Right at the onset, on page one of the Gerri August article, Making Room for One Another, she says that we educators guide the student's adventure through school - and that we do so with varying degrees of sensitivity and skill. This sounds like a castigation.
Are we arbiters for the status quo or should we facilitate change? Ms. August calls the change facilitators "democratic, emancipatory, transformative educators". By inference, these are the educators that are more likely to be supportive of same-sex parents, and by extension, those that would be willing to introduce the issue in the classroom. Or at least not ignore it if the question is raised.
Question 1 - were you surprised that PBS cancelled the children's program episode that features lesbian parents? I was. I thought PBS, along with its radio counterpart, NPR, would be the first to jump on this type of programming. The reason for the cancellation was that "Congress never intended that RTL funding would introduce this kind of subject matter to children". There's the problem. The ones holding the purse strings have the last word.
Question 2 - at the bottom of page 8 of the article, it was said that "education in a just society needs to attend to not only academic but also moral concerns." Do you agree? Shouldn't morality be left at the school entrance, to be taught only at home and church?
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Wow, Joe...Those both are excellent questions and concern very pressing issues. I would like to comment on your question about "morality." Morals can be taught in school, but need to be supported and developed via homelife. There are certain morals that can be left for further interpretation by mommy and daddy, but we can definitely teach acceptance, tolerance, and respect. If we model what each of these stands for, then hopefully, our students will learn these from us if they are not able to learn them from their families. Again, remember, some families that these children come from may have low morals and children are counting on us, as educators, to "teach" them what they need to know to be responsible citizens in this world. So, I don't believe that academics should fall short on introducing and teaching basic morals.
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