Politicizing the Curriculum

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:man_shrugging:t2: I can’t stand bob Dylan or pretty much anything that spawned from the counter cultural movements of the 50s and 60s.
 
You don’t have to stand it. It’s just a simple truth. Time Marches forward and attitudes change.
 
The only time I would think I, as a teacher, would bring up specifically Turning’s sexuality in high school would be in history talking about the enigma machines.

I would say he cracked the code, saved countless lives, and hastened the end of the war. And we repaid his service by taking umbrage with his romantic partners. So we tried him publically, humiliated this war hero, and chemically castrated him, which lead to horrible hormonal effects on his body and lead to a spiralling depression that lead him to suicide, thus robbing us of his brilliance and who knows what else he might have come up with. So maybe we should think twice about what we do to people who don’t share our views, in certain things.

I think it’s an important lesson. Especially when society’s bullying of gay children to this day leads to suicide.
 
How often they ascribe homosexual behavior to those who may or may not have been.

King James? Leonardo da Vinci? Michaelangelo?
 
Yeah, they used to have a class about Civics. Used to. It taught young people about good behaviors and how to be responsible and productive as they got older. Good citizens meant good for all. Being well-educated used to be taught as a good thing, at home. It was promoted. Today? Not so much.

The agenda is not about making people gay. It’s about making LGBT behaviors acceptable. To kids. Kids who haven’t even gone through puberty. At that age, girls weren’t important, meaning us guys had our own way of having fun and playing, which didn’t mean girls were excluded, just that they weren’t on our minds like they would be after puberty.

quote “Also it’s bad to do violence to them for the sake of their sexuality.” /end quote/ Where did this even come from? Where was this brought up? We were taught to do no violence to anybody, except defend ourselves when some punk kid who thought he had something to prove came after us. I got beaten up by one of those guys.

Again, history. There are some people who care about some history but you don’t force things on kids in school. Force usually backfires. And one more thing. How do I know if the guy standing in line in front of me is gay? How? When I was a kid I knew gay people existed. I understood. In 1970s and early '80s, I worked at a major hospital with gay people. We got along. I did not think for one second about what they did on their own time. And all of us had to follow the rules and do a good job. Now this?
 
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I don’t think you were taught to do violence to the gays. But violence does happen to the gays. It’s a thing. It has been a thing. Especially in a history class that stretches back hundreds of years. You don’t need to dig far in history to find it, even in a general survey course. That’s an important part of history too that deserves to be discussed. Along with ethnic violence, religious violence, gender violence, etc.

But you’re right. I’m afraid the perspective of secular school is to teach it in a secular manner. I get why that’s a thing a Catholic forum would rabble-rouse about. But like it or not, it’s part of our history - the rise of the LGBT rights movement, LGBT society prior to that movement, post the movement, etc. It affects and is affected by culture - that’s history.
 
I have, though. And in school at least for some of them.

Or at least bisexual.
 
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Well if a historian makes a claim, it’s incumbent upon them to provide evidence. And that evidence and their conclusions is fair to scrutinize. History is like any other subject.
 
Not true. TIME CHANGES NOTHING. Only people change things like they’re doing now - with this. Attitudes change? Really? By themselves? Not true. LGBT advocacy groups have spent millions of dollars to lobby people. They’ve gone door to door. I saw the billboards for same-sex marriage. And when they lost a state? “Not enough money. Not enough volunteers.”

And the media is not helping when CNN puts an out athlete on and tells everyone watching to “Stop being homophobic.” Was that fair or right? No.
 
Yes, but when your handouts say something, you can try to take it up with the teacher but will that really affect anything?
 
The sky is falling, the sky is falling!

Homosexuality wasn’t a problem in the US until Christian sensibilities got here.

And frankly, the whole country isn’t Christian. And I have no intention to try to enforce one faith in a classroom.
 
I’d have to read the handout. I can’t imagine it was a gay cheat sheet.

But if, perhaps, let’s say someone got a handout that listed all the presidents. And one of the columns was “other facts.” And for James Buchanan in that column said “Likely gay”

As a teacher, if a student raised their hand and said “What’s this about?” I would say how his letters have been examined, and letters about him, and it leads some historians to say that he could have been gay.

I don’t know how else to address that issue? The evidence is out there for people to find and make up their own minds. I always encourage my students to not take their teachers’ word as fact. That they should ask questions and press when something doesn’t sound right.
 
No, but someone is forcing homosexuality on kids in the guise of history.

/quote And frankly, the whole country isn’t Christian. end quote/ Who said anything about that? Who cares? What does that have to do with the topic? I’m talking about a planned propaganda program aimed at kids. And it doesn’t matter what faith those kids may or may not be a part of.
 
I’ve done a little teaching myself, and I’ve never encountered anyone who told their students to not take what their teacher tells them as fact. How many kids even make it past high school today?
 
Because your religion is informing your morality on the topic. Yes, we want LGBTQ students to be comfortable with themselves. We want them to understand they have a place in history and society. We don’t want to erase them from history. If a student came to me and said “I’m gay, is that bad?” I would say emphatically “No. It might make things harder for you, but it’s not bad.” I haven’t found an argument to think otherwise.
 
I try to prep high school students for college. And in college, the way history is taught changes. It’s not just memorizing dates and such. It’s about taking evidence and making arguments about history.

So to say the Conquest happened in 1066 isn’t a fact that is debatable. Why the Conquest, happened, what happened to society after the Conquest, what people felt about the Conquest, etc. is debatable. And there are usually arguments lots of ways about many subjects.

I think my favorite example is the prompt from US history" “John Brown - righteous hero or terrorist pawn” There’s lots of evidence both ways. Why the Japanese were interred in WW2 is another topic where there’s arguments to be made in both directions. What was the ultimate cause of WW1 is another.
 
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My religion. Your assumption. And not worth more than that. Like the out athlete on CNN telling everyone watching to “Stop being homophobic.” But you ignore things like that. Like I wrote earlier, I worked with gay people. We got along. Now the idea is to indoctrinate kids. INDOCTRINATE KIDS. Got that? Indoctrination by force is a bad thing. But here it is. Please stick to the topic.

https://www.amazon.com/Homosexuality-American-Psychiatry-Politics-Diagnosis/dp/0691028370
 
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