Teacher's revelation to second-graders angers some parents

[struggle4progress]

... The parents and about a dozen supporters held a protest Friday at the Interdisciplinary Downtown School, which serves students from 10 Twin Cities-area district. They want the school to let their children switch to a different class, a request that Principal Laura Bloomberg refused ...

But the protest drew an unexpected counter-protest from a 17-year-old student at the school, who confronted the group and said he didn't see how anyone could think the second-graders were in any danger. The parents replied that the young man didn't have children of his own in the classroom.

The controversy stemmed from a Sept. 15 classroom discussion led by Peter Sage, who was teaching a curriculum about different types of families. Sage said he read a prescribed book about a two-mom family, and then explained to the 23 students that he too is gay.

Sage said he went on to tell students that some people have different views of people not like them, describing how he disagreed with his own grandfather's negative view of black people. The protesting parents are black ...

http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=136344

[dsc]

1. Now that is brave

I wish he would have told the parents first for his own sake but surely hope he prospers. It is great that his principal and system is supporting him so strongly.

[Solo_in_MD]

6. They really have no choice about supporting him in the current situation

however, I would not count on him being in the classroom at the school district next year.

I have little to no faith in educrats...they will gladly sacarifice teachers just to remain on the path of least resistance and avoid confrontation.

[Straight Shooter]

2. Yeah, you snotty 17-year-old, just wait till you have kids of your own ...

... and then you'll have the right to be as bigoted as we are.

:sarcasm:

[xchrom]

3. ...

while i'm glad the young man came out -- my reaction to the parents is this...:puke: :puke: :puke:

[last1standing]

4. Gotta love the how the title is so out of context with the story.

Reading just the title you think this guy just stood up and outed himself in front of the class for no reason. Instead, he was using his own life experience to teach the children a prescribed lesson. It's not just the parents who are bigoted here....

[NMMNG]

5. Oh the horrors!

I'm sure those children are irreparably traumatized. Do those parents demand no pregnant teachers be allowed to teach--after all pregnancy is caused by sex so that exposes children to the concept of sex. :eyes:

[dsc]

7. In my lifetime one couldn't teach if one was showing as a pregnant

woman. Now states that did that have to allow the women to buy back those retirement years.

[goddess40]

9. I curl with a women who had to quit when she got pregnant

She was married and I think it was in the late 60's. She and her fellow teachers took on the system and eventually won the right to keep working.

[NMMNG]

13. It's amazing how repressive people can be

Everything has to be sanitized, the family is supreme but nobody can talk about how those babies came to be or what mommies and daddies do together. It's ok to talk about casting "evildoers" into the hellfires to burn to death but an abomination to let anybody see a woman's boob. :crazy:

[goddess40]

8. non-gays talk about their partners all the time

Double standards still abound, disgusting.

I guess parents that have a problem with that should shell out the money for private schools.

[noamnety]

11. Exactly

Unless school districts are prepared to fire every school teacher who has their partner show up in one of those romantic propose-in-front-of-the-classroom stunts, it's discrimination. Teachers either can or can't mention their spouse/partner in front of classes or they can't.

[davidinalameda]

10. the last bastion of bigotry exists

and it's against gay people

[knitter4democracy]

12. Very brave of him--bravo!!!

I am impressed that he was that kind to his students, using himself as an example rather than picking out anyone in the class, and that he was that brave. It would be an honor to have him teach my daughter when she's in second grade next year. I'm sure he's a good teacher if he's going to explain things that well and use himself as the example so no one student is singled out.

[Ian David]

14. "Pro-Family" just means hate without the hood. n/t

[mzteris]

15. They should all have to read this book

and write a book report on it. (The parents, not the kids.....)

http://www.amazon.com/What-Happened-Forster-Gary-Bargar/dp/0395310210/sr=1-4/qid=1160508369/ref=sr_1_4/103-3942962-8171831?ie=UTF8&s=books


My daughter took it to school (back in 1992?) for the teacher to read to the class. The teacher confiscated it and sent it home in a sealed plain manilla envelope. She told the class soon thereafter that all gays were going to hell. My daughter (whose dad is gay) was pretty upset by the whole thing.

I wrote the teacher a letter about being careful what she said to kids because you never know who you're talking to. That some of them might have parents, brothers, friends, relatives, other loved ones who might be gay. That some of them might grow up to BE gay, or just even to think they might be gay when going through adolescence and that teenage suicides were often tied to that. That if she were truly the Christian she touted herself to be (IN THE CLASSROOM, no less) she'd show a little more compassion, acceptance, and understanding.

I never did receive any sort of reply from her.