Stars and Stripes, the daily newspaper for the U.S. military community overseas, has a fascinating article on the establishment of a Gay-Straight Alliance club at Robert D. Edgren High School, situated at Misawa Air Base in Japan and part of the Department of Defense Dependents Schools-Pacific. Despite some controversy and an investigation of the Department […]
Today marks the start of No Name-Calling Week, “an annual week of educational activities aimed at ending name-calling of all kinds and providing schools with the tools and inspiration to launch an on-going dialogue about ways to eliminate bullying in their communities.” The event was created four years ago by GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, and Straight
My son’s preschool class has been talking about the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. “Martin Luther King was a peacemaker,” my son informed me last week. “And a bad man shotted him.” All things considered, I’m glad he doesn’t say the word “shot” enough to know its proper grammatical usage. I agreed with his assessment
First, the Evesham School District in New Jersey said third graders (usually eight years old) are too young to hear children’s books featuring same-sex couples. Now, one family in Winnipeg, Canada, wants to transfer their twelve-year-old seventh grader to another school because the boy’s teacher has placed a photo of his same-sex spouse on his
Today marks the launch of HRC’s All Children — All Families, initiative, “aimed at finding permanent families for foster children by promoting fairness for GLBT families.” They hope to do this by educating adoption and foster care agencies (public and private) about LGBT families, and conversely, by educating the LGBT community about foster and adoptive
Originally published in Bay Windows, November 13, 2007 (which explains the Massachusetts bias). See also this recent article about a similar initiative in Toronto. LGBT parents and educators in the Boston area are the source of one of the most comprehensive new resources for making elementary schools across the country more welcoming for all types
Continuing the theme of education from earlier this week: In the U.K., the Commons education committee has warned that creativity is a “second-order priority” in the country’s schools, but should be a fundamental part of learning, with adequate funding. “We believe that the best education has creativity at its very heart,” they say. I couldn’t
This Sunday’s Boston Globe Magazine had an exposé on the Better Baby Institute, which claims to have created a method for accelerating babies’ development. Physical therapist Glenn Doman founded the Institute to help brain-damaged children recover function, and he (along with daughter Janet) is now applying his findings to well infants and toddlers. “We are
Commentary on J. K. Rowling’s outing of Dumbledore is still flying thicker than owls in the Hogwarts Dining Hall. Michael Jensen at After Elton questions why she didn’t reveal this sooner. John Cloud, a gay writer for TIME, wishes she hadn’t said anything: But as far as we know, Dumbledore had not a single fully
