After the New Year, schools in California will be expected to implement LGBT-inclusive lesson plans into their curricula as part of the state’s new FAIR education act. But even LGBT education groups aren’t sure how that will pan out. “I’m not sure how we plug it into the curriculum at the grade-school level, if at all,” said GLBT Historical Society director Paul Boneberg reveals to the L.A. Times.
Compounding the problem is that, due to budget woes, the California Legislature put a hold on new textbooks until 2015. So there’s no supplemental material to give teachers direction in covering gay issues. (God help us if astronomers discover another planet.)
The L.A. Unified school district has already told teachers they must:
- Promote positive images of LGBT individuals.
- Make available age-appropriate LGBT inclusive curriculum for elementary and secondary schools.
- Require that newly adopted social studies materials include positive representations of LGBT and persons with disabilities.
- Include LGBT sensitivity in outreach, education, and training for students, parents, and staff.
- Remind staff of their duty to ensure that all students are safe and affirmed on campus, and to proactively intervene with acts of bias, harassment or bullying that they see, including, but not limited to LGBT-biased language and bullying.
- Implement for all staff a training specifying legal responsibilities, effective practices, and concerns unique to LGBT individuals, similar to the district’s child abuse module.
Without specific guidelines to provide teachers with, that sounds like a pretty tall order.
Image via Rosipaw
hmmm
it should say IMPLEMENT in the title. gee, no spell checker over at queerty’s office?! I guess not.
I don't like gay people, they attack me with their homosexuality
> LGBT-biased language and bullying
Oh wait so if a student advocates the LGBT way of life and forces his or her homosexuality onto me, as in, mentioning that he or she is LGBT, then I’m going to be protected by the teachers, because it’s LGBT-biased language and bullying!
Iamdoingitright? 😉
Steve
A history teacher may consult a resource that lists gay and lesbian figures in history. When one of them is mentioned in the text, or when the period or event is discussed, the fact that a particular person was gay can be mentioned. A resource such as, http://www.ranker.com/list/famous-gay-men-list-of-gay-men-throughout-history/famous-gay-and-lesbian might be adequate, for a first approximation.
CBRad
@Steve: Seriously. Screw this “silly little newcomer minority” thing when, really, we’ve always been at the forefront of Civilization.
Steve
It’s not silly. Most gay people who have studied history at all, know that gay people were often prominent. Most non-gay people don’t have a clue. Most of the teachers in our public schools are _not_ gay, and have taken no courses that cover this material.
Getting the information to the teachers who must teach it, is serious stuff. Teachers have to know something before the can teach it. Even with the information in-hand, teachers will have to decide how and when to include which individual items in lessons.
CBRad
@Steve: I agree with you mostly, except that most gays don’t know of the historical greats who preferred their own sex. plenty of names appear on both the Homosexual list and the Most Influential People In History list, but most gays are like “… Sir Francis Bacon…who’s that?…..but did you see Chaz Bono dancing?!!”