Spelling errors usually have an objective fix and are isolated to a single word. Warning about an improper word depends on the surrounding context and is highly subjective. The latter case requires a great deal more cognitive load to deal with and I think it will be much more distracting.
Well, nowadays. Keeping in mind that the only reason English spelling is standardized in 2022 is the waves of intentional English language spelling standardizations that occurred in the 17th, 19th, and 20th centuries, each of which was supported by dictionaries, education programs, and a general messaging that it would be the intelligent thing to do to get on board with the standard.
I can't help but wonder if people decried the idea of standardization back then. "It is a damn poor mind indeed which can't think of at least two ways to spell any word." ~Andrew Jackson, 1833
(... typing these sentences has triggered my spell-checker three times. I have accepted two suggestions and taken the liberty of disagreeing with the third, after a cross-check with my dictionary to confirm my spelling). ;)
Next thing you know there will be actual laws that ban what can be said in schools, books being banned, and laws that allow drivers to run over protesters.
Fortunately the people who are vigilant about Twitter moderation policies and word processor features are acting in good faith and will be outraged by actual government attempts to stifle speech.
So if you are referring to the "Don't say gay," law, you should actually read it.
Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.
That's the actual text. I don't see how you could possibly think that is an appropriate subject for a 3rd grader, much less a kindergartner. The partisan hyperbole around it is ridiculous on both sides.
>books being banned
Like Huckleberry Finn? Agree, books shouldn't be banned. Well maybe Mein Kampf and The Turner Diaries. Maybe some shouldn't be taught in public schools, right? How about the Bible? Should that be excluded from the public school corriculum? No screening of A Birth of a Nation you'd agree with? It's not like they're removing them from public libraries or the internet. What is taught in public schools vs what is allowed to be said in a public forum are quite different things as well.
>laws that allow drivers to run over protesters
I don't think that is a free speech issue, plus you are misrepresenting this legislation as well. It's not like a democrat can run over a GOP protestor or vice versa, I believe there has to be an actual threat involved like a group encircling your vehicle baseball bats.
Here's the issue with your argument, you are arguing with an imaginary person. That's like a GOP person saying something like, "libs are socialist!" It's a huge generalization and mis-catagorization. It's an emotional, misinformed argument rather than a rational one, and you are doing the same thing. You're consuming too much news / opinion. Take a break from it, most of it isn't that great for you. I fell into the same trap when I was younger.
> I don't see how you could possibly think that is an appropriate subject for a 3rd grader, much less a kindergartner. The partisan hyperbole around it is ridiculous on both sides.
What's problematic about it is that it's enforceable by private litigation. In one recent example[0], shortly before the law was passed, a group of Florida parents demanded action be taken against a 6th grade teacher for disclosing that his marriage was to another man after taking time off for his wedding. Had the law been in effect, it's likely one or more of those parents would have sued.
Such a suit probably wouldn't be successful in terms of winning a judgment. His disclosure wasn't "classroom instruction" after all, and most people probably would consider it age appropriate. Winning isn't necessarily the point though; creating a chilling effect such that teachers have to pretend queer people don't exist seems like the likely goal to me.
Indeed, the teacher in question is quitting teaching.
>What's problematic about it is that it's enforceable by private litigation. In one recent example[0], shortly before the law was passed, a group of Florida parents demanded action be taken against a 6th grade teacher for disclosing that his marriage was to another man after taking time off for his wedding. Had the law been in effect, it's likely one or more of those parents would have sued.
Thanks for the article. Assuming it's accurate it sounds like only the school districts are able to be sued. I assume teachers themselves would fall under qualified immunity which applies to all government workers. Florida teachers also have (albeit weak) union representation. Unfortunately in the US anyone can sue anyone else for any reason, so for the individual there doesn't seem like anything would be legally different. Having said that, many Florida schools are absolutely horrible at education outcomes.
>Parents will be able to sue school districts for alleged violations, damages or attorney’s fees when the law goes into effect July 1.
This whole enforced by private litigation trend is troubling, I wholeheartedly agree. Texas is doing something similar with abortion clinics. I believe some democratic states (CA maybe?) is doing it with gun shops too. Hopefully when enough people lose in court and lose their attorney's fees, it will cease to become a thing.
> I don't see how this is problematic in the slightest.
Because it's part of a new trend to de facto ban stuff the governing party would like to ban despite it being theoretically constitutionally protected by creating new civil offences and encouraging vexatious litigants to file nuisance suits. In this case the outcome is, as the state which passed the bill intended, that homosexuals are being harassed out of their jobs.
Regarding the state circumventing constitutional protections to make references to the gender of their partner a potentially career-limting move for certain minorities as less problematic than a company adding suggestions to avoid gendered language as a [clunky] grammar checking feature of its software is a point of view, I guess....
> I don't see how you could possibly think that is an appropriate subject for a 3rd grader, much less a kindergartner.
Why is it inappropriate for young children to be present for educational discussions about gender identity and sexual orientation? Kids live in modern families! Banning discussions like this is to ban the reality of lived experiences of millions of people.
Just a couple of days ago, my wife, who is a school librarian, told me a story about this. A teacher was in her library, doing story time with her kindergarten class, and for whatever reason the subject of parents came up. This kid stated, “I have a mama and a mami” (it’s a French school in Canada), and the woman said, “no, you have a mama and a papa”. No, the child insisted, “I have a mama and a mami”. And the teacher tried to argue the point, with this five-year-old. Of course the five-year-old knew what she was talking about, and the teacher was being either clueless or bigoted. But that right there is a “teachable moment”, and one that is completely appropriate for children of any age.
>Why is it inappropriate for young children to be present for educational discussions about gender identity and sexual orientation?
Because it's creepy and weird for adults, who are supposed to be teaching math and so on, to have conversations with young children about sex. What I don't get is how this became controversial. Probably because of the internet, again, amplifying the worst takes and the worst interpretations of any given event.
>Kids live in modern families! Banning discussions like this is to ban the reality of lived experiences of millions of people.
The overwhelming majority of kids do not, but that's besides the point and saying "we should wait to discuss sex and sexual orientation until kids are old enough" doesn't "ban reality" in any way. It's instructive that you assume the teacher was "clueless or bigoted" and not, ya know, trying to sidestep an awkward conversation about sex in front of five year olds.
I strongly believe that even if we'd accept the notion that this awkward conversation needs to be sidestepped, it's completely inappropriate to do it by invalidating the reality of that child's family and requesting them to agree to a ridiculous lie ("no, you have a mama and a papa") which insults their family. Arguing about this topic is entirely opposite to sidestepping the issue, it's the teacher explicitly starting the awkward conversation and failing at it.
Furthermore, while that indeed is not the lived reality for the majority of the individual kids, it's IMHO relevant for very many classrooms or teachers which will have at least one family like that; with 20-30 kids in a classroom, a 1% "rare case" will be represented in 20-30% classes and in almost every school.
Also, it's my understanding that the traditional family model is not even the majority in quite a few places where less than 50% of kids are raised in a marriage with both their parents, due to divorces, remarriages, deaths in family and simply single parents; so a kid may have a "mom and two dads" (i.e. the biological dad and mom's husband) or many other family structures; I recall hearing an (tragic?) joke about a particular class observing that there the majority kids were raised by two-woman family, namely, their mother and grandmother; etc. So it is important for teachers to acknowledge the diversity of actual parenting, you can't assume that "a mom and a dad" families are universal because so many families are not like that, those are not rare edge cases or exceptions, and they can't even be treated as deviation from the norm because in current society the nuclear two-parent family is not that dominant to be considered a true norm.
> Because it's creepy and weird for adults, who are supposed to be teaching math and so on, to have conversations with young children about sex.
> It's instructive that you assume the teacher was "clueless or bigoted" and not, ya know, trying to sidestep an awkward conversation about sex in front of five year olds.
That's a strawman argument. Sexual orientation and gender identity != sex. Nothing about this conversation needs to be awkward. "Oh, interesting, NAME, you have two moms? Well, everybody, that's true, you can have a mom and a dad, or two moms, or two dads. Some people have one parent, and some are raised by their grandpa or grandma or someone else. Does anyone else here have two moms? Does anyone have two dads? Or a single parent?" Blah blah blah. It's not awkward, it's not sexual, and it normalizes the experience for the great many children who live in "non-traditional" families.
> It's instructive that you assume the teacher was "clueless or bigoted" and not, ya know, trying to sidestep an awkward conversation about sex in front of five year olds.
This is exactly what people are talking about, by the way.
"I have a mama and a mami" is a potential awkward conversation about sex that needs to be sidestepped. "You have a mama and a papa" is no problem.
If we accept that as a premise, don't you see the issue with the law?
Are we going to pretend that LGBT parents are somehow completely incapable of explaining to their kid(s) that their parenting situation is somewhat unique, and that this must be offloaded to teachers?
> Because it's creepy and weird for adults, who are supposed to be teaching math and so on, to have conversations with young children about sex.
If kids don't learn about it from the good adults in their life, they're going to learn about it from the dangerous adults in their life. CSA thrives on the culture of silence imposed by those who think any discussion even obliquely related to sexual relations (and you're the one saying having two moms is "about sex"!) is inherently "creepy and weird".
Kids have a need to learn words to describe things which might be happening to them, and a right to see their self-image, family structure, and any proto-romantic/sexual feelings acknowledged.
> What, exactly, should the school be teaching the kids in that moment
How about this: "There are lots of different types of families, and among those many types, there are ones where there are two moms or two dads, and that's okay". [1]
> and how would this law prevent it?
IANAL but according to this analysis [1], 'Classroom “instruction” could mean eliminating books with L.G.B.T.Q. characters or historical figures. But “classroom discussion” is broad. That could discourage a teacher from speaking about gay families with the whole class, even if some students have gay parents.'
In other words, precisely the scenario I just described. This is a gag law that prevents educators from having the kind of conversation that should have happened in the library at my wife's school.
1: The first part of this lesson is a simple fact, and the second part ("that's okay") is a value judgment, but given that gay marriage is legal in FL and constitutionally protected, and that same-sex couples can, for instance, adopt children, that value judgment seems to be not just ethical but legally enshrined.
> How about this: "There are lots of different types of families, and among those many types, there are ones where there are two moms or two dads, and that's okay".
“That’s okay” is non-neutral moral judgement that exceeds the teacher’s purview.
“People are different in many ways; in this classroom, we treat everyone with respect regardless of our differences” is a content-neutral restriction on speech that does not exceed a teacher’s purview.
> IANAL but according to this analysis [1], 'Classroom “instruction” could mean eliminating books with L.G.B.T.Q. characters or historical figures.
The law is not tied to any particular sexual orientation (or gender “identity”); if that analysis were true, the law would also eliminate books with straight characters or historical figures.
> The first part of this lesson is a simple fact, and the second part ("that's okay") is a value judgment, but given that gay marriage is legal …
“That’s legal” is a statement of fact; it’s very different than “that’s okay”.
We could easily get into semantic or philosophical weeds here, but maybe instead of that, let me ask you: is it okay? Is it okay that this particular five-year-old has a mama and a mami? And if that’s okay, why should it be a crime to say that?
> 4. The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to have respect for the liberty of parents and, when applicable, legal guardians to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions.
This is not a simple matter of “inclusiveness.” The nature of men, women, the purposes of marriage, is a fundamental moral and religious concept. In my part of the world, it has nothing to do with “two people who love each other” but is instead a fulfillment of Mohammad’s exhortation to get married and have children as a central moral obligation of life. It’s deeply intertwined with what God’s purpose is for us on earth.
The reason people want to talk about this in school is to counterbalance the influence of the world’s largest religion and alter the moral views of children on a question central to religious morality. The very reason they want to do it is why it’s not a legitimate purpose of instruction in public schools.
NB: As a convert to mainline Protestant Christianity, I happen to think it’s okay. Most people in the world, including the world’s fastest growing religion and the religion followed by the fastest growing minority group in the US, do not think it’s okay.
> The very reason they want to do it is why it’s not a legitimate purpose of instruction in public schools.
The interface between church and state in the US is always friction-filled, because the separation of church and state creates an immediate contradiction: we must separate people's faith-based morality from the conduct of the government, yet we recognize that morality is an inextricable part of every individual.
In this case, these children are growing up in a society with laws that recognize the dignity and value of every one of those families. One parent, two parents, four parents, same-gender parents, different-gender parents... Regardless of the lessons children learn at home, it's the responsibility of the school to teach them that the law and the culture they're living in consider those families all equivalently correct.
So it's clear for the state (via the school) to have a say in this. That leaves the question on the table "is kindergarten too early for that say," and I'd argue it's not because kindergartners already have to interface to the society and sometimes have questions on these topics. My largest concern with this law is it badly ties the hands of educators if such questions come up organically. And that does a disservice to every student in their care, and harms the state's interest in educating its citizens about life in the state.
(To be more clear: when I say "badly ties the hands," I don't mean to imply there should be no constraints. Rather, the enforcement mechanism of opening up private lawsuits creates a situation where what should be a collaborative process, the education of children, is structured adversarially; the law doesn't encourage collaboration, it gives parents a cudgel to try and beat school systems with. That's bad law because it creates perverse incentives counter to the goals of the education process. Parents, too, have a vested interest in their children learning how to live in their society; how well do we imagine that will go if the process is "If I don't like what you're teaching, I will harm you financially?").
> The interface between church and state in the US is always friction-filled, because the separation of church and state creates an immediate contradiction: we must separate people's faith-based morality from the conduct of the government, yet we recognize that morality is an inextricable part of every individual.
The American notion of "separation of church and state" refers to pluralism, not secularism. It's a nation founded by groups of religious nuts who sought to create a system where we could leave each other alone. We're not a country like France where there's a secular "civic religion" into which everyone must be socialized: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/12/france-...
> In this case, these children are growing up in a society with laws that recognize the dignity and value of every one of those families.
Our laws require equal rights and equal treatment in various contexts: government services, employment, etc. They don't say anything about "value" because in a pluralistic society people have different values.
> Regardless of the lessons children learn at home, it's the responsibility of the school to teach them that the law and the culture they're living in consider those families all equivalently correct. So it's clear for the state (via the school) to have a say in this.
Law, culture, and morality are separate domains. Americans share law. They don't necessarily share culture or morality. Public schools can teach about the law and behavioral expectations. But they aren't permitted to intrude into the domain of what's "correct"--i.e. moral right versus wrong: "The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to have respect for the liberty of parents and, when applicable, legal guardians to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions."
Asserting that schools get to socialize kids into "culture"--whose culture?--is the off ramp where you lose lots of parents. (Note that this law has strong public support in Florida, from a population that also strongly supports same sex marriage.) What’s the scope of this principle? What other aspects of sexual morality do teachers get to tell kids about? When I got married, my (Bangladeshi American) mom told my (white American) wife: "You know, we don't get divorced." There's lots of things that Muslim Americans accept as legal and part of white American culture over which they maintain distinct moral standards in their own families and communities. I suspect though I can’t be sure that Hispanics in Florida are in a similar boat. Pluralism requires respecting those boundaries.
> The American notion of "separation of church and state" refers to pluralism, not secularism
It's both. Agnostic or atheistic belief is one of the many faiths understood to be supported and protected by the separation of church and state. If a person can have faith in one god or many gods, they can have faith in none. It isn't French-style, but in a country where, for example, interracial and same-sex marriage is legal (in direct contradiction to the teachings of several religions), there are times where the state must step in to protect its citizens from having their rights stripped by organizations acting as a formal or informal arm of religion, so it can sometimes look like a state-sponsored secular faith.
The question is complicated and has gone the other way too; some religious ceremonies of native American cultures involve the use of psychedelics that are federally banned. Most Christian churches' celebrations of their covenant with God involve the imbibing of alcohol by people under the age of 21. In some cases, federal lawsuits have been involved to determine when the state is overstepping its authority to impose behavioral constraints on people.
> Our laws require equal rights and equal treatment in various contexts: government services, employment, etc. They don't say anything about "value" because in a pluralistic society people have different values.
In my mind, dignity and value are synonymous and the law definitely protects the dignity of those families. I'm unaware of a non-synonymous way to treat those terms, but if there is one I agree with your take on the law.
> "The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to have respect for the liberty of parents and, when applicable, legal guardians to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions"
The United States has never recognized the UN's full authority over its own laws or the interpretation of same. In the case of that quote, it's sourced from the ICCPR. The ICCPR was adopted by the United States with a declaration and proviso that fundamentally give it no force of authority here (https://h2o.law.harvard.edu/text_blocks/28885). In other words, the ICCPR is, at best, a declaration of morality and has no force of law, so if the US shares no morality or culture, you can't use it in this context to make an argument about how the US should act.
... which highlights the problem with the logic that the US shares no morality. Of course it does. We figure out what our shared morality is via the process of democratic election, debate, and construction of our law. That law reflects the shared morality of its people, which grows from our separate but overlapping faiths.
> whose culture?
The culture decided upon through the interaction of the school board and the election of the board by the people. With an overlap of the federal Department of Education. It's a complicated process, but it's there. There's definitely a culture to a school; without one, one cannot explain any proviso of any student handbook.
> pluralism requires respecting those boundaries
It absolutely does, and if a kid came home crying because their teacher told them they were living in sin with two fathers at home, that would be a major breach of trust on the part of the educator and we already have processes in place for dealing with that. But if the kid comes home crying because one of their classmates has two dads, the teacher said that's okay and the parents had told that kid it isn't? Then we have a clash of religion and the consensus culture of the country, and the school is correct in terms of its duties to teach students how to live in this country. For the law is clear, and the law is a reflection of the consensus morality. In this place, in the public square, in the streets, workplaces, and halls of government, it is okay to have two dads. This does not impinge on what one's heart says is okay.
My faith has an old saying, passed down from its prophet, which sums up this dichotomy nicely: "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's."
> It's both. Agnostic or atheistic belief is one of the many faiths understood to be supported and protected by the separation of church and state.
Pluralism is fundamentally different from secularism. Pluralism accommodates agnostic/atheistic beliefs as one of many protected belief systems. Secularism turns over the public sphere to agnostic/atheistic beliefs and relegates religion to a private role. In the U.S., a Muslim is a Muslim all the time--in school, when they vote, when they hold office, etc. In France, Muslims must be agnostic/atheistic in public, and can be religious in private. Thus in the U.S., banning a Muslim girl from wearing hijab would be a civil rights violation, while it's the law in France.
"Separation of church and state" thus operates fundamentally differently in the two systems. In the U.S., it means a narrow procedural framework to allow Christians and Muslims and atheists to get along. The government can't establish an official mosque. And the government can't discriminate between Muslims and Christians or play favorites. In France, by contrast, it means the creation of a parallel agnostic/atheistic belief system to govern public affairs, to which everyone must subscribe and into which children must be socialized. That's not the American system.
> It isn't French-style, but in a country where, for example, interracial and same-sex marriage is legal ... there are times where the state must step in to protect its citizens from having their rights stripped by organizations acting as a formal or informal arm of religion, so it can sometimes look like a state-sponsored secular faith.
It's important not to mistake American tolerance for shared American morality. In a pluralistic system, people can often believe that other people should be able to act according to their own conscience. That's wholly distinct from a shared secular morality or agreement about what's acceptable and not acceptable that can be taught in public schools. For example, 60% of Americans think it's immoral for teenagers to have sex, and 90% think married people having an affair is immoral, but nobody is trying to ban either. At the same time, people would probably object to teachers commenting on those issues. Muslim Americans are a stark example of the difference between tolerance and shared morality: a large majority support same-sex marriage, but virtually no mosque in America will perform one: https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/28/us/lgbt-muslims-pride-progres....
> The ICCPR was adopted by the United States with a declaration and proviso that fundamentally give it no force of authority here (https://h2o.law.harvard.edu/text_blocks/28885). In other words, the ICCPR is, at best, a declaration of morality and has no force of law, so if the US shares no morality or culture, you can't use it in this context to make an argument about how the US should act.
While the ICCPR is not legally binding in the U.S., religious pluralism is a fundamental right in our Constitution. The ICCPR is an important and widely adopted articulation of what religious freedom means and how it should operate. In that understanding, freedom to socialize your children in your own moral and religious beliefs is a core principle.
> The culture decided upon through the interaction of the school board and the election of the board by the people. With an overlap of the federal Department of Education. It's a complicated process, but it's there.
I'm pretty sure there is nothing in the organic statutes of these entities giving these bodies the power to declare and evangelize a "shared culture" or "consensus morality." This attitude also confirms why the Florida law has such strong public support. Educators really do believe that they're champions of what you call this shared public morality and that it is within their ambit to socialize kids into that moral framework. That's exactly what people are afraid of.
I have to say, in all sincerity, that I respect your logical explanation of your position. You've clearly articulated where the disagreement lies.
> I'm pretty sure there is nothing in the organic statutes of these entities giving these bodies the power to declare and evangelize a "shared culture" or "consensus morality"
Children spend easily half their waking day with their educators five out of seven days a year, about eight out of twelve months. The power is there by default because the school has to have a functioning micro-society out of the immediate purview of the parents of the students. For example, classrooms can teach stealing is wrong (and enforce it via code of conduct). They're not brainwashing the youth with a belief in the value of private property and societal protection of it when they do so. Nor are they brainwashing the youth into believing in the correctness of division of labor if they hang one of these in the classroom (https://www.amazon.com/Learning-Resources-Helping-Hands-Pock...).
Similarly, if it comes up in conversation that someone has two dads, a teacher isn't brainwashing the youth when they say that's okay. It's certainly not conduct where a private lawsuit is appropriate against a person doing the job they've been entrusted with.
> That's exactly what people are afraid of.
That's an excellent concern for parents to have, and school boards are usually excited to hear feedback on the curriculum if there is a perception that students are being taught a morality that clashes with their parents'. Building a curriculum that benefits students as much as possible is a collaborative exercise.
> Children spend easily half their waking day with their educators five out of seven days a year, about eight out of twelve months. The power is there by default
That's exactly what people are worried about--schools using their monopoly over children's time and attention to exceed the scope of their mandate.
> For example, classrooms can teach stealing is wrong (and enforce it via code of conduct). They're not brainwashing the youth with a belief in the value of private property and societal protection of it when they do so. Nor are they brainwashing the youth into believing in the correctness of division of labor if they hang one of these in the classroom (https://www.amazon.com/Learning-Resources-Helping-Hands-Pock...).
That schools have the power to set and enforce rules, and explain to kids what's socially "allowed" and "not allowed"--e.g. bullying, for any reason, is not allowed--is not in dispute, and doesn't require teachers to opine on disputed moral issues.
> That's an excellent concern for parents to have, and school boards are usually excited to hear feedback on the curriculum if there is a perception that students are being taught a morality that clashes with their parents'. Building a curriculum that benefits students as much as possible is a collaborative exercise.
Public schools and parents don't "collaborate" on the moral education of children. That's squarely in the domain of parents. That's one of the basic bargains that allows pluralism to work, and a key reason why America has largely avoided the disaster with integrating Muslims that France has brought upon itself.
Again, it is impossible for schools to have no say in the moral education of children when children are spending about half their waking hours there. Children are sponges and they will learn what is right and wrong from the observation of the environment they're in; there's no realistic understanding of how children learn that indicates a way to turn that off.
So collaboration is the best-case scenario, because the alternative is a fight. I dislike that this law seems crafted to say "Yes, a fight is the correct approach." That puts children in the middle of an adversarial situation and is therefore unwise.
> Again, it is impossible for schools to have no say in the moral education of children when children are spending about half their waking hours there.
That's just an inherent tension when you combine a Constitution that guarantees robust religious pluralism with taxpayer-funded public education. You have to think robustly about how to give effect to pluralism in the face of practical necessities.
> So collaboration is the best-case scenario, because the alternative is a fight. I dislike that this law seems crafted to say "Yes, a fight is the correct approach." That puts children in the middle of an adversarial situation and is therefore unwise.
Whether there is collaboration or a fight often depends on whether the parties clearly agree on their respective rights and roles. If you build your house partly on my land, my response is going to depend in large part on whether you acknowledge the boundary line or attempt to deny it.
A fight is brewing here because there's a disagreement as to rights and roles. In Tinker, the Warren court wrote that educators could exercise their in loco parentis to prevent conduct that would "materially and substantially interfere with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school." It may be that there are incidental moral teachings that bear on that function. So long as we all agree about the limited scope of that authority--only as need to maintain discipline, etc.--we can collaborate on the details.
If educators insist, however, that their role--by virtue of their profession and education--is to teach kids about their view of evolving "secular morality," and displace the moral teachings of parents, then collaboration is not possible and a fight is in order. Because that's a sweeping expansion of educators' role. And it jeopardizes the compromises that a lot of people have made with the larger society. As my mom told me growing up, "just because your American friends can do something doesn't mean that you can."
> "just because your American friends can do something doesn't mean that you can."
That's an excellent example, and I would hope the public education system would teach you that you have exactly the same rights as every American, in contrast to the incorrect information you are receiving from the home. For as Jefferson once said, the purpose of public education is "... To enable every man to judge for himself what will secure or endanger his freedom."
> Why is it inappropriate for young children to be present for educational discussions about gender identity and sexual orientation?
Because kids’ brains aren’t fully developed until age 25 and sexuality is a complicated and potentially damaging force that parents try to insulate their kids from until they’re old enough to understand what it is and what it isn’t.
Also, more fundamentally, because many parents are just fresh out of trust: https://www.plannedparenthood.org/planned-parenthood-st-loui.... There’s a vocal faction of the left that’s obsessed with sex. These are the folks who thought same-sex marriage was a bad thing because they wanted more sweeping changes to sexual and gender norms. These folks are always trying to sneak in the door behind people advocating for equal rights, and right now we’re in a phase where the broader center left doesn’t have the backbone to stand up to them.
I would argue that saying, "some people have two mommies," is arguably age appropriate, but adding, "because some women like to have sex with other women," would not be. The teacher in question should have just said, "ok," or something and not tried to bring in a deeper discussion about sexual preferences.
The problem is that a reasonable reading of the bill bans both the latter and the former, so either the law was incompetently crafted, or it was not intended to serve the distinction you've laid out.
As I pointed out in my other comment, re-read that sentence, it's two separate clauses joined by or. As in, it bans {any discussion of the topics {K-3 OR not "age appropriate"}}.
>may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 *or* in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.
That "or" is pretty crucial, and any lawyer worth their salt will point out that this will not limit it to K-3. It bans ALL discussion of the topics, "age appropriate" or not, from K-3, AS WELL AS opening the way for private litigation for discussion that some parent decides is inappropriate for ANY grade level.
Per the New York Times:
>The impact is clear enough: Instruction on gender and sexuality would be constrained in all grades. But its language is vague and subject to interpretation.
>The language highlights the youngest students, but the “age appropriate or developmentally appropriate” provision affects all ages. Those terms are highly subjective, and parents, school staff and students are likely to clash over the ambiguities.
As to whether the topic "is an appropriate subject for a 3rd grader" I recall kindergarten discussions on students who might have two mommies or two daddies, which would be banned by a reasonable interpretation of the law.
I don't see how you could possibly think that is an appropriate subject for a 3rd grader, much less a kindergartner.
I'm confused. If a child has two parents of the same gender, or a parent that is transitioning gender, or is friends with... or has reletives that... etc.? What if a child wishes to present as a different gender?
Why isn't it appropriate to discuss all of these? Young families that I know now own some children's books with "non-traditional families" (yuck, I don't know a better term -- please suggest!) Of course, the books are age-appropriate.
The point is to normalise gender and sexuality diversity as early as possible. Generations before had to learn much later.
>If a child has two parents of the same gender, or a parent that is transitioning gender, or is friends with... or has reletives that... etc.? What if a child wishes to present as a different gender?
>Why isn't it appropriate to discuss all of these?
Totally fine with that in the home. This topic is not appropriate for public school teachers instruct to their students in a K-3 setting. If, as a parent, you feel it is appropriate with your children at that age, instruct them at home.
Look at it this way, by allowing it, you are essentially forcing parents with teachers who want to bring up the subject to have their kids instructed on gender topics in K-3; a subject the parents didn't opt-in for either. Not only that, there's no guarantee some Math or English teacher is even qualified to teach the subject. That's definitely not cool.
>Is the topic of a child having a biological mother and father at home appropriate for K-3?
No, man. Kids are learning colors and how to spell basic words and basic math and how to interact with each other. Some kids don't have parents, some kids only have grandparents or only aunts and uncles, some kids only have a single parent, some kids have step parents, some kids swap between divorced parents, some kids are adopted and some kids have parents who abandoned them because of drug use, or are dead or in prison. You wanna broach the subject of same sex parents, you gotta cover all that shit and you've opened a can of worms way bigger than you thought. Teachers shouldn't bring that shit up. Allow them a little time in their lives to be innocent and not worry about that shit. Spread your politics to adults, leave the kids alone.
Life doesn't leave the kids alone though. Those families you've described were all my fellow students in kindergarten.
Can't help but wonder how much damage we did to them by reinforcing they were abnormal when we talked about mommies and daddies and they didn't have those. Guess we take talk of nuclear families off the table too, for everyone's safety.
... And then we've made a strange world where kids can't talk about their parents at school.
>Those families you've described were all my fellow students in kindergarten.
Yes, it's quite common unfortunately. I've always heard it referred to as "a parent or guardian," by schools which is a pretty good approach in my opinion.
>... And then we've made a strange world where kids can't talk about their parents at school.
No, you're misrepresenting the opposing argument. The law only concerns classroom instructions by school personnel or third parties. In my mind, this would be akin to, "today's lesson is about LGBTQ studies." The law doesn't apply to what kids are allowed or not allowed to discuss amongst themselves.
>Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties
> In my mind, this would be akin to, "today's lesson is about LGBTQ studies." The law doesn't apply to what kids are allowed or not allowed to discuss amongst themselves.
The problem is that the teacher is the source of truth, so that discussion is likely to end up in the teacher's lap. What do they do then?
What I'm afraid this bans is the teacher being able to respond with something like "Yup, some people have 2 dads. And some have 2 moms. Some people have families that look nothing like yours, but it's not a big deal."
Basically I would hope for explanation and normalization along the same lines as divorced parents. Nobody is expecting them to explain why people get divorced, or what sexual orientation is. Just an acknowledgement that it exists, and it's fine, and little Timmy isn't a weirdo because his parents are gay or divorced.
Maybe on Pride Day they read a children's book where the parents are just incidentally LGBTQ. The "Timmy goes out to play in the rain with his dog, and comes inside muddy. His moms/dads are mad that he tracked mud all over." Doesn't have to be a whole lesson gay identity and culture, just a reminder that not everyone has the same kind of family. They honestly should do the same thing with single/divorced parents; I don't feel like they exist in children's books either.
>Basically I would hope for explanation and normalization along the same lines as divorced parents. Nobody is expecting them to explain why people get divorced, or what sexual orientation is. Just an acknowledgement that it exists, and it's fine, and little Timmy isn't a weirdo because his parents are gay or divorced.
Yes, I don't think the law bars that discussion, especially if the child initiates it. I would hope it wouldn't. Of course it will be up to the courts to interpret what classroom instruction means.
>Maybe on Pride Day they read a children's book where the parents are just incidentally LGBTQ. The "Timmy goes out to play in the rain with his dog, and comes inside muddy. His moms/dads are mad that he tracked mud all over." Doesn't have to be a whole lesson gay identity and culture, just a reminder that not everyone has the same kind of family. They honestly should do the same thing with single/divorced parents; I don't feel like they exist in children's books either.
I think on Pride Day, they should teach colors and math and reading just like every day to K-3 kids. Why introduce this to the curriculum? Why introduce the concept that some kid's parents are drug addicts? It just doesn't belong. Parents can do that if they feel it's important for their kids to learn, not the public schools.
Also consider the kid who's parents are gay could certainly feel that this whole discussion is singling them out and not like having the teacher bring it up. Just because a teacher intends the discussion to make someone feel inclusive doesn't mean it won't have the opposite affect in a child's mind. Kids can also be cruel, imagine during the discussion some kid says, "Ha ha, Jimmy has two mommies!" followed by snickers and laughs. That's certainly not the outcome you are imagining, but it's not beyond the realm of possibility. Now the kid feels like an utter outcast, the exact opposite of the intent. Best just to stick to the basics of elementary education and not let teachers go, "off script."
> Yes, I don't think the law bars that discussion, especially if the child initiates it. I would hope it wouldn't. Of course it will be up to the courts to interpret what classroom instruction means.
That might be the disconnect for us; I think it will end up being pretty broadly defined. The term doesn't seem to be legally defined (in this context), so the closest I can find is Florida's legal definition of a teacher:
"(a) Classroom teachers.—Classroom teachers are staff members assigned the professional activity of instructing students in courses in classroom situations, including basic instruction, exceptional student education, career education, and adult education, including substitute teachers."
Given that it doesn't separate out discussion, I would guess that effectively anything that happens in the classroom is "instruction".
Only time will tell, I could totally be wrong.
> I think on Pride Day, they should teach colors and math and reading just like every day to K-3 kids. Why introduce this to the curriculum?
Kids at that age are learning what normal is, and by the end of it are starting to judge things as not normal. You can see it in those stupid Children React videos; those kids already have an idea of normal and not. Or if you were to offer an American 3rd grader some kind of cultural delicacy. They'll say it's gross and weird, meaning it doesn't fit into their definition of normal. Kindergarteners will happily eat it, because they don't have a sense of normal just yet.
The purpose is to help them realize it's a normal thing. We still teach them what pigs and cows are, even though most people will interact with far more gay people than pigs or cows. If pigs and cows are taught as normal in an urban area, why would it be so weird to introduce the idea of gay people? It's certainly more pertinent.
> Why introduce the concept that some kid's parents are drug addicts?
I probably should have gated that with "loving and healthy parents". The goal is to teach children that there are other normal family arrangements, not to drag 2nd graders into a discussion about the nature of evil.
> Also consider the kid who's parents are gay could certainly feel that this whole discussion is singling them out and not like having the teacher bring it up. Just because a teacher intends the discussion to make someone feel inclusive doesn't mean it won't have the opposite affect in a child's mind. Kids can also be cruel, imagine during the discussion some kid says, "Ha ha, Jimmy has two mommies!" followed by snickers and laughs. That's certainly not the outcome you are imagining, but it's not beyond the realm of possibility. Now the kid feels like an utter outcast, the exact opposite of the intent. Best just to stick to the basics of elementary education and not let teachers go, "off script."
That would be traumatic, but also basically the default outcome unless you somehow believe that children are kinder to each other when the teacher is gone. If the kids are going to snicker and laugh while the teacher is there, I can't imagine they'd be any kinder if they found out on their own.
I don't think it will always be perfect, but I don't think leaving the kids to figure it out themselves is going to lead to a better outcome.
> That's the actual text. I don't see how you could possibly think that is an appropriate subject for a 3rd grader, much less a kindergartner. The partisan hyperbole around it is ridiculous on both sides.
The way it's being enforced is the issue. I don't see any issue with discussion of gender identity with kindergardeners or 3rd graders. If they can understand that mommy and daddy love each other and got married, they can understand that daddy and daddy or mommy and mommy did too. The law's intent is to allow the first, but prevent the second (and we see evidence of this due to age-appropriate books featuring gay characters getting removed, but not age-appropriate books with straight relationships).
> Like Huckleberry Finn? Agree, books shouldn't be banned.
No, Huck Finn shouldn't be banned.
> Well maybe Mein Kampf and The Turner Diaries.
No. If they're taught they should be taught in context (and admittedly you're probably not going to read Mein Kampf cover to cover outside of a college course), but if it's relevant to the curricula, sure (and I'm sure there are excerpts in some euro-history textbooks!)
> Maybe some shouldn't be taught in public schools, right? How about the Bible? Should that be excluded from the public school corriculum?
No, there are obvious contexts where the bible should be taught as part of the curriculum! When we discussed world religions came up in my high school history we absolutely read bits of the Bible and Quran, as well as some Vedic verses and more.
> No screening of A Birth of a Nation you'd agree with? It's not like they're removing them from public libraries or the internet. What is taught in public schools vs what is allowed to be said in a public forum are quite different things as well.
I watched clips from Birth of a Nation in my HS history classes, again: as long as it's contextualized well, sure, in fact more than sure! Yes, we should encourage well-contextualized viewership of shameful things from history.
Also as a bit of an addendum, if the worry really is primarily around "grooming" and childhood sexual assault, some age appropriate instruction about sex and specifically how and what is inappropriate for adults to do is one of the most effective things to keep children safe. If a kid doesn't have the words to describe what was done to them, or the understanding that it was inappropriate, they're much less likely to report.
> I don't see how you could possibly think that is an appropriate subject for a 3rd grader, much less a kindergartner
My brother was born when I was in kindergarten. When there's about to be a new family member, how that happens and where they come from is a natural topic to discuss. And if you're going to discuss reproduction, the topic of men and women being attracted to each other is already on the table which means that the fact that not everybody has that attraction is also on the table.
My main problem with the law as written is the clause "in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students." The science of education is less than 100 years old, and modern child psychology is younger than that. I don't think anybody has any idea what is or is not age appropriate. This law takes something that should be addressed on a case-by-case basis by the parents and teachers who know the students best, puts a cudgel in the hands of one of those parties, and says they should be set against each other. That's profoundly stupid.
>When there's about to be a new family member, how that happens and where they come from is a natural topic to discuss. And if you're going to discuss reproduction
You should not be teaching reproduction to kindergartners as a public school teacher.
>The science of education is less than 100 years old, and modern child psychology is younger than that. I don't think anybody has any idea what is or is not age appropriate.
> You should not be teaching reproduction to kindergartners as a public school teacher.
As it did no harm to me, I cannot agree. In fact, I have yet to hear one instance of a child coming to harm learning that knowledge in a healthy way at the kindergarten age.
My position is that is a case-by-case question. Does it need to be on the syllabus (what passes for a syllabus in kindergarten)? Maybe not. Should parents be able to sue if the topic comes up organically? No, that's quite disruptive to what should be a collaborative process. And given how little we know of the hard sciences of either child psychology or mass education, bringing force of law down on this topic is severe government overreach.
By “ban” you mean the government that is providing a taxpayer-funded service choosing what content is provided as part of that service by taxpayer-paid employees, right?
I think they mean the government providing a taxpayer-funded service letting citizens bring private lawsuits instead of going through the regular channels for addressing errors if deviations from curricula occur because for some reason those channels (which are also government-defined) are inadequate, yet cannot be improved.
We'd best not pull the thread on why they can't be improved.
Who is suggesting that Google employees be restrained?
Also, the complaint about Google employees is a liberal one. It’s about a small, wealthy, highly unrepresentative group of people having outsize power over society and culture.
As if I haven't read thousands of "these companies are public utilities" arguments ever since conservatives embraced Trump's politics of total war against perceived enemies.
> Trump's politics of total war against perceived enemies.
Trump was a Democrat for most of his life, after all. You know, the folks that turned on a dime to defend corporate free speech the moment the big corporations were on their side. I'm too nerdy to stomach the hypocrisy, but it's hard to fault someone for playing to win.
Nothing is being censored here; it's a simple recommendation. If they start censoring personal correspondence, they open up a huge opportunity for another option to disrupt them. It's not an impossible scenario, but it's an unlikely (and more importantly: self-correcting) scenario.
Self-correcting because frustrated users will simply start their own Google? Even if that happens, their second generation of employees will start a revolt if their company doesn't follow the latest DIE best practices.
I honestly think that only the Russian/Chinese model of a nationalized IT ecosystem has a chance to resist these trends.
Self-correcting because Google already has competition in the cloud editor space. Office suites are valuable software with an obvious business model for monetization.
> I honestly think that only the Russian/Chinese model of a nationalized IT ecosystem
That wouldn't solve the underlying problem if the nation decides some words are inappropriate (in fact, if we're thinking anti-censorship you may have chosen two particularly bad examples ;) ). It's power structures all the way down.
You can turn it off, but would you. Would you risk turning it off at work where everyone else that looks at your doc sees the purple and you never even got a heads up.
If Google were to affect search ranking for something like that, it would be much simpler to just affect it based on the presence of the actual keywords that would have been underlined than retaining some metadata about the configuration of the editor when the document was written.
Spoiler alert: Google already has a deny list of words that will cause a page to not show up outside of focused queries for it. Most people have no idea how much porn is actually on the internet.
If you like the username, you should listen to the song.
The punchline is that the protagonist spends his life paranoid about shadow organizations watching his every move. In the end, he ends up dead in the trunk of a local strongman who gets away with it because there is no greater order in the world to save or harm him.
