CA Schools Curriculum: Inclusive of Historical Accomplishments of Gay Men & Lesbians

[Nova]

I understand that Fairy. I also expect it. What gets me though its so young. That's all. Also, apologies to all (especially Nova) if you thought my above post was snippy. I was a bit moody yesterday and I think my post reflected it.

I didn't think you were snippy or offensive, brandi.

But Fairy is right: your kids will hear about queers on the school bus. Is that really better than a lesson in tolerance in a classroom?

(ETA my niece and nephew grew up in Fox Chapel through middle school, so I actually do know a little about what your kids will hear on the bus. LOL.)

 

[Nova]

I mostly agree with what you wrote in other posts in that children should learn that people are primarily people and not defined by their sexual orientation as a special class of citizen....

In a perfect world, I would agree with you and the partners of historical figures would be mentioned only when they actually influenced history.

But my niece (who is very close to her gay uncles) had to sit through AP History in Ohio with a teacher who had no compunctions about making derogatory comments about "fruits and nuts" and how they all ended up in California.

So it isn't true that students hear nothing on the subject now. It's just that now they only hear negative, ignorant nonsense.

 

[Donjeta]

In a perfect world, I would agree with you and the partners of historical figures would be mentioned only when they actually influenced history.

I didn't say that, did I? If I did, I didn't mean it that way. I have no objection to partners of historical figures being mentioned. They were historical figures in their own right and I'm not certain how we could always tell which ones influenced history and which did not. Most families probably have an effect on what their members decide in certain situations. What I was objecting to was the selectivity with which some relationships get mentioned and others are ignored. Not just in history, when it was less public than these days.

But my niece (who is very close to her gay uncles) had to sit through AP History in Ohio with a teacher who had no compunctions about making derogatory comments about "fruits and nuts" and how they all ended up in California.

So it isn't true that students hear nothing on the subject now. It's just that now they only hear negative, ignorant nonsense.

Yes, I know it happens and that's exactly the type of teacher I was talking about, when I said I am afraid some may distort the good principle. It could be just another opportunity to make bigoted remarks even though the curriculum isn't intended for that. I'm sure individual teachers have always said and will continue to say things that the curriculum makers have been silent about or even object to.

 

[Nova]

I didn't say that, did I? If I did, I didn't mean it that way. I have no objection to partners of historical figures being mentioned. They were historical figures in their own right and I'm not certain how we could always tell which ones influenced history and which did not. Most families probably have an effect on what their members decide in certain situations. What I was objecting to was the selectivity with which some relationships get mentioned and others are ignored. Not just in history, when it was less public than these days.

I apologize. The fault was mine. I extrapolated from what you did say without realizing I was distorting your view.

It's a bit like affirmative action, urban renewal and other attempts to rectify past mistakes. They are temporary solutions. Yes, I hope that someday no historical figure will need be "ghettoized" as gay. But at the moment, they are trapped in closets of silence. We have to let them out of one before we can free them from the other.

And with some figures, like MLK, Jr., suffragettes and Harvey Milk, their historical significance will always be directly tied to their membership in a marginalized group.

Yes, I know it happens and that's exactly the type of teacher I was talking about, when I said I am afraid some may distort the good principle. It could be just another opportunity to make bigoted remarks even though the curriculum isn't intended for that. I'm sure individual teachers have always said and will continue to say things that the curriculum makers have been silent about or even object to.

But under the new law, that same teacher will have a formalized lesson plan and a mandate to teach specific things about gay historical figures. Won't be perfect, but at least it will push him in the right direction. As it is now, he is left to ad lib his prejudices.

 

[Kimberlyd125]

Nova, I'm only asking this because I don't know.

Is queer, or referring to someone as "a queer" a socially acceptable term?

I'm asking because I just don't know. I really don't hear that term much anymore.

I think of it, in my mind, as a derogatory term when used as a label. I may be wrong, but it makes me cringe.

Again, I just don't know.

 

[tlcya]

This is ridiculous. So now we are going to HIGHLIGHT and call attention to someone's sexuality by pointing out "so and so" accomplished whatever it was and by the way she was a lesbian?????

Who cares? How exactly does this teach tolerance and acceptance of everyone WITHOUT their sexuality being a factor??

Anyone?

If I were gay or lesbian, I would find this idea seriously offensive! That is like saying, "he is a pretty good guy - for a black guy."

"So and so was pretty clever - for a gay man."

You follow my line of thinking?

Why on earth are we discussing adding these qualifiers that are insulting to history class?
By highlighting and pointing out a historical figure's gayness we teach what? That someone's sexuality is fodder for discussion? That someone's sexuality is in any way, shape or form our business? That is has one single thing to do with their accomplishments in life?

I honestly don't get it. It feels like a step backwards to me.

 

[Donjeta]

I apologize. The fault was mine. I extrapolated from what you did say without realizing I was distorting your view.

It's a bit like affirmative action, urban renewal and other attempts to rectify past mistakes. They are temporary solutions. Yes, I hope that someday no historical figure will need be "ghettoized" as gay. But at the moment, they are trapped in closets of silence. We have to let them out of one before we can free them from the other.

And with some figures, like MLK, Jr., suffragettes and Harvey Milk, their historical significance will always be directly tied to their membership in a marginalized group.



But under the new law, that same teacher will have a formalized lesson plan and a mandate to teach specific things about gay historical figures. Won't be perfect, but at least it will push him in the right direction. As it is now, he is left to ad lib his prejudices.

I don't disagree with any of that.
It's not a perfect solution to all the problems but hopefully a step in the right direction.

 

[Nova]

Nova, I'm only asking this because I don't know.

Is queer, or referring to someone as "a queer" a socially acceptable term?

I'm asking because I just don't know. I really don't hear that term much anymore.

I think of it, in my mind, as a derogatory term when used as a label. I may be wrong, but it makes me cringe.

Again, I just don't know.

If you are outside the community and don't want to offend, you should probably stick to gay when referring to men and lesbian when referring to women. I'm honestly not sure what transsexuals prefer.

It's mostly a generational thing. I was 16 when the Stonewall Riots occurred. The generation ahead of me didn't mind "homosexual" and was just starting to use "gay."

My generation didn't care for "homosexual" because it was coined to describe a disease and prefers "gay." Lots of if not most people in my generation hate "queer" because it was the derogatory term we heard most often growing up.

The generation after me embraced "queer" (just as African-Americans had embraced "black" and some women are now embracing "") as an aggressive response to the word's history.

A lot of lesbians dislike the term "gay" because they feel it usually signifies gay men since our culture is usually more interested in what men are doing. Some lesbians don't like "lesbian" because...

Well, you see how this can go on forever. Some people just say LGBT, but lately others have been adding initials to that. I had hoped we'd all just embrace "queer" as an umbrella term, but my age group is very resistant to that.

Myself, I give everyone a break and judge the use of words based on context. There's a big difference between somebody yelling "Queers!" at my husband and I from a passing pick-up truck (recent incident) and a young radical using the word "queer" at a protest. ("We're here, we're queer...")

***

And this is why I laugh when I hear the phrase, "the homosexual agenda." As you can see, we have a hard time agreeing on any "agenda."

Bottom line: among queers, take your cue from the person to whom you are speaking. Among straight people, use the term you are most comfortable with. I know your heart is in the right place. They probably will, too.

 

[Nova]

This is ridiculous. So now we are going to HIGHLIGHT and call attention to someone's sexuality by pointing out "so and so" accomplished whatever it was and by the way she was a lesbian?????

Who cares? How exactly does this teach tolerance and acceptance of everyone WITHOUT their sexuality being a factor??

Anyone?

If I were gay or lesbian, I would find this idea seriously offensive! That is like saying, "he is a pretty good guy - for a black guy."

"So and so was pretty clever - for a gay man."

You follow my line of thinking?

Why on earth are we discussing adding these qualifiers that are insulting to history class?
By highlighting and pointing out a historical figure's gayness we teach what? That someone's sexuality is fodder for discussion? That someone's sexuality is in any way, shape or form our business? That is has one single thing to do with their accomplishments in life?

I honestly don't get it. It feels like a step backwards to me.

I'll be happy to discuss this at length later, but I'm running out to face Carmageddon!

Bottom line: we already highlight sexuality when it's hetero. Our silence when the sexuality is implies that it is unmentionable, whether that's what we mean or not.

This law is trying to find useful ways a different group of people and their contributions can be mentioned as well. Yeah, it's awkward at the moment, but baby steps always are.

 

[Kimberlyd125]

But accomplishments in history are accomplishments no matter who someone loves or is intimate with.

Just teach history. We don't need a separate "label" of gay history.

Teach about the event. IMO adding labels is, as tlcox said, taking steps backward.

Everybody wants to be treated as equals. That's what has been fought for for years. Now we need to start adding the labels again?

 

[Emma Peel]

This is ridiculous. So now we are going to HIGHLIGHT and call attention to someone's sexuality by pointing out "so and so" accomplished whatever it was and by the way she was a lesbian?????


Who cares? How exactly does this teach tolerance and acceptance of everyone WITHOUT their sexuality being a factor??

Anyone?

If I were gay or lesbian, I would find this idea seriously offensive! That is like saying, "he is a pretty good guy - for a black guy."

"So and so was pretty clever - for a gay man."

You follow my line of thinking?

Why on earth are we discussing adding these qualifiers that are insulting to history class?
By highlighting and pointing out a historical figure's gayness we teach what? That someone's sexuality is fodder for discussion? That someone's sexuality is in any way, shape or form our business? That is has one single thing to do with their accomplishments in life?

I honestly don't get it. It feels like a step backwards to me.

This line of questioning has been asked & discussed quite a few times on this thread. I was stumped on this - because it's a sincere concern about moving to a place in the world where being gay is not "an issue".

Be sure to check out Nova's posts. We are lucky to have his voice with us here in this thread. I sure hope he makes it back out of Carmeggedon.

Why not ask your gay/lesbian friends, since you are concerned about their feelings on this? Your might be very surprised at their answer(s).

They know the difference it would have made for them in school, as teens, with peers. To have discussed gay civil rights in class matter-of-factly, - right along with discussions on woman's suffrage and segregation/desegregation. You might be surprised to learn how terribly alone they felt walking through their childhood and teen years sensing they were somehow different and believing they must hide it, suppress their feelings, never talk about it, wondering what difficulties, possibilities, or impossibilities for love, for happiness lied ahead in their future.

I can see why straight people probably can't completely understand why - but neither can they say for certain that this is not what gay people want without actually asking gay people.

So...I've asked some of the gay people I am friends with about this very issue, and they all say this is a fabulous development for young people. These are openly gay adults responding with a mind to their own past school-age experiences. This is about school-age learning and not about adult learning. This is about the importance of learning about role models from all minority groups to the socio-cultural development & understanding of school age children

IMO, the gay community is tired of silence.

And, while this is just me guessing how it might feel - based on some of the experiences of the gay people I know:

They remember being anxious and stressing and depressing about not living fully authentic lives.

They might remember what it feels like to be hiding and waiting for 10 years for the right time to finally "come out" to friends, families, employers & acquaintances.

They might be tired of straight people in their lives avoiding that conversation, or that part of their life - as if, if it's not talked about, at least no one has to be uncomfortable.

Perhaps they remember finally finding the courage to come out - only to find out from these same people "oh, we already knew". What?

All those years, they knew, but never shared it, so that all those years the gay person spent hiding important feelings and events, spent having superficial relationships - were lost for ... nothing? For appearances sake? For politeness' sake?

There is a now a public service movement currently called "it gets better" aimed at gay teens. It's about talking-straight to gay teens for the purpose of reassuring them that things get better for gay people in adult hood. So those teens actually hang in there and make it to adult hood.

IMO these conversations and this educational push for the broad & mainstream acceptance of gay community and the issues they face has been a long time coming.

I'm happy to see it happening in my lifetime. I'm proud of the adult gay community, standing up for the next generation - gay and straight alike.

I mean, who really wants to spend 10 years suspecting their brother is gay and never ever having the courage to even broach the topic because ... well ... just because it seems inappropriate to do so?

Here is a link to the It Gets Better Project.

http://www.itgetsbetter.org/

Many LGBT youth can't picture what their lives might be like as openly gay adults. They can't imagine a future for themselves. So let's show them what our lives are like, let's show them what the future may hold in store for them.

Here is Neil Patrick Harris doing a spot for the It Gets Better project.

[video=youtube;l3Y52kD0G2c]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3Y52kD0G2c[/video]

Here is Ellen Degeneres' spot.

‪An Important Message - From Ellen DeGeneres (Gay Suicide)‬‏ - YouTube

 

[Emma Peel]

[video=youtube;-TrGNekDYpM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TrGNekDYpM[/video]
Portia Rossi's spot.

T GETS BETTER: "Modern Family" Stars Jesse Tyler Ferguson & Eric Stonestreet - YouTube
cast of Modern Family

Chris Colfer for The Trevor Project - It Gets Better - YouTube
Chris Colfer

President Obama: It Gets Better - YouTube
The Prez

Adam Lambert: "It Gets Better" - YouTube
Adam Lambert

 

[Fairy1]

I understand your concern. Is queer playwright Christopher Marlowe fundamentally different from (maybe) straight playwright William Shakespeare? Not really, when some scholars think they were the same person! (On the other hand, if it means we pay more attention to Marlowe's brilliant works that happen to feature men who love men, I say, "Bring on the labels!")

But the examples Emma gave us up above from the Alameda County study guide are pretty conservative in this regard: modern personalities who have come out publicly and a couple of authors known for gay themes in their writing. Of course, this gives the impression that gay people only work in the arts, but at least it's a start.

Moreover, going back to the concept of historical accuracy, being marginalized by society does influence one's view and one's work. So ignoring the sexuality of some figures actually distorts history.

I suppose it puts Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in a "box" to label him as African-American. But can we really imagine teaching history without mentioning that?

I am thinking more in the here and now. I can only go by myself and my own children (19 and 21), but I don't believe they look at people as anything other than people. We have always been part of a very diverse tapestry of people and they have never categorized others.

My daughter was a theatre major at a performing arts high school and went on to double major in theatre education and performance in college. She has many gay friends and adores them simply as peers. My son went to a low-performing, public high school, but there were never any issues with gay students.

IDK. I don't like to see any "group" of people set apart - for any reason. We are ALL part of society and being gay is nothing new, anywhere.

I just don't believe it's necessary to disclose anyone's sexual orientation in order to validate their contributions.

 

[Nova]

But accomplishments in history are accomplishments no matter who someone loves or is intimate with.

Just teach history. We don't need a separate "label" of gay history.

Teach about the event. IMO adding labels is, as tlcox said, taking steps backward.

Everybody wants to be treated as equals. That's what has been fought for for years. Now we need to start adding the labels again?

As someone with years of study and publishing on the subject of gay history and culture, I don't agree. You can't understand some people or some groups without recognizing that they had very different understandings of same-sex love and partnership, and that they were treated very differently by society because of the people whom they loved.

I'm not saying we have to publish columns and identify everyone as straight, gay, bi or whatever. (For one thing, we couldn't because in many cases we don't know.)

But in the decades when homosexuality was deemed "unmentionable" (40s through 60s), there was an epidemic of blackmail, torture, imprisonment and drugging of gay people. THAT is the result of gay people keeping quiet and society as a whole neglecting to mention them or their contributions.

What many posters here don't seem to understand is that if you don't mention that some people are gay, the only other conclusion is that everyone important enough to be mentioned in a history book must have been straight.

(In this sense, it is not different than race. Mention a doctor and most people will picture a white doctor. We NEED to mention that some doctors are African-Americans; otherwise we allow people to assume the opposite. I trust I don't have to explain why that is a bad idea.)

To be more specific, Kimberly, "gay history" isn't just history created by a few people who happened to be gay or lesbian, etc. It is the story of the corruption that results when society singles out a group of people and punishes them for an arbitrary and immutable characteristic. It is the story of societies where erotic relations between men were celebrated in epic poetry while women were locked away to tend to the children. It is the story of how women who partnered with one another created new forms of language and literature that revolutionized world cultures. It is the story of how some people come to view culture and society from a different vantage point because they are shut outside of the general community, and how they see some things from the outside that those on the inside will never know.

Gay history is all these things and more. Now of course nobody expects first graders to deal with these issues. But we have to start somewhere if we expect students at later ages to learn about the world as it is, rather than pretending the world is as it was shown on TV in 1958.

 

[Nova]

I am thinking more in the here and now. I can only go by myself and my own children (19 and 21), but I don't believe they look at people as anything other than people. We have always been part of a very diverse tapestry of people and they have never categorized others.

My daughter was a theatre major at a performing arts high school and went on to double major in theatre education and performance in college. She has many gay friends and adores them simply as peers. My son went to a low-performing, public high school, but there were never any issues with gay students.

IDK. I don't like to see any "group" of people set apart - for any reason. We are ALL part of society and being gay is nothing new, anywhere.

I just don't believe it's necessary to disclose anyone's sexual orientation in order to validate their contributions.

Not everyone has you as a parent, Fairy.

I agree we don't have to know sexuality to validate some contributions, but some contributions are incomprehensible without discussing sexuality.

There's a big difference between "Harvey Milk was elected to the SF city council" and "Harvey Milk created a political movement that allowed him to be elected the first openly gay city council member in California." It's not just a matter of being fair to Harvey Milk; it's a matter of being fair to the truth of the period being studied. The first sentence teaches students nothing about the political process; but that process can't be understood with understanding Milk's background, the Briggs Initiative, Dan White, etc.

What we have now tends to just leave those events out of the story of California and so students lose a tremendous amount of information, not about sexuality but about politics.

(ETA: Fairy, would you not teach students about how the great California architect Julia Morgan sat in the hallway to listen to lectures at the Sorbonne because women were not allowed in classrooms? Did that experience influence her eventual work? I don't know; architecture isn't my field. But I know she achieved greatness in rebuilding SF after the quake and in building Hearst Castle and other works DESPITE being told every step of the way that a woman couldn't be an architect. Isn't that an important lesson for today's young women? Or shall we just pretend that women like Morgan and Marie Curie faced no obstacles and excelled by accident?)

 

[Nova]

Emma, thanks for the links above. Everyone else is asleep here right now so I can't listen to them tonight, but I'll be back tomorrow to listen to each one.

 

[tlcya]

I'll be happy to discuss this at length later, but I'm running out to face Carmageddon!

Bottom line: we already highlight sexuality when it's hetero. Our silence when the sexuality is implies that it is unmentionable, whether that's what we mean or not.

This law is trying to find useful ways a different group of people and their contributions can be mentioned as well. Yeah, it's awkward at the moment, but baby steps always are.

I am always interested to hear your thoughts, as one of the members whose posts are sure to cause me to really think about the subject material.

bbm I don't know that I agree with that, if silence about someone's sexuality is taken to mean they are hetero then yes, I suppose it is "highlighted".

If that is the case then I still don't see how discussing or pointing out everyone's sexuality leads us to a place where a person's sexuality is a non-issue, which is where I envision I would like to see society go.

Maybe I am way off, but I hope for a day when gays don't have to be "Loud and Proud" but can simply be. Without need to constantly prove that they are the same sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, friends an employees that heteros are.

I am not being argumentative at all, and I do get why this is viewed as a possible good thing by many.

I still feel it is not a step in the right direction, but rather a step away from where I, at least, hoped society would go. How does this new idea get us to a place where a person's sexuality is not a question or an answer and a person's sexuality does not define them in any aspect of their life, but rather simply is what it is?

 

[Donjeta]

bbm I don't know that I agree with that, if silence about someone's sexuality is taken to mean they are hetero then yes, I suppose it is "highlighted".
.

?

snipped for space

IMO the thing is, they do mention heterosexual orientation at schools. Maybe not in as many words, they don't say "President X was heterosexual", "Poet Y was straight", but they talk about their marriages and their children etc. and heterosexuality is implied.

If there are corresponding historical figures who are gay but their intimate choices cannot be mentioned because it would be labeling them as gay it is not a world in which sexuality is a non-issue, IMO, it's a world in which sexuality is a non-issue if it's straight. Otherwise it's something to stay silent about, maybe something to be ashamed of or something to be afraid of, not something you can open up about.

When reading literature the students are assigned tons of books about people in heterosexual relationships, very few gay people anywhere.

When I look at the illustrations and the names children are given in the books my son learns to read from I see that there is much more ethnic diversity than there used to be in my school books in which practically everyone was white. It is a good change that acknowledges the ethnic diversity that exists in the children's world. They already know that ethnic diversity exists, so letting the books reflect that is just natural. And IMO, the children also know that sexual diversity exists. If the parents don't tell them their peers will.

If acknowledging sexual diversity could make the minority students feel less invisible it's a good thing but IMO it'll only work the right way if the gay poets and politicians etc. are talked about with the same respect everyone else gets and not made out to be second class artists and politicians and whatnot because they're gay.

IDK... I suppose if there are teachers or other students with an attitude it could be hurtful for minority students if they have to hear disparaging remarks about the historical figures because of their orientation. But I suppose the most negative attitudes will shine through no matter what the curriculum is but at least the students seeking to come to terms with their identity find out these important gay people existed and maybe they can look them up themselves and find some valuable role models regardless of what the people around them think.

 

[Nova]

Ticox and Donjeta do a great job of highlighting some of the issues here. I don't have much to add.

 

[Charlie09]

I'm still curious about the historical figures that are gay and how that will be introduced to kindergarten and first graders.