Tag: public schools

Nutty Professors Argue That LGBTQ Sex Ed Should Be Taught in Elementary School Before ‘Cisnormative Values’ Become ‘More Deeply Ingrained’

Two professors at Montclair State University in New Jersey are arguing that LGBTQ sex education should be taught to kids in elementary school before “cisnormative values” become “more deeply ingrained.”

The professors, Eva Goldfarb and Lisa Lieberman,  believe that “substantial evidence supports sex education beginning in elementary school, that is scaffolded and of longer duration, as well as LGBTQ-inclusive education across the school curriculum and a social justice approach to healthy sexuality.”

According to a report from Campus Reform, the researchers examined several studies that involved preschool classrooms. According to the researchers, one indicates that “young children are, in fact, quite capable of understanding and discussing issues related to gender diversity, including gender expectations, gender nonconformity, and gender-based oppression.”

They claimed that “4-year-olds expressed an inclusive understanding of marriage and a social justice stance on LGBTQ rights.”

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California Ethnic Studies Advisor To Teachers: Be ‘Extra Careful’ About Parents Seeing ‘What Materials Are Being Used’

The Santa Clara County Office of Education hosted an ethnic studies training wherein the presenter told teachers to be “extra careful” about parents seeing the material being used to teach children. 

In November, Santa Clara County in California held a training designed to explore the district’s newfound “ethnic studies” initiatives. According to slides posted by City Journal contributor Christopher Rufo, the presentation began with a “land acknowledgment.” Land acknowledgments are admissions that teaching is taking place on land that was conquered by Americans, though once belonged to Native Americans.   

The Santa Clara land acknowledgment claims that the schools “occupy the unceded territory of the Muwekma Ohlone Nation.” 

Part of the presentation examined the alleged “roots of settler colonialism.” The presenter, Jorge Pacheco, who is also an advisor for the state’s ethnic studies curriculum, blamed colonialism on oppressive white males who allegedly used “genocide, private property, God/religion, classism, patriarchy, and white supremacy” to create the United States. 

The presentation also encouraged teachers to “infer the imperialist motives” of Christopher Columbus to disparage America writ large. 

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‘Cheese is racist’ storm as hundreds back ban on dairy foods in school

Alison Plaumer, from the global environmental movement, has led a petition for more plant-based meals to be served in schools and other venues. She told one council there is a “racist element” to serving dairy because she believes a large percentage of the BAME communities is lactose-intolerant. More than 240 people have backed the campaign so far, reports Sussex Live.

Speaking at Brighton and Hove City Council meeting in March, Ms Plaumer said: “Arguably, there is a racist element to serving dairy too much because 65 per cent of the world’s population are lactose intolerant, many from the BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) community.

“Loads of parents around here give lots of support to this. What do children want? They want action. They want it now.”

The petition, seen by the authority, requests two plant-based days are introduced at state-run schools as soon as possible – and for all council-run events to be plant-based once the pandemic is over.

Broadcaster Jeremy Vine called the idea bonkers on his Channel 5 show.

People online have also blasted Ms Plaumer.

One posted: “If people think food is racist then they are not qualified to be near a school.”

Another said: “I am lactose intolerant and not from the group you name so what point were you making? Food cannot be racist.”

One person shared: “I wish these snowflakes would just melt away.”

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I Refuse to Stand By While My Students Are Indoctrinated

I am a teacher at Grace Church High School in Manhattan. Ten years ago, I changed careers when I discovered how rewarding it is to help young people explore the truth and beauty of mathematics. I love my work.

As a teacher, my first obligation is to my students. But right now, my school is asking me to embrace “antiracism” training and pedagogy that I believe is deeply harmful to them and to any person who seeks to nurture the virtues of curiosity, empathy and understanding.   

“Antiracist” training sounds righteous, but it is the opposite of truth in advertising. It requires teachers like myself to treat students differently on the basis of race. Furthermore, in order to maintain a united front for our students, teachers at Grace are directed to confine our doubts about this pedagogical framework to conversations with an in-house “Office of Community Engagement” for whom every significant objection leads to a foregone conclusion. Any doubting students are likewise “challenged” to reframe their views to conform to this orthodoxy. 

I know that by attaching my name to this I’m risking not only my current job but my career as an educator, since most schools, both public and private, are now captive to this backward ideology. But witnessing the harmful impact it has on children, I can’t stay silent. 

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Melbourne Schools Encouraged to Stop Saying ‘Mum’ and ‘Dad’ in Favour of More Inclusive Language

Schools in Melbourne, Australia, have been called upon to abandon using words such as ‘mum’ and ‘dad’ in favour of more so-called gender-inclusive language.

As a part of the North Western Melbourne Primary Health Network’s #SpeakingUpSpeaksVolumes campaign, which aims to support ‘LGBTQI+’ children in schools, the advocacy group has suggested that schools in Melbourne fly rainbow flags, scrap single-sex bathrooms, and introduce non-gendered sports teams.

The campaign has also called for teachers, as well as pupils, to refrain from using words such as ‘boyfriend’, which they say should be replaced with “partner”. The group said that parental pronouns such as mum and dad should also be abandoned for the more inclusive “parent”, the Daily Mail reported.

The CEO of the North Western Melbourne Primary Health Network, Chris Carter, said that the #SpeakingUpSpeaksVolumes campaign aims to increase support for LGBTQI+ children.

“The simple act of openly showing support can be a catalyst for great change for the better and it’s often the less obvious moments that can be the most impactful to someone’s wellbeing,” Carter told the Herald Sun per the Mail.

Headteacher of the Elevation Secondary College in Craigieburn, Colin Bourke, said that schools in Melbourne have already begun adopting measures to make LGBTQI+ pupils feel welcomed, including “gender non-specific bathrooms and taking down some of the boys and girls signs”.

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BC teacher suspended after showing class ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ film

A British Columbia elementary school teacher was suspended this week after showing her students the 1962 American drama To Kill A Mockingbird.

The teacher, Andrew Michael Dennis, showed his Grade 6/7 students the film in September 2018, a resolution agreement by the BC Commissioner for Teacher Regulation found.

The resolution states that the film dealt with themes too mature for students that age, such as sexual assault and racism, as well as racial slurs.

“In the B.C. curriculum, the book ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ is listed as a secondary school-level resource for Grades 10 and higher,” the commissioner wrote in the disciplinary form.

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2+2=5: Oregon Department of Education Pushes Course Claiming Math is Racist Because It Requires a Correct Answer

The Oregon Department of Education is promoting an online course that claims math is racist because it requires a correct answer.

The class, called “A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction,” describes itself as “an integrated approach to mathematics that centers Black, Latinx, and Multilingual students” that provides “opportunities for ongoing self-reflection as they seek to develop an anti-racist math practice.”

“White supremacy culture infiltrates math classrooms in everyday teacher actions,” the guide states. “Coupled with the beliefs that underlie these actions, they perpetuate educational harm on Black, Latinx, and multilingual students, denying them full access to the world of mathematics.”

First reported by Campus Reform,  the“white supremacy culture” cited by the document include a focus on “getting the ‘right’ answer” and requiring students to show their work.

Campus Reform notes that the authors of the program state that “The concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false, and teaching it is even much less so. Upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuate objectivity as well as fear of open conflict.”

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Portland high school’s choice of new mascot — evergreen trees — could be a problem due to lynching connotations, officials say

The school’s current mascot is the Trojans, but a committee consisting of students, staff, and community members arrived at the evergreens as the new mascot of what’s now called Ida B. Wells-Barnett High School, the Portland Tribune reported.

“Evergreens are characterized by the life-giving force of their foliage, the strength of their massive trunk, and the depth of their roots — in an individual tree and as a forest of trees,” Ellen Whatmore, a teacher at the high school and mascot committee member, read from a resolution, according to the Tribune. “They provide shelter and sustenance. They have histories that preclude us and will continue in perpetuity after we are no more.”

But the outlet said that just prior to last Tuesday’s vote by the Portland Public Schools Board of Education to approve the new mascot, Director Michelle DePass shared community concerns that evergreens could connote lynching — particularly since new namesake Wells-Barnett was a black activist and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who wrote about and spoke against lynching.

“I’m wondering if there was any concern with the imagery there, in using a tree … as our mascot?” DePass asked the renaming and mascot committee, the Tribune noted. “I think everyone comes with blind spots, and I think that might’ve been a really big blind spot.”

School Principal Filip Hristic told the board that “we take this seriously, and I definitely want to follow that commitment to protect, preserve, and promote the legacy of Ida B. Wells,” adding that the committee hadn’t spoken to the Wells-Barnett family specifically about the mascot, the outlet reported.

“The focus and opportunity was really to marry this sentiment that we heard from a lot of our stakeholders during our naming process, which was the desire for a local connection,” Hristic said, according to the Tribune. “Ida B. Wells was somebody who stood strong and stood proud against what Woodrow Wilson and many others promoted.”

Martin Osborne — who is black and is one of the committee members — said the group discussed the potential lynching connection between Wells-Barnett and evergreen trees “but we were looking at the symbolism more as a tree of life than a tree of death. You could certainly take it either way, depending upon your position,” the outlet reported.

Osborne added that the evergreen choice “had nothing to do with the horrible history of lynching in the United States,” the Tribune noted.

“Lynching trees typically are not evergreens,” he also said, according to the outlet.

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