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?

Hmm. Am assuming the OP is a troll as she's only been back once.

I wish we could see this not as the teacher talking about her personal life but just as talking about her life. There's a difference.

Learning should incorporate life experiences and all the stuff that it's made up of. Objectively, calmly, pitched at the appropriate level and with the opportunity for discussion.

thandeka;

why do you think i'm ignorant..?

can you explain that to me..

Why can they talk about their lives, WouldYouCouldYouWithAGoat? How appropriate is it for someone who is an adult to be discussing their personal life with a roomful of children who are basically strangers, whom you have known at most for a matter of about 12 weeks?

And please do not call me names.

"pushing homosexuality"??!! Reminds me of when Nick Griffin talked about "militant homosexuals" on Question Time - took me right back to the '80's that did...

Go figure.

If you talk about 'pushing' homosexuality or 'flaunting' it or anything else, those are loaded words which suggest you have negative feelings about it.

FWIW, every one of all the gay people I've even known have known from their very earliest memory that they were gay. A lifetime of having heterosexuality 'flaunted' at them from all sides didn't change them, so why would it work the other way round?

As dottydot says, they are talking about their life. And as Thandeka says, it does happen and will always happen in the classroom. It is inevitable. And I think desirable.

dd's teachers talk aabout their children and all sorts - they are humans.

I find the idea of homosexuality as a kind of dangerous lure to children, which will 'corrupt' them with increasing exposure, quite hilarious.

My mother had this sort of idea. She thought a gay friend of mine shouldn't be allowed to work with the Brownies 'because of her proclivities' :-0 It's the equation of homosexuality with paedophilia and all other ill defined evils and vices threatening Our Children which is really quite laughable.

i haven't got a problem with homosexuals..i've said that a million times on here.....but i would have a problem with a teacher talking to my 9 yr old about her sexual preferences...

Do you honestly think she was talking about sexual preferences? Or do you think she was talking about love and partnership?

Why so hung up on the sex?

but why, if they are part of her life DP?

you wouldn't object to her talking about marrying a man would you? So why does her mention of a totally legal civil partnership bother you?

DP, as others have said before - if you would object to her mentioning her engagement to a man, pregnancy, wedding, anything like that, then I'd 100 per cent support you (even if I didn't agree, at least it's consistent).

Is that the case, do you mind my asking?

she wasn't talking about her sexual preferences. She told them she was getting married.

I'm in a civil partnership but this doesn't wholly reflect my sexual preferences.

Why does gay stuff automatically have to be tied in with sexual stuff...?

So much ignorance, so little time to educate - I'm off to spend my time doing better things!

Thank you FallenMadonna - you posted as I was typing and said it much better!

i think we have to think about the context.

it is very unlikley that the teacher clapped her hands and said " Now children i am a lesbian"

it probably came up in some wider discussion, i bet something like
"are you married miss?"
"i am about to be"
"what is your boyfriend called"
"actually my Girlfriend is called..."

and on.

Bet if it was a Troll it's full up now. We have fed it that much!!

Most lesbians or gays I know dont exactly shout their sexuality from the rooftops. I met a lovely woman on a plane, and we were chatting the entire lenght of the flight, she was telling me about her partner, and about her partners 14 year old son, I had no clue her partner was a woman until they met and embraced in the airport. I really doubt she announced her sexual preference the way it is assumed here.

daftpunk - the issue with a teacher telling a class that they intended to go out and drink a bottle of vodka for fun (yes, commonplace and legal) is that there would be a possibility that children would follow the teacher as a role model and think this a reasonable way to spend a Saturday night, while we, anxious parents, know it to be bad for health, make people vulnerable etc etc. Drinking vodka in huge quantities is a CHOICE and carries RISK to the drinker and others.

Homosexuality, however is not a choice, and a teacher entering into a committed relationship with another woman carries no risk to herself or those around her. In fact, given the number of children who leave home and become homeless on the streets of London because they have no support for their emerging (but definite) homosexuality might mean that in presenting a safe, secure, normal role model a teacher who calmly tells a class she is 'marrying' a woman may well cut down the overall risk to young people.

So that leaves you with the question of 'morals' and...what else? What else makes you feel that a woman in a relationship with another woman is not something that can be mentioned in a classrom to 9 year olds? is it because homosexuality is bad in some way?

oh yes, i remember our teacher back at primary getting married, to a woman (we saw her in person) there was a little minor scandal (amongst us kids anyway) that she ws divorced. (not that kids in my clas din't have divorced folks, just it was a juicy titbit of information about our teacher who we were very interested in.)

OP you are being deeply unreasonable. 9 years old is not too young to learn that not everyone is the same - and kis love finding out about thir teachers.

lol @ custardo's 1970's hand clapping teacher

DP why would you have a problem with a teacher talking about who she is marrying?

If everything you do is going to identify you as belonging in one camp or another, then why bother with any kind of formal announcement at all?

Thandeka, while I have never worked as a teacher I have been in school long enough to know that when children ask you how your weekend was, all they really want is to delay the start of lessons while you warble on about what you had for breakfast on Saturday morning...

It is not considered good MN form to brandish your professional credentials or try to imply that you have some kind of superior contribution to make on a thread as a result of your RL job.

oh, and, i too, thought 'Oh, teacher caught drinking from the hairy goblet atop the hallowed school desk!!' and clicked only to be deeply disappointed.