Strollerderby : tolerance

Teacher Fired for Letting Kids Play Gay

JeanneSager — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 13:24:00 GMT

Note to all teachers with small-minded administrators - don't bother trying to teach your kids about history. At least not homosexual history.

A teacher in a rural Oklahoma town has been fired by administrators after trying to teach the story of gay college student Matthew Shepard's murder by assigning students parts in The Laramie Project, a play based on the hate crime inflicted on the young homosexual man a decade ago.

Of course, officials say it isn't the play itself that prompted the firing. Debra Taylor dared let her students voice their opinions about the school's decision to CANCEL the play that earned her a place on the chopping block.

When her principal told her the play - which he'd previously given permission to Taylor to put on - had to be stopped, she let her kids spend twenty minutes in a local park, writing their feelings on helium balloons and releasing them (not enviro-friendly, but at the very least offering some catharsis). Taylor says she never asked the kids to change their minds about homosexuality, just to be tolerant.

The park stunt is what administrators say was Taylor's undoing. What about it was wrong, they won't say. Perhaps that she let kids voice dissent? That she voiced dissent? That she did something else that might, possibly, maybe make the kids think again about tolerance and respecting others?

Because cancellation of the play to begin with was inappropriate, but it might have had a very positive affect on the kids. Suddenly, they saw it was like to be discriminated against. After several weeks of hard work put into practicing for their production, they had the rug swept out from under them by school officials - and for no reason.

And how's this for irony? The school punished Debra Taylor, but her job loss makes her a role model for kids. Kind of what we always hope our kids' teachers will be.

Image: USA Today

Disabled TV Star Scaring Tots?

JeanneSager — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 13:25:00 GMT

A British television channel has been getting flack from parents over the decision to allow a woman born without a hand to star in a kids TV show.

They say the kids are scared. I say the parents need to get over it.

Cerrie Burnell took over a segment of the popular show Bedtime Hour last month, and parents have been threatening to boycott the show. Some say their kids are afraid while others claim the TV show used a sort of reverse discrimination in its decision to hire Burnell.

The Daily Mail says Burnell was born without an arm and calls her the "one-armed presenter," but a look at the picture of her shows she was actually born without a hand - she actually has most of her arm. To be honest, even if she had NO arm, I don't see the problem.

She's a human being. And kids are going to run into someone with a disability somewhere, some day. What better place to make the introduction than in the safe environs of a much-loved television show? Here in the states, Sesame Street makes it a point to invite guests with disabilities to take part in the show, exposing kids to people in wheelchairs or with Down syndrome, folks who are blind, even other kids with disabilities. The message is clear - they have a disability . . . so what? There's no reason to treat them differently, and kids need to get that message early.

What's more - little kids might be curious about something different about another person, but being afraid of differences is a learned response. If parents react poorly - like the folks who claim their kids won't be able to sleep if they watch the show - it's no wonder their kids are scared. They're training them to think that there's something scary about the woman on TV. The same goes for the parent who says their child keeps asking about the woman's arm. They're turning to you for guidance, Mom. Provide it. Answer their questions. Be honest. Tell them that there's nothing to be afraid of, and take advantage of a smiling, happy face to put to the disability as you face the challenge of teaching your kids about acceptance and tolerance

Unless it's really the parents who are afraid?

Image: Daily Mail

Fox Asks, “Would You Want Terrorists Living in Your Backyard?”

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 18:30:00 GMT

In response to President Obama’s executive order to close Guantanamo, give the remaining detainees fair trials, and ban torture (you know, the kinds of basic civil liberties that have governed civilized societies since the Magna Carta), Fox News has responded with unprecedented fear mongering.

As you can see in the clip below, they sent a reporter to Pennsylvania, armed with photos of apparently Muslim men—some in turbans, some simply dark-skinned. They showed these photos to people on the street and asked, “Would you want terrorists living in your backyard?”

Let's quickly unpack a few blatant problems with this question. First, the vast majority of the remaining men at Guantanamo have been held for seven years with ever being charged with a crime. The Pentagon admits that only five percent of them were picked up on a battlefield, and has already cleared many of them for release. They are no more convicted terrorists than I am.

And who said anything about housing Guantanamo detainees in a backyard? If these men are brought to the U.S., they will be housed in maximum security prisons. America’s criminal justice system is the best in the world. Federal courts have convicted 145 people on international terrorism charges since 9/11—while Guantanamo’s military commissions have made all of TWO convictions.

Perhaps most egregious of Fox was to associate photos of random dark-skinned men with terrorists. Let’s remember that many men who look exactly like the people in these photographs are American citizens. Their kids attend school with the same kids who watched this outrageous segment on Fox.

Knowing that this level of irrational fear and hatred exists in millions of families in the U.S., those parents who do not watch Fox News have a special responsibility to teach their children tolerance and the courage to impart tolerance to their peers.

The best part of this clip is at the end, when the anchors all decide that the remaining Guantanamo detainees should be held at Alcatraz—you know, with all those West Coasters who hate America. Um, I hate to be a nitpicker, but Alcatraz is a theme park. Would you rather have suspected terrorists held at a theme park than at a maximum-security prison?

Photo: viralpolitics.com

Ethnic Unity 101: Coming to China's Schools

JeanneSager — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 13:28:00 GMT

The country that's spent years playing its xenophbic reputation to the fullest is about to cut ethnic intolerance off at the knees. Yes, China, a place not exactly celebrated for its views on human rights, is introducing "ethnic unity" classes in its primary schools.

It will depend on its execution, but promoting the melting pot theory to the youngest members of a society is really the best way to guarantee future generations will have a more tolerant viewpoint than their elders (my generation included).

A Reuters report, quoting a translation of the Chinese government's announcement, says school kids will get up to fourteen hours of school-based education to promote the "basic awareness of the vital nature of 'encouraging ethnic unity, protecting national unity and opposing ethnic separatism'."

Technically, China's constitution guarantees religious freedom and equal treatment for all minorities, including the country's 56 different recognized minority groups. Where have we heard that before? Oh yeah, the United States Constitution - you know, the one that people conveniently forget when they put into place regulations like the atrocity that is Prop 8.

Would something like this fly in U.S. schools?

Image: TWR

Will Our Kids Be Allowed to Say Merry Christmas or Happy Hanukkah?

Parents Must Give Adopted Son Back to Native American Mother

Parents Upset: Transgender Kids Use Different School Bathrooms

Mom Gets Hate Mail for Ending Kids Thanksgiving Party

Parents Must Give Adopted Son Back to Native American Mother

JeanneSager — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 13:26:00 GMT

He was born addicted to drugs to a woman who has already lost custody of her four other children for being unfit, but Heather and Clint Larson have to return their six-month-old boy to his birth mother.

They can't fight it - because they're not Native American.

The boy's birth mother is a member of the Leech Lake Band of the Ojibwe. The tribal court voted the birth mother deserves her baby; and they're citing the federal Indian Child Welfare Act to make it happen.

Normally I'd support a birth mother's decision to change her mind about signing adoption papers in the days after her child was born. It's why birth mothers are generally given a short period of time to make that decision - because an unborn child and a child you have carried into this world can have two very different affects on a parent. But this mother isn't your average confused teen mom. This is child number five, and she didn't keep her nose clean during her pregnancy - she gave birth to a baby boy addicted to drugs. More importantly, her tribe isn't fighting for her rights. They're fighting for the right to keep this child "Indian."

"The child is not the Larsons', and the Larsons are not Indian as far as I know and this is an Indian child," an attorney for the tribe told KUTV, a Salt Lake City, Utah news station last week.

What does that matter? Yes, the Native Americans were dealt a raw deal, and the people living on many of our reservations are suffering greatly. Yes, theirs is a culture that needs to be preserved, and the stories of the atrocities need to be shared with our children. But this is akin to arguing that white parents can't adopt a black child or vice versa. It is racism, plain and simple. A child needs good care from parents who love him, parents who can provide that care. The Larsons have proven to an adoption agency they can. The boy's mother has not.

This doesn't sound like it's truly in the best interests of the child - and I'm disturbed to hear that a judge in an American court says she has no power to overturn the tribal decision because, well, it's tribal.

Has the tribe considered talking to the Larsons about an open adoption, about ensuring that the boy is raised with an understanding of his heritage? Has the tribe offered to step in to provide the child with an education about his culture, provided the Larsons with the means to raise the little boy not only as an American but as a member of Ojibwe nation? The Larsons have kept the boy's name as "Talon," a name that sounds to me like it is cultural - a sign that they seem willing to provide the little boy with a sense of his place in the world.

There are immense problems on a number of reservations with teen pregnancy and poverty. How can tribes expect potential adoptive parents to step in to help with that, to rescue some of these babies born out of wedlock to mothers who can't care for them, if they always have to worry that they will have to give up their child because they "aren't Indian?" Is this a precedent the tribes want to set? Or do they simply not care?

Source: The Salt Lake Tribune

Image: KUTV

Parents Must Give Adopted Son Back: Another Side of the Story

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Mom Gets Hate Mail for Ending Kids Thanksgiving Party

JeanneSager — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 16:08:00 GMT

The mom who put an end to the kindergarten Thanksgiving traditions at two California elementary schools this year has been getting some pretty nasty holiday greetings. Racial epithets, wishes that her daughter (a member of one of the kindergarten classes) would be beat up.

I shared Michelle Raheja's fight and her comments here on the 'Derby right before Thanksgiving, opening up the question to the readers of whether the old standby "Pilgrims and Indians" recreations in kindergartens are really racist or not. A host of opinions came down on either side of the fence, but I'm happy to say not one reader took Raheja's defenseless five-year-old to task.

You can read the original post for the whole story, but basically the professor who spends a portion of her teaching focusing on Native American literature told the school district that the four-decades old event was racist. She likened kids from one school dressing as "Indians" and walking to the other school where kids were dressed as "Pilgrims" to enjoy a meal was like replicating a meeting of the Jews and the Nazis and trying to put a happy face on it.

It's an emotional issue, to be sure, and one that gave me conflicting feelings (thus my original headline, Are Elementary School Thanksgivings Racist Or Just Outdated?). There are members of my own family who are Native American, who live on reservations, who are feeling today's affects of yesterday's injustices visited upon their culture as a whole. We can't brush the more sordid bits of American history under the rug. On the other hand, these are five year olds learning about multi-culturalism. You do have to simplify things a bit. And dressing up to break bread doesn't have to be entirely devoid of teachable moments regarding Native American history.

Either way, I thought I wanted to hear other opinions as I tried to make my own. But even in thinking there might be some merit to these sorts of traditions - even if they are updated to be more racially appropriate - I'm with the readers. I didn't think Michelle Raheja deserved to be have her daugher threatened, to be maligned for her own Native American heritage.

Have we really gone so far that we vent our frustrations on other parents by bashing their kids? I'm not defending the racial comments, but at least they were attacks on an adult. To focus your most hateful thoughts on a child is disturbing, but to do so because you hate their parents' decisions simply makes no sense.

My daughter is only three at this point, so I am only beginning to navigate the world of "other parents." I've tried my best to separate kids in my daughter's nursery school from what I might think of their parents. But is this kind of attitude what I have to look forward to?

Image: Los Angeles Times

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They Say: Children 'Programmed' to Share

JeanneSager — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 18:29:00 GMT

I'm not sure what prompted the first snort of derision. The headline to yesterday's Scientific American article that read "Why Children Like to Share" or the part about how our kids are "programmed" against inequality. Bad Mommy says what?

Fortunately, reading the article confirmed I'm not the Bad Mommy I sometimes fear I am. Kids aged three to eight are still toywhores who'd rather wipe their boogers with their sleeve than share a Tonka truck. Phewww. My kid's still in the running for most normal brat of the year. And despite the Manchurian Candidate-type ring to the subhead, no one's plugging a microchip into our kids' brains and programming them to believe they need to hand over the roll of Smarties just because the other kid asked.

What the study out of the University of Zurich actually states is that our kids are becoming more likely to give up their own rewards in life in order to stand up for inequality. It reiterates what I've always figured - kids are inherently good . . . until adults screw them up.

Image: Family Violence Institute

Sixth Graders Disciplined for Hit a Jew Day

Mom Plans to Burn Book her Son's Library Book - Really

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School Board Member Uses Gay Slur, Says Student Said it First

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Your Kids Don’t Want to Vacation With You

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Oh man, I thought when I saw the title to this article—“My Interminable Flight with a Crying Child”—yet another uptight non-parent complaining about the indignities of being subjected to strangers’ children in public places. But it turns out that Chuck Cohen has some decent points—and he’s a parent himself.

I still maintain that I have little sympathy for Cohen’s complete intolerance for crying children on his plane (“Why should kids under the age of 2 fly free on airplanes? And if they do, shouldn’t we institute a decibel charge?”), since I happen to be of the school that believes going out in public means encountering small humans—and sometimes, they’re going to cry.

But Cohen may be on to something when he argues that toddlers cry on airplanes (and in the theatre) for a reason: they don’t want to go to London, or sit still in a dark theatre for two hours. They’d much rather play on the swing set in the backyard.

Still, Cohen’s insistence that kids—and the vacationing public—will be happier if they are left at home may be logical, but it’s not necessarily practical. Are parents supposed to give up vacationing all together until their children develop a sophisticated interest in London theatre and Yosemite falls? And what about the plane flights that are to Grandma and Grandpa's house?

Photo: Mom's Buzz

When The Loud Neighbors Are Your Kids

"Pregnant Man" Beattie Loves the Limelight

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 13:50:00 GMT

I am becoming increasingly convinced that Thomas Beattie (better known as the “pregnant man”) is a bit of a publicity whore. This isn’t necessarily a problem, so long as the publicity he seeks does more good than harm for the transgender community—and for his daughter, born on June 29.

In the latest Beattie media frenzy, September Films, a London firm, has beat out four other production companies in winning the rights to make a documentary telling Beattie’s story. The hourlong film will air on Channel 4, with rights to the film licensed globally. The Discovery Channel is currently seeking exclusive U.S. rights.

With his Oprah appearance, his memoir-in-progress (including tales of participating in beauty pageants in his youth), and now this film, Beattie seems keen on maintaining a large spot in the limelight. This is certainly not unusual in these days of reality TV and "It Happened to Me" bestsellers, but it becomes a bit more complicated when there is a child involved. I just hope the widespread publicity of Beattie’s unusual situation helps establish more tolerance for transgender folks and their children, not more hatred.

Photo: livenews.com

Woodlan High School Student In Trouble For Editorial Preaching Tolerance

JasonAvant — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 11:43:00 GMT

An open letter to Woodlan High School Principal Edwin Yoder:

Dear Mr. Yoder - Do you like apples? Hold that thought. I read, with great interest, this article detailing your actions following the publication of a column by sophomore Megan Chase. Seems that you weren't happy with the piece, calling it inappropriate and reprimanding the school's journalism teacher for allowing the students to run it without your approval. (It's interesting that you chose to allow a piece on teen pregnancy to run in a previous issue, but a piece calling for straight students to be tolerate of GLBT students was "inappropriate.")

This pissed me off, for a number of reasons. I was thinking of a snarky rant about close-minded conservative homophobes holding positions of authority in public schools, and how sad it is that such ass-backward moralists hold sway over impressionable kids who need to hear from their peers that hate is not OK. But then I thought, gee, what would really piss you off? And it hit me, the time-honored way of dealing with people like you, who gain such satisfaction over muzzling the voices of people whose opinions don't conform to your own.

There are, according to this site, 728 students at Woodlan. Ms. Chase's article was presumably read by some of them. Strollerderby gets - best guess here - a few thousand hits a day. And a few hundred websites link to this one, meaning that there's the potential for several thousand additional readers to click on a particular piece. Ms. Chase's column - very appropriate for kids of any age, in my opinion, and a nicely written one at that - is printed in full in the article. And we Godless gay-lovin' liberal parent bloggers, we do love linking to stories about bigots who try to impose their narrow-minded beliefs upon those who have little choice in the matter. So rather than quash her piece, as you intended, you've given Ms. Chase a very, very large audience. So I'll rephrase the question from paragraph one. How 'bout them apples?

Strollerderby : tolerance

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Woodlan High School Student In Trouble For Editorial Preaching Tolerance