What's struck me as weird about this is that I don't recall a single teacher ever mentioning their spouse, or their personal weekend plans.
The idea that a teacher wants to talk to their students about their personal lives is utterly foreign to me.
Maybe it's just a sign of times changing?
Edit: this thought came to me in the context of a quote I saw from a teacher upset he couldn't talk about going surfing with his husband.
There was a wide enough income gap in our school that teachers talking about vacations was frowned upon, since you never really knew which kids didn't actually ever get to go on vacations, etc.
I had a teacher who taught a class that regularly featured his vacation photos because he spent his summers traveling. Sounds super corny, but he managed to make it interesting, and the first-person account brought to life the countries, religions and philosophies that we learning about. His wife occasionally showed up in those pictures.
My school also had two married teachers who shared a surname. We all knew they were married.
There were also a few teachers (band, orchestra, sports coaches) whose spouses would volunteer at events and travel with them.
Also quite a few teachers wore religious symbols -- cross on a necklace kind of thing. And quite a few of my teachers had pictures of their families on their desks. They didn't make a big deal about it, but evidence was in plain sight.
Now, I was in the high school in the 90s. I'm not sure when you think this changed.
> What's struck me as weird about this is that I don't recall a single teacher ever mentioning their spouse, or their personal weekend plans.
That strikes me as odd. I recall this happening many times. Heck, there were even several pairs of teachers who met at school and got married. One teacher proposed to another teacher during a town parade where many students and teachers were present. It's not like teachers dwelled on personal details in class. It's just that it would be impossible to miss.
Doesn't seem odd to me at all. Growing up, I almost never heard my teachers talk about their partners or spouses or romantic relationships. I remember my year 6 teacher got married and decided to change her surname as a result – but that's all I can remember ever hearing about her marriage, and if she hadn't decided to change her surname, I doubt I would have heard about it at all.
Even now, we know very little about the romantic lives of our son's teachers – and I expect our son knows even less than we do. Even when we do know things, it is through gossip among parents, or socialising with teachers – not from teachers telling the children about it in class.
It was relatively common in school to discuss what happened over breaks, weekends, etc. to build conversation skills. Also, almost every k12 teacher I had would prepare a slideshow about themselves to present on the first day of class along with the syllabus. After all, you're spending a lot of time in that classroom as a k12 student.
Many teachers also have pictures of their family on their desks, as one might in their office at any other job.
Especially in lower grades, teachers are not robots that exclusively teach content from bell to bell each day.
> Also, almost every k12 teacher I had would prepare a slideshow about themselves to present on the first day of class along with the syllabus
This is pretty different from coming to school and telling 7yos about the sex party you went to this weekend and which gender you were identifying as when you went. This is the reality some parents are trying to prevent when they say some American teachers are taking their freedom to share their personal lives a bit far.
Let's be real, obviously there's nothing wrong with having a teacher who's LGBT. What people have a problem with are the folks who derive their entire identity out of that, and then greatly encourage the kids they teach to do the same. It's not dissimilar from a teacher being a veteran and insisting on sharing that part of their life with their students, to a point where parents find it crosses boundaries. We actually had a teacher at my high school who used to be a sniper in the Canadian Armed Forces. He was eventually told by the principal no more Afghan war stories, as it was making the students feel uncomfortable hearing that sort of thing from teacher.
The very obvious comparison here is a teacher coming to school and telling their kids, in detail, about their sex life or multiple gender transition surgeries. While they're topics which I'm comfortable with, I can't speak for every parent and I think it's wrong for the state to say "these topics MUST be socially acceptable to you, bigot."
Just teach the class! You don't need to get them excited about queer culture or gun culture or joining the military. Everyone would be better so much better off if teachers could just largely leave their personal lives at home and stick to the syllabus.
> This is pretty different from coming to school and telling 7yos about the sex party you went to this weekend and which gender you were identifying as when you went.
When has this ever happened?
> What people have a problem with are the folks who derive their entire identity out of that, and then greatly encourage the kids they teach to do the same.
When has this ever happened?
> The very obvious comparison here is a teacher coming to school and telling their kids, in detail, about their sex life or multiple gender transition surgeries
When has this ever happened?
Straight people also have sex parties. Why are we legislating against LGBT people specifically?
>When has this ever happened?
>When has this ever happened?
>When has this ever happened?
Were you expecting a news article? I'm not the 7yo in the classroom, these are just things I've heard from other parents while I've been spending time in FL. People are earnestly scared about what their kids are being taught in school and I think it's pretty cruel to abuse them instead of taking their concerns seriously.
Any of the examples I used are pretty obviously anecdotal, I'm surprised that wasn't clear to you. Not everything which has ever happened in this world has a Wikipedia article or video to link back to, some things just happen and then people tell others in their community, they don't necessarily run to write a blog post.
If you aren't living in FL right now I'm not sure how nuanced your perspective is going to be on the topic, but your opinions are always welcome, of course.
People saw cat litter on campus, which is commonly used to clean vomit off of floors at school, and fabricated this outrage. Anecdotes are not enough to villainize an entire group of people.
I live in TX, the book-banning capital of the US, so not too far off from FL.
Nobody's trying to villainize any LGBT people, you're the one jumping to that conclusion. I'm bisexual, two of my sisters and half my friends are queer, the fact you're unable to hear stories like this without assuming they're scaremongering lies says much more about you and your ability to process information than it does said apparent 'culture war'.
I shared an anecdote from a woman who had absolutely reason to lie, this wasn't a conversation on the internet, this was a handful of us chatting together at the dog park. Did you seriously expect me to do what you just did and smugly tell her that without a source she's just speaking lies? It's a fairly juvenile and reddit move, but again, we're seeing it right now.
If the only way you allow your priors to be updated is by reading news articles, I think you're going to find yourself fairly behind in cultural trends.
Finally, if news articles are truly the only way you can read, please feel free to read about what's happening near my hometown. [1] This should align well with your current assumption that it's not possible for LGBT people to do any wrong, and that any accusation of such is just right-wing 'nonsense'.
> This is pretty different from coming to school and telling 7yos about the sex party you went to this weekend and which gender you were identifying as when you went.
That sounds extremely specific. Do you have a source? Because I tend to agree, if somebody told my kid shit like that I'd also want them fired too.
Are you expecting a news article? This is a story a mom at the dog park told me last week. How you feel about it is entirely your own choice and makes 0 difference to me, but asking for a source on what a teacher said in a 7yo's classroom is pretty funny I think. It's like asking for a source of your coworker making an inappropriate joke or a dog peeing on your lawn - do you operate under the framework that only things with internet sources actually happened?
If someone at the dog park told you a story, is your response to ask for a source and dismiss her when she tells you that one very obviously doesn't exist? Seems like a funny way to interact with people.
Did you never have a teacher you were friendly with or served as a mentor even outside of class? I grew up in poverty and if it wasn't for a couple teachers going above and beyond I probably would've never got the help I need to get free community college tuition.
With cases like that, personal details end up discussed inadvertently because it's impossible to avoid. So-and-so's wife might be a teacher in the same district, or they might show up at school during late work hours and so forth. Same if they're running a club or some extracurricular activity.
Indeed. And there's a difference between on observation that something exists (e.g., their same sex spouse) vs discussing their "romantic relationship".
So they want to shut down any and all speech in that regard but force companies to publish speech that may not fall within their terms of service.
The idea that a teacher wants to talk to their students about their personal lives is utterly foreign to me.
Maybe it's just a sign of times changing?
Edit: this thought came to me in the context of a quote I saw from a teacher upset he couldn't talk about going surfing with his husband.
There was a wide enough income gap in our school that teachers talking about vacations was frowned upon, since you never really knew which kids didn't actually ever get to go on vacations, etc.