May I ask, What is wrong with the left coast???
 

This sickens me to no end, why is the subject of sexuality brought up, other than a boy has a "weenus" and a girl has a "china", to 5-6 year olds? I'm leaving a link so you do not think I am rambling.


http://shavedlongcock.blogspot.com/2...dge-cards.html

I have no problem with what that teacher did. It's no different than having the students sign a pledge card not to call someone the "n" word or other racial slurs. It's not meant to be a plege plege. The purpose was obviously to teach the kids not to be racist or sexist. This teacher was teaching tollerance. Any age is appropriate for that in my opinion as long as it's done well. It does no good to hide gays and lesbiens from kids as they are out there and they SHOULDN'T be hidden. This should NOT even be an issue.

Again, I bring up the age issue. What age does a person discover sexuality??? Obviously, you have never had a child!

Since you know and have a child, tell us, at what age should a child be taught these things?

About non-NORMAL homo sapien physical relationships? NOT AT SCHOOL.

Better they learn from school rather than some biggot or their biggoted peers teach them. This isn't an issue of teaching kids about sex. This is an issue of teaching the kids tollerance toward different social groups. This is no different than teaching them tollerance of blacks, whites, Muslems, Christians, etc...
Sex does not come into the equasion with what this teacher was trying to teach.
The only reason this is even causeing a problem for a segment of people is that they're biggoted and want to "shield" their youngsters from the "devil" of gays/lesbians. Kids need to learn tollerance at a young age. They're never too young to learn that.

Are you accusing me of something? I bring up the AGE of the child and y'all start saying all kinds of bad things. So in your fun world Blacklight, you would want your 4-6 year old to learn about sexuality in schools, because they are not "biggoted?"

I am not sorry, but, I will not have my child taught about any type of sexuality at this age other then, what I mentioned before.

Why the homophobia? I don't feel comfortable around gays, but I don't bash them or think they're evil or immoral. They have a right to love who they want to. "Inalienable Rights" (the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?) mean anything to anyone anymore?:88)

Maybe it was the "non-NORMAL" part that got him worked up. It disturbs me when people try to define what is "normal" in these respects. I mean, what should be normal? Mainstream opinion? Opinion of the law? Religious outlook?

You're missing my point. This isn't about teaching kids about sexuality. The teacher was NOT doing that. It's about teaching them to be tollerant of others. I'm not accusing you of anything. I just think you're missing my point.
If this teacher passed out tickets for the students to sign saying that they wouldn't use racial slurs or bad language about blacks for example, would this even be an issue ?
I repeat. This teacher was not teaching sexual relations. This teacher was teaching tollerance of another culture. I reiterate. A child can't learn tollerance early enough.

SH, never said I hate gays...where did I say that? I actually have quite a few friends that are gay. NO PROBLEM on that front. I just asked a simple question that obviously has never been experienced by the two detractor's on this thread and would like to take me up on this.

Don't know what you were doing in KINDERGARTEN, but I certainly do not remember tolerence lessons of Adam & Steve.

Exactly, but he'll just say "Oh, but it still talks about sexuality!"

People, get real for a second. Kids are GOING to be exposed to this stuff someday. Trying to shield them from everything like this is just going to make them a lot worse off in life. How would you prefer it be done: in school, off TV, from the Internet? I'd prefer it in school, as done by a doctor.

Then what did you mean by "non-normal homo sapien physical relationships"?

Have you ever raised a child? A child is innocent until they learn hatred, intolerance and everything else. So why does a school have to impart a quality on a child that should not be there in the first place? BUT the child must "sign" a pledge that they will never say bad stuff, so they can throw them out of school quicker??? Not sure of that .

By science and Darwin. Sex by its definition is a typology or definition of procreation. And your next humdinger is????

Times are different now. Back when I was in school, gay culture was seen as an underground and hidden kind of thing that was persecuted and spat on by 90% of the mainstream populous. I mean heck.. AIDS was blamed on them back then. Now, gays are out in the open. They're fighting the discrimination and they're out there. Kids are going to encounter gays and lesbians and often times, the biggotry that surrounds them. They're going to need the nescissary information in order to understand what's going on. They should NOT be shielded from this no more than they should be shielded from Black issues, or Muslem issues, etc..
It's much easier to teach tollerance at a young age rather than at an older age when they get more set in their ways.

I kind of understand what you are saying, and I will give props on that for what you are trying to convey, because there is way too much nonsense going on in this world, because I see this everyday. What I am pi$$ed off about is, a teacher had children, who still wet their beds on a nightly basis, sign their names to a card that they have no idea of what is on there. To pledge a good intentioned idea but, still has no foundation in law but will be the basis of them getting thrown out in third grade when they something, that might be offesive to someone. You want to bring up differences in people with their skin color, I AGREE WHOLE HEARTEDLY. Then bring it up that way. It is more of a tangible subject, then someones sexual preference, which is not so tangible to a 5 and/or 6 year old.

Welcome to the leftcoast.:oops: There is no shortage of weird ideas out here that get pushed on kids. The only thing i can think of, is that people around here are much less formal around here than the Midwest.:roll: I agree with you though, these unprofessional teachers need to be driven out of the industry.

At what age are kids calling things "gay" in place of "stupid" these days? It was pretty young when I was in middle school. Probably not kindergarten, but certainly second grade. But then again, I went to a Catholic middle school. So who knows if that's an outlier.

PD

I find the fear of homosexuals and more liberal minded people by the more conservative minded people at least interesting. I said fear, because that's what it looks like to me. If you are secure in your value and belief systems, this whole debate would be pointless. Let the sinners burn in H*ll as mainstream Christianity believes, but does not seem to think God can handle without help on earth. Your own doubts of your faith are showing. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil does not mean persecute those you find deviant! As far as when to teach about sexuality? That is often answered by the children themselves with no help from anyone else. They are not as naive as the parents may think! The public school system allows parents to exclude their children from any content they find inappropriate. The teacher in this case was stepping into a gray area, and should have at least worded the pledge to be unspecific regarding the target of harassment in deference to those who would take offense. THIS COUNTRY WAS FOUNDED BY THOSE WHO WISHED TO LIVE AND WORSHIP AS THEY SAW FIT. NOT TO BE TOLD HOW THAT SHOULD BE BY THE RULING CLASS. Having shouted that out, obviously a free for all would not work. It's the definitions of what is harmful, or infringes on others that we argue.

Am I gay? No. Am I a liberal? Yes (liberty and justice for all). Am I religious? Not in the mainstream way. Do I own guns? Yes (liberty again). Do I live in California? Yes (born there). Do I believe in a strong military? Yes, the world has not matured enough to have it any other way.

Buddahaid

I see a lot of people reading something into this that really isn't there. I'm a 25 year old college graduate and recent participant of the California public school system. Kids in middle and high school call each other names all the time including "anti-LGBT" ones.

I see this as an attempt to achieve a preemptive strike against calling each other bad names for the purposes of keeping behavior under control. Not all actions of the school is "instruction" on the academic matter but rather a large portion of school actions are for the purposes of keeping kids behaving long to learn something and possibly not emotionally scar each other. This is the latter.

This is not "teaching kids to be gays and lesbians" this is "teaching kids not to call each other hurtful names." I can see nothing wrong with a school delivering a message of moral behavior. I'm sure some people condone being hurtful to people based on their sexual orientation to the east of me, but not on the ground under my feet.

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Let me pull out a good example of ignorance:
This is where ignorant people do not understand the distinction between "instruction about X" and "teaching X." The job of a school is to educate the student about the subject matter. Human sociology in reference to sexual orientations is a perfectly valid academic topic if taught as such. "There are such people as homosexuals, this is what they are, what they do, their society and history" is certainly the place of a school to inform. Facts are never offensive.

While I'm a scientist and an atheist I think that teaching certain things in school like The Bible and Creationism is great, in history or social studies class where it belongs. For example The Bible is a very important book (as is religion) in the sense of human history and it would benefit any one, regardless of religion, to know about it.

Similarly I think you can teach Creationism (heck, what would that take, a week?) in school, just not in science class... because, it's not science. I can never understand why people get all up in arms wanting to teach creationism in science class. We don't teach Creationism in science class for the same reason we don't teach French literature in science class... BECAUSE THEY AREN'T MOTHERFLIPPIN' SICENCE!