Lesson #9
Published by Rob Siltanen May 11th, 2009 in School Board MeetingsI wish everyone would take a deep breath before heading into the public hearing at Tuesday night’s School Board meeting.
State law now requires that school districts have policies to prevent harassment and discrimination of students based on actual and perceived gender identification and sexual orientation.
The law (appropriately) gives local school districts some discretion about what those policies are to include. Educating students with an additional lesson (proposed lesson #9) in the Caring School Curriculum in order to help prevent harassment or discrimination before it occurs occurs is a good, reasonable (and legal) part of such a policy.
The curriculum has been revised and improved substantially based on community input. The current curriculum includes age appropriate concepts and vocabulary. It doesn’t include any “sexual health education.”
If there are other forms of harassment or discrimination that AUSD policy is not addressing adequately, AUSD should examine changes in those policies as well. But that’s not a reason not to take this step now. If we accepted the argument that “We can’t take this step because it only solves part of the problem rather than the entire problem,” we’d never solve any problems.
To those who argue that the Board should postpone this decision past May, I’d submit that this isn’t going to get any easier in 6 or 12 months. The fundamental issues aren’t going to change. We’ve got all the facts and opinions we’re going to get. It is time to do the right thing. The Board should approve the revised curriculum.
Your post regarding the need for the whole community to come together and participate in the development of a viable and long-term plan for the AUSD is right on the money. It clearly states the need for an inclusive and comprehensive approach to restructuring that will produce a result that will be perceived as collaborative and have community wide buy in. In other words, the “how” of the process is as important as the project’s conclusions to receive wide based support.
We need to apply the same standard, for the same reasons, to Lesson #9. Unfortunately, this curriculum is not perceived across the community as having broad based support or having been developed by a committee with a wide range of views, despite the modifications. Getting the “how” right is important for everyone’s acceptance of the conclusion, whether or not they are in full agreement. A bad “how” on this issue will likely detract from, rather than support, the restructuring process as well as the CSC program itself.
I agree that the “how” is important. I also agree that — until about two months ago — the “how” was less than ideal in this case for many months.
But I do think that over the past two months the “how” of this issue has been a great improvement over the previous period. In fact, I think there has been as great an improvement of the process and movement towards consensus as can be done on this particular issue in Alameda in 2009 (or 2010).
It is now clear that there just isn’t going to be 100% agreement on the conclusion (or on the process) regardless of what the School Board decides and how they decide it. So I think the current “how” is as right as it is going to get. Dragging this out beyond May in an effort to get even more or different input would please some but would disappoint many others.
Over the past couple of months, in addition to discussion of the issue at several School Board meetings, there have been general community meetings as well as many smaller meetings with interested groups (including groups at particular schools). The curriculum has been changed/tightened up substantially. The “how”/the process has been open and responsive.
I am in complete agreement that there has been a significant improvement in the manner in which the AUSD is conducting itself over the last six months, and particularly on this issue in the last couple of months. The breadth and scope of the meetings and forums is a vast improvement.
I guess we will have to agree to disagree on whether this particular issue should conclude now or be held over to address all protected groups. To me, the model is Brown vs. Board of Education, which was inclusive of all groups. I think that is more consistent with the over arching message and content of the CSC program.
As a side note, I am also concerned about the opinion of the district’s legal council that partents can not opt out of this lesson but should be notified it will be taught. This seems like a direct invitation to keep kids at home and lose ADA; lose-lose.
Onward and upward to restructuring.
Gary,
Your point about ADA is a good one, but opting out seems like a bad precedent. Next they will opt out of biology when evolution is taught. It also renders the lesson muted because those kids whose parents opt them out may be the ones who would most benefit from having the situation of “non-traditional families” demystified by the curriculum.
I appreciate the substance of your comments as well as their tone. Generally, the rhetoric on all sides of this issue is way too heated.
Whatever happens, I do hope that (after some sort of brief cooling off period), we can indeed move onward and upward to restructuring and the master plan process. If *that* doesn’t go well, we won’t have a school district much longer so none of the rest of this will matter.
Mark - the cinematic depiction of this “demystification” you refer to can be found in “The Killing Fields” when Pol-Pot’s minions instruct the young students to erase the chalk-written line between parent and child on a blackboard. If you haven’t seen this film, I highly recommend it.
Let’s hope the state of California, and the AUSD by extension, doesn’t pursue a similar path in its zeal to mandate the Tyranny of Tolerance.
That comment is exactly the sort of “too-heated rhetoric” I was referring to in my earlier comment.
I understand and appreciate varying points of view on this and on most issues, but I just don’t think adding a lesson to an existing school curriculum is in quite the same league as murdering millions of people.
Rob- in terms of rhetoric- you may have overlooked Mark’s stereotypical categorization of those who would opt out of Evolution being taught in Biology class (with the tell-tale use of “they”) with those who would prefer that moral equivocation before the question/definition of Family be tackled at higher levels of education. Perhaps it has become so customary to ostracize those who quesiton or object to Dawin et al’s theories that you missed it entirely. In reality, this overlap in the Venn diagram is pretty narrow, and regardless doesn’t deserve this type of derision. I applaud your call for reasonableness, and can admit to my own hyperbole, but let’s be consistent here.
And yet concerning this hyperbole- if we follow this curriculum we are left with an anti-definition of Family as being basically “whatever anyone wants it to be”. This effectively neuters the concept of all cultural heritage and meaning. It destroys History (however racist/sexist/homophobic you may consider this history). This was PRECISELY Pol Pot’s objective, which however horrifying and amoral the means, were intended to justify the same ends.
Frankly I wonder about the moral compass afforded public educators- what have all the ACLU lawsuits left you with? Why should a child be “good”? What is the possible motivation if not fear of violent reprisal (i.e. totalitarianism)?
Good luck at the meeting tonight…
I disagree with your analysis, including the attempt to suggest that the curriculum’s logical extension leads to totalitarianism. Over on laurendo.com, at least one supporter of the curriculum used the same (flawed) style argument to compare opponents of the proposed curriculum to the Taliban.
Good luck to us all tonight.
A family is a group of people that love each other, nothing more and nothing less. The world is, and has been, full of families that are bigger or smaller than a pair of differing gender parents and their blood offspring. I can’t see how acknowledging this circumstance and history, or the fact that children don’t get to choose their families, in any way diminishes any family or erases either good history or bad history on any scale. Quite the contrary, it tells us that there is the potential opportunity for everyone to experience a loving and supportive household, no matter what its makeup.
The point of all the CSC material is to help children respect and accept each other as individual humans, whether they are similar or different to us. What anyone chooses to do is a different matter, since it is within their control and we are all accountable for our actions.
If fear is required to make children “good,” then God help us all.
Non-secular humanist,
There are numerous non-secular schools available to you. They are permitted to ignore the state’s obligation to teach tolerance. Utilize them if you find inclusion so distasteful.