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so much ignorance
Talisman
Veteran
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/one-towns-war-on-gay-teens-20120202
This is a story about a town in minnesota that chose to take a "neutral" stance regarding bullying in thier school system. Perhaps one day people will realize that inaction can be just as unskillful as wrong action. So sad.
This is a story about a town in minnesota that chose to take a "neutral" stance regarding bullying in thier school system. Perhaps one day people will realize that inaction can be just as unskillful as wrong action. So sad.
0
Comments
http://www.startribune.com/local/north/139332713.html
I can't believe that in this day and age, such a negative attitude and atmosphere exists....
Horrendous.....
A 13-year old committed suicide with her own rifle? Teens are allowed to have guns in Minnesota? Yeah, that's a good idea. Give guns to children. They may not be old enough to vote, but by gum, they get to exercise their 2nd Amendment rights!
But granted, it's always going to be a delicate balance between local, state and fed (if fed, at all).
it's a legal requirement for the curriculum in the UK.
Let me give you another example of where these decisions that seem so easy, aren't really that easy.
A debate that rambled on for a while in my school system was over the teaching of abortion. The debate began over the issue of abortion in sex ed classes. Now we had a rather liberal sex ed curriculum, although it evolved. At one time parents had to opt their kids into sex ed. Then, after a while, the school board reversed the process, requiring parents to opt their kids out of sex ed. Teachers were rather scripted in what they could teach, and for quite a while when a forbidden topic would be asked about by a student, the teacher would (literally) read a statement that said, "I'm sorry. I'm not allowed to discuss that topic. You should go home and ask your parents about your question."
So, abortion was a topic not to be discussed in sex ed. You can guess which type of parent wanted it that way.
Then, the question came up from another area. In our social studies classes, once a week students were to bring in any current events newspaper or magazine article, and the teacher would select a few students to discuss their articles. Every once in a while, a student would select a story about the American abortion debate. And guess what, some of the same parents who didn't want abortion discussed in sex ed, thought it should be open to discussion in social studies current events classes.
This is very similar to the evolution - versus - intelligent design - versus - creationism aspect. As a former science teacher, I do not think that intelligent design or creationism should be taught in a science class. But I think the topics should be taught in social studies classes. The issue is a long standing one in American history, and a vibrant topic in current events.
And I will take this one step further. When I was at university, I was a geosciences major, and I specialized in invertebrate paleontology. Of course, all my "historical geology" and paleontology professors taught evolution. But, every one of them was a church-going Christian who -- although the term had not been yet derived -- assumed that god influenced evolution. They never taught that, but they personally believed that...and you could sometimes get them to discuss it a little when we would go out to lunch or dinner with them.
Although internal debate can be good, too.
We teach different languages, we teach differeent politics - hell, we teach children in our classes from several different cultural backgrounds - NOT teaching them is deprivation and neglect.
I think that NOT teaching them should be classed as a viloation of their Natural Human Rights, and not teaching them, is completely UNconstitutional...
The USA is a multi-cultural country, founded on Christianity. By all means sell that message - but not to the total prejudicial exclusion of everyone else.....
This was nearly 14 years ago when I was in high school we had two openly gay boys ...they sat with the girls in lunch and we defended them with a lioness fierceness. Baring our teeth at the jocks. Unfortunately a few jocks took one of them out during lunch period. He slammed him so hard on the floor he blacked out..
Our friend was in the hospital for 2days and had to remain at home with injuries for a month... there was suspension for the jocks, but an openly gay teacher organized a protest and called the Houston reporters. He organized a senior skip day into an organized March around the campus.
The media attention brought the school under fire. The jocks were transfered to a rehabilitation alternative school, awaiting charges of assault...
We got lucky because there was action.
On the religion in school issue. I agree with teaching the basics of each religion as part of learning the social and political and cultural aspects of a country or area. However when we are putting a God assumption into a science class that is different. I could see alternative ideas in science discussed but not teaching physics taught based on the idea god created it all. Not so easy, and gets very emotional for folks, but that is my understanding of spearation of church and state.
As far as the federal government goes, it needs to keep its nose out of state policy. The fed is there to handle interstate and international relations. The constitution and bill of rights were never intended to handle state and local policy. When you get right down to it, the FBI, and DEA are unconstitutional agencies. The fed govt has zero law enforement authority. they were able to be created only through manipulation of policy. The FBI is a division of the IRS and the DEA is a division of the food and drug admin.
We need to take a long hard look at the constitution and start putting people in office who will support these views and quit trying to legislate morality in this country. No govt in history has ever been able to successfully legislate morality.
While issues with laws and policies have been highlighted above, I just want to add that it is also our social duty as Buddhists, I think, to educate and bring awareness to issues like this.
We watched a video on the miracle of life...an embryo in the stages of development...during biology, not sex ed.
Roe vs. Wade was openly debated in sociology and debate club, but not sexed.
On the topic of gay students ...did you are this issue while you were a teacher principal? I forget what years....? Because in the mid 90s it was not this bad.
Well, not quite. Two years later (!), the Washington Post called me -- I was then principal -- and wanted to know about the incident, because they were doing a series on gay youth. I told them they should really get the story from the former principal, who was at a new school now.
It got pretty hot, because after the article was published, the boy's mother raked our former principal over the coals pretty bad since she supported her son's decision.
I was able to stay out of the fray...after all, it wasn't my decision, and the boy had moved on to high school.