Crafting the new curriculum: LGBT in the classroom

[TripletDaddy]

Interesting article about the ongoing attempt to thoughtfully weave LGBT issues into public school curricula. California law requires that public schools begin teaching about historical contributions made by gay, handicapped, and also European immigrant Americans, as well as non-traditional family structures, as early as January 2012.

The interesting part about this article is that even the gay community is having a tough time crafting lesson plans that do this in an age appropriate manner. The overall reception has been mixed, which is to be expected, but it is encouraging to hear the opinions of gay students that are excited to not live in fear of bullying as more of their peers are educated about homosexuality and homosexual issues. There have been reports of some families removing their children from public schools and some teachers that will refuse to teach these lessons. This is going to be a heated issue for years to come.

http://www.latimes.com/la-me-gay-sch...5.story?page=1

[faith]

Thanks for sharing the article. Only yesterday, I attended an eight hour workshop that specifically dealt with working with sexual minority youth in academic and clinical settings. A portion of the workshop focused on the laws and policies in place to protect our LGBTQ students. We spent a little bit of time discussing the FAIR Education Act (SB 48), which I believe is the law the LA times article is referring to. My understanding of the law is that it will require LGBT and disabled Americans to be included in and recognized for their important historical contributions to the economic, political and social development of California. It also intends to ensure that students get a fair and accurate picture of LGBT people and events and ensure that the portrayal of LGBT people are not excluded from classroom discussions. Additionally, it is supposed to prohibit discriminatory instruction and discriminatory materials from being adopted by the State Board of Education.

It will be interesting to see how the implementation of this law will play out, not only because of pushback over it, but also because of lack of knowledge on the part of many educators. As a high school social studies teacher and as an advocate for LGBT students, I am super excited about this law. Without doubt, our teachers (myself included) are going to need to be more educated about LGBT history, and figure out how to effectively integrate what we learn into our curriculum. It would be ideal to not just throw in a token LGBT person’s contribution here and there, but to really understand where the history and contributions would naturally fit in with the standards that are being taught. So many of my kids feel rejected and alone. Hopefully, laws like this will help them feel more acceptance, at least in the classroom.

I am extremely impressed with the steps my district is taking and has taken to make school a safe place for sexual minority youth. My district is fortunate to have some very intelligent, capable and compassionate individuals in their Educational Equity Compliance office. I am confident that LAUSD (my school district) will thoughtfully compile resources and provide training for teachers at all grade levels on how to adjust curriculum to comply with the new law. The district is in the process right now of creating point people at the school sites to be Project 10 designees, who will be trained to deal with any LGBTQ issues at the individual school. I am hopeful that things are going to keep improving for our LGBTQ students, and that other districts can learn from what we are doing.

Hooray, California! I am so excited! Between this law and AB 131 that Governor Brown just signed last week making it possible for my undocumented students to receive state financial aid to attend public colleges and universities in California starting in January 2013, I am beginning to feel hope and excitement for many of my struggling students.

[TripletDaddy]

Faith, thanks for sharing your update. I would really enjoy reading more about this from your perspective as the school year progresses. Your perspective is valuable, having been an active religious conservative and now an active advocate for the LGBT student community, you are situated to understand in a unique manner the many different approaches to this issue.

Speaking to your own school, how have the faculty responded to this new law? Is there a palpable consensus in either direction? And what of the straight students?

[The_Tick]

Thanks for sharing the article. Only yesterday, I attended an eight hour workshop that specifically dealt with working with sexual minority youth in academic and clinical settings. A portion of the workshop focused on the laws and policies in place to protect our LGBTQ students. We spent a little bit of time discussing the FAIR Education Act (SB 48), which I believe is the law the LA times article is referring to. My understanding of the law is that it will require LGBT and disabled Americans to be included in and recognized for their important historical contributions to the economic, political and social development of California. It also intends to ensure that students get a fair and accurate picture of LGBT people and events and ensure that the portrayal of LGBT people are not excluded from classroom discussions. Additionally, it is supposed to prohibit discriminatory instruction and discriminatory materials from being adopted by the State Board of Education.

It will be interesting to see how the implementation of this law will play out, not only because of pushback over it, but also because of lack of knowledge on the part of many educators. As a high school social studies teacher and as an advocate for LGBT students, I am super excited about this law. Without doubt, our teachers (myself included) are going to need to be more educated about LGBT history, and figure out how to effectively integrate what we learn into our curriculum. It would be ideal to not just throw in a token LGBT person’s contribution here and there, but to really understand where the history and contributions would naturally fit in with the standards that are being taught. So many of my kids feel rejected and alone. Hopefully, laws like this will help them feel more acceptance, at least in the classroom.

I am extremely impressed with the steps my district is taking and has taken to make school a safe place for sexual minority youth. My district is fortunate to have some very intelligent, capable and compassionate individuals in their Educational Equity Compliance office. I am confident that LAUSD (my school district) will thoughtfully compile resources and provide training for teachers at all grade levels on how to adjust curriculum to comply with the new law. The district is in the process right now of creating point people at the school sites to be Project 10 designees, who will be trained to deal with any LGBTQ issues at the individual school. I am hopeful that things are going to keep improving for our LGBTQ students, and that other districts can learn from what we are doing.

Hooray, California! I am so excited! Between this law and AB 131 that Governor Brown just signed last week making it possible for my undocumented students to receive state financial aid to attend public colleges and universities in California starting in January 2013, I am beginning to feel hope and excitement for many of my struggling students.

No offense...but for a State that is bleeding money, giving more of it to illegal immigrants is just going to make it worse.

And I am so tired of the word "undocumented".

An "Undocumented immigrant" is an "illegal immigrant".

I am going to start calling all drug dealers "unlicensed pharmacists" because it makes what they are doing sound much, much better.

[faith]

Faith, thanks for sharing your update. I would really enjoy reading more about this from your perspective as the school year progresses. Your perspective is valuable, having been an active religious conservative and now an active advocate for the LGBT student community, you are situated to understand in a unique manner the many different approaches to this issue.

Speaking to your own school, how have the faculty responded to this new law? Is there a palpable consensus in either direction? And what of the straight students?

Thanks for valuing my perspective. : )
To be completely honest, at the present, I think that most of the faculty at my school are not even aware of this law. I am not aware of any memos being sent out to our faculty as of yet. I don’t know exactly when or how our district is going to roll it out, but I will let you know how it goes, from my limited perspective. My guess is that most of the faculty at my school will want to comply with the law, but may feel frustrated because they won’t know exactly how. It is kind of difficult to teach something that we ourselves are ignorant about. Also, many of the teachers will probably agree with the law theoretically, but might feel like they don’t have the time to cover one more thing in class, with all of the pressures of standardized testing. There probably will be a small minority of teachers completely opposed to the law. It will be interesting to see what happens.

In three of my five classes, I have already addressed LGBT issues or history this year, and I will definitely be addressing them more during my Psychology classes next semester. My straight students have been surprisingly open and accepting of the materials that I have presented in class.
In one of my elective classes, we are studying Harvey Milk as a leader, and the students are reading some of his speeches, learning about the context of his leadership and will be watching the documentary “The Life and Times of Harvey Milk”, as well as writing a timed essay, a friendly letter and a headed research paper about him. It appears that all of my students in this class are interested in the content, but not necessarily interested in all of the writing.
In two of my other elective classes we have been conducting an in depth examination of prejudice and bigotry, and we have been addressing homophobia as well as racism, sexism, etc. It has been a challenge for me to figure out how to openly and honestly discuss these issues and to allow students to express their opinions while at the same time making it a safe place for everybody. It is especially hard to tackle these issues because they deal with identity and core beliefs, and are so very personal. I am finding more success in establishing understanding between students by not shutting down controversial conversation, but through allowing students to respectfully talk through what they feel and why they feel it. My students seem to really want to discuss and understand these topics, even though there is not a consensus. Both race and sexual orientation have been hot-button topics in these classes, and I sometimes feel like I am walking a tight-rope trying to get my students to critically address and analyze these topics and break down misconceptions. Even though I am no longer religious, I often find myself praying as I plan my lessons and as I interact with my students.

This is probably more info than you cared to read about. : ) Robin will tell you that I can go on and on and on about my students and my instruction in the classroom (which I am continually working on). Anyway, I have not been getting push-back from my students on addressing LGBT topics in class, but they expect it from me, and I don’t think that they are getting it anywhere else. it will be interesting to see how they react as these topics are brought more and more into their different classrooms.

I will keep you posted on any interesting occurrences that I notice as this law begins to be implemented.

[TripletDaddy]

No, this is exactly the sort of stuff I find interesting, thank you. Given the varied cultural and racial backgrounds of the students at your school, the live classroom debate must be fascinating.

I remember post Prop 8, much was made of how the Latino and black communities showed up in force to vote against the redefinition of marriage. It was said repeatedly that those 2 demographics, specifically, are traditionally less tolerant of homosexuality. Not sure how accurate that is nor how such a claim is measured, but I would imagine that much of your student body is comprised of Latino and black kids, along with white, of course. What an exciting opportunity as a teacher to make a long term difference by helping these kids see the world a bit differently from their current vantage point!

[faith]

No offense...but for a State that is bleeding money, giving more of it to illegal immigrants is just going to make it worse.

And I am so tired of the word "undocumented".

An "Undocumented immigrant" is an "illegal immigrant".

I am going to start calling all drug dealers "unlicensed pharmacists" because it makes what they are doing sound much, much better.

Hi The Tick,

I respectfully disagree with you.

I feel that allowing my students who have great potential and a hard work ethic(and who happen to be undocumented) the opportunity to continue their education and eventually contribute in a positive way to our country will help California and the United States as a whole.

You may be tired of the word "undocumented", but my students who lack papers are people with dignity, and I prefer to refer to them as "undocumented" versus "illegal", which I find tasteless. BTW, I also find the term "alien" tasteless. But we all have our different perspectives : ).

[faith]

No, this is exactly the sort of stuff I find interesting, thank you. Given the varied cultural and racial backgrounds of the students at your school, the live classroom debate must be fascinating.

I remember post Prop 8, much was made of how the Latino and black communities showed up in force to vote against the redefinition of marriage. It was said repeatedly that those 2 demographics, specifically, are traditionally less tolerant of homosexuality. Not sure how accurate that is nor how such a claim is measured, but I would imagine that much of your student body is comprised of Latino and black kids, along with white, of course. What an exciting opportunity as a teacher to make a long term difference by helping these kids see the world a bit differently from their current vantage point!

Debates in my classroom are fascinating and sometimes frustrating . : ) My student body is about 92% Latino and 8% black, and there really is a diversity of perspectives. There definitely is homophobia, but many of my students are quite accepting. I love interacting with them. I think that they often teach me as much as I teach them.

[The_Tick]

Hi The Tick,

I respectfully disagree with you.

I feel that allowing my students who have great potential and a hard work ethic(and who happen to be undocumented) the opportunity to continue their education and eventually contribute in a positive way to our country will help California and the United States as a whole.

You may be tired of the word "undocumented", but my students who lack papers are people with dignity, and I prefer to refer to them as "undocumented" versus "illegal", which I find tasteless. BTW, I also find the term "alien" tasteless. But we all have our different perspectives : ).

But they are here illegally correct?

It is a double standard.

I look forward to the day that the State of California can no longer afford to pay its bills or its employees.

Because it is going to happen.

I never understood the alien part...but illegal is what it is.

[Moliere]

But they are here illegally correct?

It is a double standard.

I look forward to the day that the State of California can no longer afford to pay its bills or its employees.

Because it is going to happen.

I never understood the alien part...but illegal is what it is.

The lawyers can correct me if I'm wrong but Illegal Alien is their legal definition. Their identification cards all say "Alien Identification". Some might think its pejorative and some may not. I personally don't care in the same way some think I'm not a Christian and that I belong to a cult. It's all in the definition.

[TripletDaddy]

But they are here illegally correct?

It is a double standard.

I look forward to the day that the State of California can no longer afford to pay its bills or its employees.

Because it is going to happen.

I never understood the alien part...but illegal is what it is.

Why is it a double standard? What is the double standard?

[Levin]

So many resources being spent on unnecessary diversions. Teach reading and math, please. Thank you.

[marsupial]

So many resources being spent on unnecessary diversions. Teach reading and math, please. Thank you.

I agree. I don't think kids should learn about history, social studies, culture, current issues or learning to live in a world with people unlike themselves.

[TripletDaddy]

So many resources being spent on unnecessary diversions. Teach reading and math, please. Thank you.

You are in luck. These schools are also teaching reading and math!

[Surfah]

I am not sure I understand the law. Are educators supposed to talk about famous gays in history or gay history? Both? The article DDD referenced seems to indicate that there is no clear understanding on this. If the former I am not sure why it is relevant. Particularly when you're speculating on the sexuality of some people (like Langston Hughes from the article). That seems to be shoehorning to make a point like the last quote from the article says they want to avoid.

I don't have much of a problem with educators discussing gays as they address civil rights in the classrooms. It seems silly that there should be a law to enforce such though. It also seems irresponsible for lawmakers to create this without any guidance to curriculum or how the thing will even be enforced.