they don't necessarily know this about thier parents, so perhaps it's to create some sort of awareness amongst teachers?
i really don't get it, to be honest.
martha
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I'd like to know more about both the poster and its placement.
BAW
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martha said:
Yeah, it's a little hard to give an opinion one way or the other without seeing it or knowing where it's at and why.
deep
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perhaps it is nothing more than a grammer lesson?
""How to tell if a student's Parents are Gay?""
Re: Re: What is your Take on this?
Pretending that gay people don't exist is as foolish as pretending that black people or Hispanic people don't exist.
However, the biggest fallacy is assuming that, by not acknowledging the existence of gay people, children remain ignorant of their existence. No, instead, "gay" just becomes another slur that they pick up from their equally ignorant parents, and every kid they hate or dislike becomes "gay."
And I see this as a problem. School is a tool for socialization just as much as it is a tool for education, whether you like it or not.
Melon
80sU2isBest said:
Pretending that gay people don't exist is as foolish as pretending that black people or Hispanic people don't exist.
However, the biggest fallacy is assuming that, by not acknowledging the existence of gay people, children remain ignorant of their existence. No, instead, "gay" just becomes another slur that they pick up from their equally ignorant parents, and every kid they hate or dislike becomes "gay."
And I see this as a problem. School is a tool for socialization just as much as it is a tool for education, whether you like it or not.
Melon
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Re: Re: Re: What is your Take on this?
Very true. And that is why it is a battleground.
melon said:
Very true. And that is why it is a battleground.
80sU2isBest
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Re: Re: Re: What is your Take on this?
What are you talking about?
All I said was that whether a kid's parents are gay or straight, it shouldn't make a difference to the kind of education the child receives, so there is no reason for a teacher to be able to tell if a student's parent is gay.
How is that akin to me saying that teachers should "pretend gay people don't exist"?
Why would you want the teachers to be able to tell if a student's parents are gay? Do you want gay parents to be treated differently than straight parents?
melon said:
What are you talking about?
All I said was that whether a kid's parents are gay or straight, it shouldn't make a difference to the kind of education the child receives, so there is no reason for a teacher to be able to tell if a student's parent is gay.
How is that akin to me saying that teachers should "pretend gay people don't exist"?
Why would you want the teachers to be able to tell if a student's parents are gay? Do you want gay parents to be treated differently than straight parents?
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martha
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You guys, we don't even know the context, the message, or the placement of this thing, and yet you're arguing about it.
Irvine511
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Re: Re: Re: Re: What is your Take on this?
perhaps it was intended for the students, and for the reasons that Melon suggested -- "gay" is almost as common an insult as "stupid" on playgrounds (was when i was a child, am sure it's probably about the same today), and perhaps the sign was an attempt to address what is a vastly more hurtful insult than we might initially think.
it's really not acceptable to call someone "retarded" or to say "ugh, that's so retarded" in the way it was 20 years ago, i don't think, and this is probably because we're more aware now that someone might have a sibling with, say, Down's Syndrome (my mother was a Special Ed teacher and we were explicitly forbidden from ever using "retarded" as an insult), in the same way that someone could have lesbian parents, or a gay uncle, or whatever.
but, as Martha has noted, we really don't have any context for this.
80sU2isBest said:
perhaps it was intended for the students, and for the reasons that Melon suggested -- "gay" is almost as common an insult as "stupid" on playgrounds (was when i was a child, am sure it's probably about the same today), and perhaps the sign was an attempt to address what is a vastly more hurtful insult than we might initially think.
it's really not acceptable to call someone "retarded" or to say "ugh, that's so retarded" in the way it was 20 years ago, i don't think, and this is probably because we're more aware now that someone might have a sibling with, say, Down's Syndrome (my mother was a Special Ed teacher and we were explicitly forbidden from ever using "retarded" as an insult), in the same way that someone could have lesbian parents, or a gay uncle, or whatever.
but, as Martha has noted, we really don't have any context for this.
80sU2isBest
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What is your Take on this?
I understand that. However, I would think that giving the students the knowledge of how to tell if a kid's parents are gay would be detrimental rather than helpful. For instance, if Kid 1 likes to throw insults around and he discovers that Kid 2's parents are gay, Kid 1's use of the term "gay" is now personal. "Your parents are gay. You must be too", and stuff like that.
I think a better way to get kids not to use that insult at school is to have a lesosn on "insulting words that we will not tolerate". This would include many other terms also, such as "retarded", "fatso", etc.
Irvine511 said:
I understand that. However, I would think that giving the students the knowledge of how to tell if a kid's parents are gay would be detrimental rather than helpful. For instance, if Kid 1 likes to throw insults around and he discovers that Kid 2's parents are gay, Kid 1's use of the term "gay" is now personal. "Your parents are gay. You must be too", and stuff like that.
I think a better way to get kids not to use that insult at school is to have a lesosn on "insulting words that we will not tolerate". This would include many other terms also, such as "retarded", "fatso", etc.
Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What is your Take on this?
i think you're right -- in some communities, knowledge that someone's parents are gay might spell social doom for a child, but that doesn't make it okay, and the way to combat this is, as you've said, to make it clear that "gay" is an insult on par with "retarded."
ultimately, that's not going to make much of a difference if a child is going to use it as an insult anyway, (and i was certainly called gay as a child) ... so, to the teachers in here, how do you combat name-calling? what is acceptable to make a big deal out of (i would assume that calling african-american students the N-word isn't acceptable, however, while calling someone "stupid" or "fat" isn't particularly nice, i can't imagine it carries the same weight and is deserving of the same punishment).
i also worry about coddling kids too much -- had a great discussion last night with a woman who's 4 year old is bright and precocious and agile, but is very, very small for his age. she was worried about him being teased, but felt it was better to equip him with defense mechanisms so that the insults might slide off his back because this would serve him better later in life. i saw this as different from creating an environment where no one's feelings are ever hurt.
can we do both? how do we do both?
80sU2isBest said:
i think you're right -- in some communities, knowledge that someone's parents are gay might spell social doom for a child, but that doesn't make it okay, and the way to combat this is, as you've said, to make it clear that "gay" is an insult on par with "retarded."
ultimately, that's not going to make much of a difference if a child is going to use it as an insult anyway, (and i was certainly called gay as a child) ... so, to the teachers in here, how do you combat name-calling? what is acceptable to make a big deal out of (i would assume that calling african-american students the N-word isn't acceptable, however, while calling someone "stupid" or "fat" isn't particularly nice, i can't imagine it carries the same weight and is deserving of the same punishment).
i also worry about coddling kids too much -- had a great discussion last night with a woman who's 4 year old is bright and precocious and agile, but is very, very small for his age. she was worried about him being teased, but felt it was better to equip him with defense mechanisms so that the insults might slide off his back because this would serve him better later in life. i saw this as different from creating an environment where no one's feelings are ever hurt.
can we do both? how do we do both?
yolland
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But doesn't that sort of thing happen mostly out of earshot of teachers or parents, anyway? Most instances of name-calling I remember from school happened at recess, or in the hallway, or on the way home from school, and no one wants to be a "tattletale," so you don't usually say anything about it. The one school incident so far that our son was bothered enough to tell us about (it didn't involve him personally) happened on the bus, and at a low enough volume that the bus driver couldn't hear. I think that's usually the way it is.
Anyhow, I think preparing kids to handle this sort of thing is above all a job for parents, because the skills needed for that are best learned through one-on-one interaction, where you're engaging the child directly. My own parents tended to emphasize not doing it yourself, rather than how to respond when others do it, and generally they did that by appealing to put-yourself-in-the-taunted-child's-shoes kind of thinking. I think that's a lot more effective than presenting it as "These words are unacceptable," because the "words-hurt" principle immediately rings true to kids as something known from experience, and appeals to their desire to influence others through their own behavior, whereas "It's unacceptable"--well, they only have to look around to see that lots of kids think it's perfectly acceptable, at least so long as an adult's not around, so they may very well draw the (wrong) conclusion in that case that different codes are called for when interacting with peers vs. adults. As far as handling it when other kids do it to them (or others) though, yeah, of course you want them to understand they should talk to an adult when it makes them angry or scared or upset, but they also have to come to terms with the fact that there are mean people out there, and they may think this makes them look tough and clever and in control, but they only think that because they're none of those things, and eventually they'll realize this as they get older and find out that big kids and grown-ups don't respect people who act that way...so, you treat mean kids with good manners just like you'd want to be treated, and you never forget they're mostly-good people with feelings just like you (and they might even change their minds if you do that), but at the same time--no one is forcing you to look up to them, or to think what they're doing is OK, because it's not.
I do agree that some kinds of insults are more hurtful than others, if only because they're more frightening and alienating, but I think basically the response called for is the same. Parents and teachers can and should talk about how people come in different colors and how there are different kinds of families and this is a normal and beautiful part of the world, etc.--that does help, and it enables them to grasp and describe their world better--but it really won't add up to much if the fundamental recognition of how name-calling hurts people isn't there; ideologies about race, sexuality, and so on are abstractions at best to an 8-year-old, and it's a bit much to expect them to connect what relatively little they do grasp of them to the implications of their own behavior. The Golden Rule, though, that they can understand.
I'm also wondering how many kids under about 10 or so really understand what "gay" means--our oldest son has some idea, and I know from talking to their parents that some of his friends do too, but I'd imagine a lot of kids that age don't understand why it suggests the qualities it does. When I was in grade school--though of course, this was 25 years ago--I knew it meant "foolish", "frivolous", etc., but I really had no idea why it meant that, and most other kids I knew didn't seem to either. Of course you can explain the connection to them, and we've done that with our son, but I wonder how many parents actually do. Whereas an insult like "retard," even very young kids clearly understand the reference there, because they'll often, e.g., imitate the facial expressions of someone with Down's Syndrome when saying it.
Anyhow, I think preparing kids to handle this sort of thing is above all a job for parents, because the skills needed for that are best learned through one-on-one interaction, where you're engaging the child directly. My own parents tended to emphasize not doing it yourself, rather than how to respond when others do it, and generally they did that by appealing to put-yourself-in-the-taunted-child's-shoes kind of thinking. I think that's a lot more effective than presenting it as "These words are unacceptable," because the "words-hurt" principle immediately rings true to kids as something known from experience, and appeals to their desire to influence others through their own behavior, whereas "It's unacceptable"--well, they only have to look around to see that lots of kids think it's perfectly acceptable, at least so long as an adult's not around, so they may very well draw the (wrong) conclusion in that case that different codes are called for when interacting with peers vs. adults. As far as handling it when other kids do it to them (or others) though, yeah, of course you want them to understand they should talk to an adult when it makes them angry or scared or upset, but they also have to come to terms with the fact that there are mean people out there, and they may think this makes them look tough and clever and in control, but they only think that because they're none of those things, and eventually they'll realize this as they get older and find out that big kids and grown-ups don't respect people who act that way...so, you treat mean kids with good manners just like you'd want to be treated, and you never forget they're mostly-good people with feelings just like you (and they might even change their minds if you do that), but at the same time--no one is forcing you to look up to them, or to think what they're doing is OK, because it's not.
I do agree that some kinds of insults are more hurtful than others, if only because they're more frightening and alienating, but I think basically the response called for is the same. Parents and teachers can and should talk about how people come in different colors and how there are different kinds of families and this is a normal and beautiful part of the world, etc.--that does help, and it enables them to grasp and describe their world better--but it really won't add up to much if the fundamental recognition of how name-calling hurts people isn't there; ideologies about race, sexuality, and so on are abstractions at best to an 8-year-old, and it's a bit much to expect them to connect what relatively little they do grasp of them to the implications of their own behavior. The Golden Rule, though, that they can understand.
I'm also wondering how many kids under about 10 or so really understand what "gay" means--our oldest son has some idea, and I know from talking to their parents that some of his friends do too, but I'd imagine a lot of kids that age don't understand why it suggests the qualities it does. When I was in grade school--though of course, this was 25 years ago--I knew it meant "foolish", "frivolous", etc., but I really had no idea why it meant that, and most other kids I knew didn't seem to either. Of course you can explain the connection to them, and we've done that with our son, but I wonder how many parents actually do. Whereas an insult like "retard," even very young kids clearly understand the reference there, because they'll often, e.g., imitate the facial expressions of someone with Down's Syndrome when saying it.
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