Via Neil Gaiman’s Journal, the story of a 7 year old boy who was embarrassed in front of his class, sent to a “behavioural clinic” and other stupidities for explaining that he had two moms because his parents were gay. No profanities, just a simple and remarkably lucid explanation from a young boy.
I thought that even countries such as America would be far enough down the road of tolerance to not engage in such blatant discrimination and senseless hate-mongering. None of the Americans I know personally behave or think like this and I would like to think that they wouldn’t stand for it. But the simple fact that the teachers involved thought they had the right to do this makes me afraid for society.
I hate to think that my kids will be treated like this one day. I know they’ll have a hard time of it, because kids are kids and kids hate anything different as soon as their parents have taught them to. There are no racist babies, but plenty of racist pre-schoolers. But the fact that schools are behaving like this … well, it makes me furious. What do they teach if they can’t teach respect for other human beings above all else??
This makes me angry, but more than anything it just makes me so so sad.
Comments (8) Permalink
December 4th, 2003 at 1:48 AM
Half a moment Meri. I aggree whole heartedly that no school should *ever* be allowed to penalise someone for their sexual preference or background.
Theres a chance that this could have been a simple mistake though. Kids have filthy mouths, and “gay” is an awkward word at the moment: both a swearword… and not.
Once one kid is heard freely saying it, “Gay” could well have become the word of the week, with every kid gleefully spouting it off. Teacher may have made a snap decision to step in, and then been in an awkward situation, as it is hard for a teacher to make mistakes. Kids can be unforgiving…
I’m not excusing it. I’m just saying don’t take it to heart as we don’t know the whole story.
I don’t aggree that kids would be ‘sweet little angels’ if it weren’t for parents teaching them to h*te. My view of kids is that growing up is v.scary, and picking on other people for any reason is a way to feel and be safer. I think kids learn to do this by, or among, themselves.
December 4th, 2003 at 1:00 PM
Tony, did you actually read that article, or just look at the headline?
“Marcus decided to explain to another child in his group that his mom is gay. He told the other child that gay is when a girl likes a girl. This kind of discussion is not acceptable in my room.”
This kid is 7 years old. When asked about his parents, he was explaining it in the only way he knew how.
OK, so we don’t know the exact situation, and can only take what we read in the article (which, of course, may be biased in its own way), but that doesn’t mean that what they did was right. You should not be forced to repeatedly write “I will never use the word ‘gay’ in school again”, like it’s some great crime.
Unfortunately, in today’s world, “gay” has been taken completely out of context, and has become a rather offensive and derogatory comment to many people. This kid purely used it as a word to express, quite correctly, the relationship between his two mothers.
The world’s going mad, and is getting far too politically correct.
Right, soap box ready for the next person…
December 5th, 2003 at 1:33 AM
I did read the article, and the references. Thinking again, I still stick by my point – this is in my eyes not a one sided issue with the teacher on the wrong side. I know if the teacher was h*tin’
I say this having sat through a tutoring session where the kid was making farmyard/train noises for the majority of three hours, and also having marked one of the kids homeworks, which consisted in no small part of badly spelt swearwords. Its bloody infuriating.
Whether the kid used the word correctly or incorrectly (and we both know the original meaning of the word), its still largely awkward… Like a kid who continually refers to his pet female dog as his bitch.
I think explaining homosexual relationships is a step away from sexual education, as it would start lead into thinking about what it really means to “like” someone. Sexual education occurs in the playground, at home, or in specially prepared classes. I feel a teacher does have a right to keep such talk out of his classroom, and from being discussed in his presence.
December 5th, 2003 at 8:23 AM
I think given the context of the situation, the teacher should have backed off. The child explaining about his family would be the same as a single-parent child explaining that his dad looked after him alone because his mum had died/left, or a kid explaining that he had a different surname to his siblings because they were half-siblings because his dad was actually his step-dad.
This case is not a child being stopped from saying a “bad word” (face it, gay really isn’t that bad a swearword anyway, much as we might disagree with its use … the teacher’s own prejudices exacerbated its importance here), but far more importantly a child being stopped from talking about his family .. and being made to think that his family is not good enough, or equivalent to swearing in some way. What sort of damage will that do?
When I was at school it was a major insult to call someone “black” (I did grow up in Apartheid South Africa after all). Do you think if a mixed-race seven year old had explained that his skin tone was slightly darker because his father was black, then he should have been sent to behavioural clinic as this boy was?
December 5th, 2003 at 10:54 AM
“I feel a teacher does have a right to keep such talk out of his classroom, and from being discussed in his presence.”
For a start the incident didn’t happen in the classroom, it happened at recess – where you’ve already stated that this conversation might be acceptable.
For another thing you’ve just said a teacher has a right to punish a child for saying anything the teacher does not wish to discuss!!!!
If the child had been asked “What are you doing for Xmas” and had replied “My family doesn’t celebrate Chritmas, we have Hannukah” if the teacher doesn’t wish to discuss different religions can the child be punished for bringing up the subject at an innopportune moment?
I think above all (regardless of the gay issue) this child has been punished into believing his family is something to be ashamed of – respect thy mother and thy father….but only if your teacher approves.
December 5th, 2003 at 2:02 PM
Tony, dear, there is a difference between using gay as a swearword, e.g. calling one of your classmates gay in a derogatory way, and using it legitimately to refer to your own or your parents’ sexual orientation. The teacher clearly overheard the entire conversation, as is evident from his comment on the behaviour form (“Marcus decided to explain to another child in his group that his mom is gay. He told the other child that gay is when a girl likes a girl. This kind of discussion is not acceptable in my room.”) and failed to make that distinction.
Furthermore, the assistant principle then informed the boy’s mother that “gay” was “a word so bad that he didn?t want to repeat it over the phone”, again failing to make the distinction between the two (or, technically speaking, three if we count the original meaning) possible uses of the word.
December 7th, 2003 at 3:28 AM
There’s also a big difference between explaining that gay means “when a girl likes another girl” and discussing either the moral issues surrounding homosexuality OR what homosexual sex is actually all about. Nothing in what the child said puts homosexuality in any kind of a moral context – he is just stating what he sees as a fairly simple fact (from his point of view), and if any of the other children had started trying to ask questions that would have led to a conversation on the “sex ed” aspects of homosexuality, the teacher could very simply have said “That’s a questions you’ll want to ask your parents about, it’s not something I can really explain here” or something to that effect.
At the absolute worst, the child’s answer to the question put to him about his familiy might have required some parents to at least begin addressing the issue of homosexuality before they might have planned to, but it wouldn’t have prevented them from telling their ow children whatever they wanted to about homosexuality.
In my opinion, the teacher and the school both severely over-reacted and owe both the boy and his parents a sincere apology. Kids should never be made to feel that their family is somehow “bad” or that describing them is “off-limits”. That, I think, will do more harm to a kid in the long run than being told that being gay means “when a girl likes another girl.”
December 8th, 2003 at 1:33 AM
Aggreed on most points. Re-reading things it seems a lot more black and white than it did on the first time through. Apologies.