First, this entry is NOT about same sex marriage in the sense of "should people of the same sex be allowed legally recognized marriages." This entry is about the misleading campaign against Prop. 8, specifically concerning "if Prop. 8 passes then public schools will be required to teach about gay marriage."
Let's make this clear: Prop. 8 in no way mandates anything about teaching gay marriage or public education. Look it up here or in your own snail-mail copy of the voter guide. It is what it is so let's not drag public education policy into it please. Believe me, the US educational policy has WAY more crap going on than having some political group loading it up with more false info.
Still, people believe those commercials are true! I've gotten some emails and seen some blog entries by educators who actually think they will have to teach gay marriage in their classroom.
Seriously? Use your common sense! Or, if you are lacking in the common sense department, continue reading the following.
Why US schools will never teach about gay marriage
1. Because the phrase "same sex marriage" is pretty self-explanatory. What on earth is there to teach about?
2. Have you even seen the boat loads of academic content standards CA students have to know by the end of each grade level?? Assuming there is something to teach about gay marriage, what teacher in their right mind would even spend the time in teaching it when across the nation a good 60-70% of American students are failing standardized tests?
3. Because the cons are mostly based on religious ideology and, well, we've already been there and done that when it comes to the debate about teaching religion in public primary/secondary schools.
4. Did I mention Good Lord There Are Already WAY Too Many Things To Cram Into A School Year And You Want Me To Teach A Topic 90% Of My Students Know More About Than I Do Are You Kidding Me I Am Quitting The Education Field For The Private Sector Damn It!
Side note: Ok, so I may be wrong about #1. Despite our nation's over-active, over-suppressed sexual imaginations, most people only have a very vague, or contorted, idea of what same sex sex is, physiologically speaking. Don't believe me? Ask someone what they think happens when people of the same sex do the monkey dance. More likely than not, the scene that pops out of their mouths from their heads resembles more like low-budget porn. What if they say they don't know? Just keep asking, they'll come up with something.
5. Frankly, I would have enough trouble teaching regular sex ed to 4th graders - The giggles! The snickering! Disbanding the many myths that a lot of students already hold! - that I would not even go there. I think my students' heads would explode. If not from hormonal build-up, then from the hilariousness of being forced to learn about sex from a person whom will probably experience the real thing much later than they do.
Side note 2: Teaching about social rights falls under a completely different category. If I am talking to a 5th grade class about America's slave trade and the wrongs of that period then extrapolating it to modern day injustices, and a kid mentions prejudices against the GLT community, then I can guarantee that I will not gloss over those facts. There are wrongs in this world. There are sad things that really should not be so starkly real, but yet, here we are. Will I put pressure and stress on students for having different opinions, or for having parents who check the "my student will go to study hall during this controversial lesson" box in the academic waiver forms? No, of course not. But neither will I teach something that is not a fact.
The moral of this entry is: do your homework before you vote! And, sometimes, people will lie and twist words in order to promote their own agendas.
But then, we've known that since kindergarten.
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