(Originally published in Bay Windows, Thursday Feb 19, 2009.) Last week I registered my son for his first year in our public school system. It was one of life’s strange coincidences that news also broke last week about my very own state representative, House Minority Leader Bradley Jones, who filed a bill to require parental […]
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 five years ago by GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, and Straight
Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) has just launched Cultivating Respect, a program to address anti-LGBT sentiment in the nation’s schools. The program includes “training seminars for local parents and allies, empowering PFLAG supporters at the local level to work directly with their community leaders and school administrators to protect LGBT students.”
How can one evaluate who will be a great teacher? That’s the question posed by journalist Malcolm Gladwell (author of The Tipping Point) in the current issue of The New Yorker. He says, in part: Eric Hanushek, an economist at Stanford, estimates that the students of a very bad teacher will learn, on average, half
The guinea pigs have had the spotlight this year, as picture book Uncle Bobby’s Wedding has faced several attempted challenges from library patrons who wanted to remove or reshelve it. The penguins of And Tango Makes Three are not out of danger yet, however, as a school board meeting in Ankeny, Iowa made clear. Cindy
(Originally published in Bay Windows, November 20, 2008. This has less to do with parenting than most of my pieces, but may be of interest to those of you who have children in college, were/are involved in collegiate LGBT groups yourselves, or are lawyers.) OutLaw, the LGBT student group at Boston University School of Law,
Paige Schilt at Bilerico today reflects on what she calls “my latest obsession: insinuating gay marriage into the kindergarten curriculum.” It’s a wonderful tale about her son’s first foray into a classroom, and a great example of something I’ve been saying for some time (most recently at 365gay.com), that curriculum or no, children will learn
I have a new piece up at 365gay.com, “Teaching Children about Gays and Lesbians.” I talk about Prop 8 and how those who want to ban discussion of same-sex couples in school curricula are ignoring the fact that the only real way to eliminate this topic from the classroom is to expel the children who
I blogged Monday about a San Francisco first-grade class who surprised their lesbian teacher by showing up at her wedding. A parent suggested the field trip and school administrators agreed it was a “teachable moment.” While I admired the thought behind the trip, I was very concerned about the far-right running with the story. Well,
Here’s a good one for discussion: A group of first-graders in San Francisco took a field trip to City Hall last Friday to attend the wedding of their lesbian teacher. They threw rose petals and blew bubbles. Mayor Gavin Newsom officiated. The field trip was a parent’s idea, a surprise for the children’s dedicated teacher.
