By snoadmin
LGBT supporters are increasing in number. Cal State Long Beach celebrated Pride Week last week, during which newly and openly gay students expressed their hardships, pride and support for being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.
The movement goes vastly farther than our campus; today is LGBT spirit day; a day in which purple must be worn in memory of all LGBT youth suicides.
The term “LGBT” has been a hot one in recent headlines and even in the legislature. This past July, Gov. Jerry Brown signed the bill SB48 into action, which requires the implementation of LGBT tolerance into local school history classes and textbooks. The law makes sense. It’s important to familiarize people with the LGBT community early on in order to ease tolerance. However, how early should “early” be?
“Starting in January, public school teachers from kindergarten on must include some sort of positive message about gay people in their lessons,” a Los Angeles Times article reads. “But as The Times has reported, they have little idea how to comply with the law.”
The LGBT community has made enough of a landmark in our country to be included in our history lessons. But, teaching kindergarteners about LGBT might seem like a foreign language to them. Keep in mind that — hopefully — most of these kids don’t even know what “sex” means.
Also, California public schools have already been criticized for overloading students with information in one academic year. In order for the teaching of LGBT history and tolerance to be effective and appreciated, a more organized curriculum should be decided upon.
California educators have a better grasp of overall teaching agendas, thus they would be able to organize the program much better than legislatures. The LA Times article adds, “For each new subject that enters the school day, legislators should realize, another one has to leave or be given shallower treatment.”
Executive Director of San Francisco’s GLBT Historical Society Paul Boneberg expressed his uncertainty on how to introduce the subject at the grade school level, “if at all.” And principal of Laurel Canyon’s Wonderland Avenue Elementary School conveyed his insecurity of how to introduce the subject.
It’s a bit awkward for elementary school teachers to launch the subject matter when their unsure if their students will even understand what they are talking about. On top of that, teachers must teach this subject with the anxiety of the possibility of parents complaining, accusing, etc. At least if LGBT tolerance is taught in middle and high schools, students will be on less of a tight rope with their parents.
It’s important that people know of the LGBT community at a young age, but elementary school may be too young. The subject is still hot, and while we want to make the LGBT community feel accepted, safe and no different than anyone else, we also don’t want to create more turmoil within the LGBT community, nor within elementary schools for teaching the matter at such a young age.
Brown’s SB48 is going to be called into action regardless of what we say or do, now. But, hopefully as time goes on, the bill can be amended in a way that would wreak it more benefits than setbacks.
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