Homosexuality in the Classroom.

[Darcey1]

My daughter is nine. Yesterday she came home from school and said that her teacher had told the class that she was a lesbian. The teacher is about to have one of these civil partnerships and according to my daughter told the class that girls could marry girls and boys could marry boys if they wanted to.It was according to her entirely natural. This seems like corruption to me. I don't want my daughter exposed to this kind of lifestyle.

I am very upset about this and don't know what to do. Am I over reacting? Should the school have warned us that the teacher was going to do this? Do you think I should make a complaint to the school?

Hope he's not a teacher. How would you deal with it if your children became aware of his views?

only read a bit(have i missed much)but sorrry....yawn.

what are you scared of?why do you feel a need to complain?

surely at 9 its not a huge shock that people can marry?

Math I've asked him to NOT share his views as they are not mine, and I'm very watchful. He thinks I am pushing MY views on them, hence the conversation about tolerance.....

We ended the conversation when he said I shouldn't worry my pretty little head about things................ which I pointed out was a bit patronising.......

It's hard work when you have someone close that has very narrow minded views, and no matter how much I try to calmly explain why they should be challenged you can get no-where when someone doesn't want to change...

he's not a teacher, you can rest easy

The other morning I explained to my (just) four year old dd that girls could marry girls and boys could marry boys.

I did have have to point out that at the moment they are called civil partnerships but by the time she is an adult ...

Easy.

Mathanxiety, you really do need to give teachers a bit more credit here.

There is quite a continuum between behaving like a perfectly normal member of your students' extended social circle & sharing 'inappropriate' detail.

Eg. dh drops me off at school this morning. Lots of students see this happen. Some of them ask questions like: Was that your husband, miss? Your dd was waving to us, how old is she? My sister's at [Local VIth Form College], miss, she says their drama technician's in your husband's band, are they any good? etc etc etc.

The sky's really not going to fall if they know the answers to any of these, or if I attend the evening Christmas concert in a couple of weeks/next school-organised trip to local rugby team's away match with family in tow - as we are encouraged to do.

There is an enormous gulf between 'students know the same sort of information about my life outside school as my colleagues do' -cf. the teacher in the OP & her civil partnership - & 'I promote my own views on whatever controversial subject matter it takes my fancy today to proselytise on'

We have really quite effective professional guidelines, & in the vast majority of cases, we're more than capable of exercising good judgment.

The whole 'What if was teaching your children?!' motif is more than a little disingenuous. There are occasional nutters in teaching. A teacher choosing to share unremarkable personal news doesn't become one of them.

Why I would be cautious about teachers or other adult authority figures being too familiar with students I grew up in Ireland and attended school at the time corporal punishment in schools was banned; I think now that I was very lucky indeed to have attended the small convent school I went to, run by a civilised French order. Plenty of Irish people have a very suspicious view of teachers in general, even well-educated professionals perhaps if you grew up in the UK and never experienced the joys of a Christian Brothers school (I knew a few boys who did) you wouldn't have the jaundiced view I tend to have.

dawntigga;

very little time at weekends for mumsnet...i don't think i'll have time to reply...
(i need to take my time with you)

plus, not really anything more to say...i don't think homosexuals are born that way..it's a choice made at around 16/17...and a choice made purely on sex.....(imo)

i am in control of what my 9 yr old hears...i don't have to talk to him about homosexuality if i don't want to...teachers should shut up about their private life...they are there to teach my children maths and english...not about homosexuality.

not that i'll ever have this problem...my children go to catholic schools.

think someone said i'm mad & paranoid....

mad.... quite possibly.
paranoid.....not sure.....maybe...

y'know all day long i think of things but nothing seems to satisfy.....not sure what that makes me....

Good god the brain of a bloody pea

Daftpunk- I don't want to be mean but I am amazed by how blinkered and close minded you are coming across (and yes I will add ignorant to that). You seem to be trying with the broken record technique and constantly stating your opinions with absolutely no facts to back them up- you have been presented with lots and lots of factual evidence on this thread- but you have been unable to provide us with any real counter evidence to support your position.

I wholeheartedly believe people have the right to their own opinions (preferably based on facts though otherwise frankly they can't hold any weight with me) but with that right comes the responsibility to listen and respect other people's opinions and be prepared to be open minded and even change your mind in the face of overwhelming evidence. I think if you want to grow as a person (as you seem to from previous post) I think you need to just try and take those blinkers off your eyes and try and consider the opposite sides of the arguments you keep getting yourself into!

Put it this way- if you could definitively prove to me that being gay is wrong with suitable evidence then I would seriously consider changing my current opinion that there is absolutely nothing wrong with being gay, straight, bisexual, asexual etc etc! But as yet you have not provided me with any such evidence (and nor has anybody else on the planet) so I guess I am just going to have to accept my opinion is correct since I have all the facts and stats to back it up.

DP, it's not a choice. If you even half thought that through you'd realise that. Do you remember making a choice? Course you didn't, I'd guess you just probably realised one day that you fancied a boy - remember how overwhelming that feeling was? It's the same for people who are gay, they just happen to be attracted to people the same sex as them. It's natural, instinctive and why on earth you think it's a problem is beyond me.

• surely education's about more than maths and english. A huge part for me is about allowing my child to hear differing opinions/ meet different people in a safe, calm, controlled environment. It's about preparing children for being part of society. We're lucky to live in a relatively tolerant society. School's a great place to learn that imo.

DP, do you honestly believe that if you'd been influenced in the 'wrong' way as a teenager, you could have woken up one day and gone, "hey, I think I'll fancy women from now on"?

Seriously?

The thing is DP (and anyone who shares your views but has been too scared to post) you might as well say you don't want teachers to admit they are Jews because that would be wrong and would corrupt children. Or black. Or Disabled.

That's how offensive your views are. People have been quite patient in trying to explain this to you and educate you.

Oh please don't start her off about disabled people. It's bad enough reading her views on homosexuality.

Just to add, my ds1 (6) knows men can marry men and vice versa. He wasn't bothered about it at all. I'd rather he grew up open minded than like his uncle who is racist/sexist/homophobic. On the other hand, he still believes in Santa and thinks the women who work in the school office actually live there.

For goodness sake. People can no more choose their sexuality than their skin colour. And at your dc going to a Catholic school so they will be protected from this. I hate to tell you DP, but these gays, they're bloody everywhere. But it's fine, cos their peers won't decide for another 8 years.

**

dawntigga;

very little time at weekends for mumsnet...i don't think i'll have time to reply...
(i need to take my time with you)

plus, not really anything more to say...i don't think homosexuals are born that way..it's a choice made at around 16/17...and a choice made purely on sex.....(imo)

i am in control of what my 9 yr old hears...i don't have to talk to him about homosexuality if i don't want to...teachers should shut up about their private life...they are there to teach my children maths and english...not about homosexuality.

not that i'll ever have this problem...my children go to catholic schools.

think someone said i'm mad & paranoid....

mad.... quite possibly.
paranoid.....not sure.....maybe...

y'know all day long i think of things but nothing seems to satisfy.....not sure what that makes me....
**

I'll wait.

PatientTiggaxx

GrumpyWhenWoken do we have the same father?

Should the person with whom I share 50% (roughly) of my dna with ever make a comment that is, shall we say, usual for him, he is well aware of the consequences should ds be around.

the man has no chances left and he knows it, at the end of the day it's his choice if he wants a relationship with his grandson he watches his opinions.

NotBudgingOnThisTiggaxx

I note the OP was last seen three days ago... hope she got enough comments for her article

Just saw mathanxiety's comment, "But what if the teacher took it into her head to tell a class of 9 year olds something along the lines of DP's posts?"

Interestingly, my A-level biology teacher had very similar views and was continually sharing them with the class. Though obviously a class of 16-17 year olds is a bit different...
I particularly remember the day Freddie Mercury died, as she was ranting at us about how he would go to hell and 'have a devil put aside for him'. Nice.
Apart from anything else, it's lucky we were the top set and basically taught ourselves, as she rarely broke off from the religious spiel (and TMI sharing about her husband and kids) long enough to do any actual teaching.

I kind of cling to a vague hope that that sort of thing wouldn't happen nowadays. I fear I could be wrong.

Tigga they sound very alike don't they! I do try not to discuss things like this with him as it always ends up in a row, but I'd had a few last night and had also been on here!!

DP, I don't know why someone would make a choice that could result in them incurring the possibility of being vilified, beaten, possibly even killed -- this has happened and continues to happen to LGBT people. If it's just about sex, and you could equally choose heterosexual sex, why not choose the road that leads to at least a safe life free from the possibility of harassment, discrimination, injury or even the possibility of being murdered?

My children go to a Catholic school too. And they do sex ed there that covers the full range of sexual orientations; the core emphasis of the course they teach is respect for yourself and for others and for the gift of life in all its many expressions.

TheHeathenofSuburbia; there are parts of the States where parents or teachers or school boards routinely mount campaigns to have creationism taught as fact in science classes, or to have evolution presented in a way that suggests it is just a wacky theory. The incidents of this sort that get publicised are only those in public schools where public money is concerned and separation of church and state is therefore an issue. But there are many private schools, that do not receive any state funding, where teachers are free to tell the students anything they want in 'science' classes.

This attitude always astounds me as what people do in bed is generally the least interesting thing about them (at least where others are concerned!)yet if you are gay it seems to be all yopu are.

I wonder if the whole 'coming out' thing contributes to that focus, noddyholder. After all, straight people don't make any formal announcement to family or friends -- plenty of LGBT individuals don't either, but some do and I sometimes wonder why, tend to be of the opinion that they should just get on with it and why do they think someone might be interested..

listen....i will never change my mind over this...

getting back to the original op..

i would complain to the head teacher, i would also complain to OFSTED that homosexuality was being promoted in a primary school...totally not on....would not have a problem with it being talked about in secondary school as part of sex education, because my child would be older and able to understand it better.

homosexuality is not natural to me or my family, i don't want it presented to my impressionable 9 yr old as something "normal"

i don't want anything bad to happen to homosexuals, of course they should be allowed to live their lives without fear of attack, i may not agree with their lifestyle, but i have a degree of understanding and compassion

spidermama; you can't help being born black or disabled... you can choose who you take to bed.

enjoy your weekend...

For fucks sake. 'Promoted'?! WHat exactly do you understand by that word DP? Promoted??! Mentioning an upcoming civil partnership isn't exactly a homosexual recruitment drive now is it? Is the problem that you somehow think all these 9 year olds will suddenly 'decide' to become gay??
You will never change your opinion, so be it. I know I will never change my opinion of you either
I have never wished more that I could reach through my screen and slap someone