Yeah, I know, the title for this entry doesn't make good sense, does it. Maybe that's because it DOESN'T MAKE GOOD SENSE!
A Wisconsin public high school is featured in the Spring 2009 issue of the Southern Poverty Law Center's "Teaching Tolerance" newsletter for its noble efforts to brainwash 11th graders into thinking something that they believe to be wrong is right.
Elkhorn High School teacher Sarah Arnold was "inspired" to develop a curriculum called "Exposing Hidden Homophobia" after overhearing her students making snide remarks and using words such as "gay" to describe the uncool behaviors of fellow classmates.
Following is an actual excerpt from a news article that appears at Christian LifeSiteNews.com. I was so taken aback by the description of the course I had to confirm it by going to the Southern Poverty Law Center's website where, to my dismay, I got confirmation. Read on and ask yourself if THIS is what parents sign up for when they send their kids to school.
The program Arnold developed included "in-depth exploration of depictions" of homosexuality in mass media; several homosexual-themed films, documentaries, books and novels; internet research on "the nature of homophobia"; and a "homophobia questionnaire" coupled with a "heterosexual questionnaire" designed to take questions "commonly asked of homosexuals and ask them of heterosexuals" - e.g., "When did you decide to become heterosexual?'"
Although students were reluctant and parents "balked," particularly Christian parents, Arnold would argue that the project supported "higher-order thinking skills" because students were asked to perform such tasks as assembling and presenting portfolios of their research into homosexual culture and media.
The article claims that, thanks to the program, students began to adopt a more favorable view of homosexuality, as evidenced by portfolio essays and an increased membership in the school's Gay-Straight Alliance.
Colleen Rafter, principal of Raritan High School in Hazlet, N.J., said she convinced the English department in her school to adopt a homosexuality program similar to Arnold's, according to the article.
"We really want to make a change in how people think and act," Rafter said. "I will try to be more brave on these issues myself."
The article then provides resources and lesson plans for other public school teachers to use, including shortened versions of Arnold's "Hidden Homophobia Unit."
Oh goody.
The New Jersey principal's remark about wanting to change the way people think and act should set off alarm bells in the heads of every parent. This is EXACTLY why schools are no longer safe places to send your children. Forget the drugs, the gangs, the bullying, the weapons, the sexual assaults by teachers -- what about the concerted and acknowledged efforts to restructure the way your children view their world?
Oh, but I was comforted to know that this ridiculous waste of THIRTY SEVEN class periods met the state's standards for writing because the program fostered "higher order thinking skills."
Now I'll risk copyright violation by quoting from the actual article in SPLC's newsletter. You'll see that LifeSiteNews.com didn't slant its coverage. Note, too, SPLC's own chatty suggestions at the end of the article.
She got them started slowly. Their first assignment: spend a class period writing an essay about one thing that makes you different from other people. Students would return to that essay again and again throughout the unit, as they conducted an in-depth exploration of depictions of the GLBTQ community in the mass media.
Students watched the film Trevor (about the struggle of a gay teen in the Bible Belt in the 1970s), viewed a PBS special about the anti-gay murder of Billy Jack Gaither, did Internet research on the nature of homophobia and, ultimately, selected and read a book from a short list of young adult works about gay issues (including Rainbow Boys, Getting It, A Tale of Two Summers and The Laramie Project, among others).
Her students resisted at first. Many didn't want to be seen carrying gay-themed books around school, fearful of how they'd be perceived by others. Some parents also balked: many people in Elkhorn attend churches that interpret the Bible as condemning homosexuality.
In addition, administrators fretted about devoting more than a month of instruction to a single theme.
Still, Arnold had done her homework. When parents or administrators questioned the plan, she was able so show how it supported higher-order thinking skills. She had each student assemble and present, in a professional manner, a portfolio on their research. Students had to define sociological and literary terms used in the unit, analyze examples of gay themes in the media, do qualitative research to examine the changing culture within their schools and in the world outside, and write a letter explaining what they learned from the unit. Ultimately, the unit met almost every one of Wisconsin’s state standards for writing.
Arnold made the unit optional, but despite initial discomfort on the part of some parents and students, all of Arnold's students chose to complete the portfolio.
The climate in Elkhorn didn't change overnight, but membership in the school's newly-formed Gay-Straight Alliance grew, and students' portfolios showed small but significant shifts in attitude. One student, who self-identified as "against gays and lesbians" at the beginning of the unit, later wrote: "Gay people cannot help how they feel and that is OK, I understand, I am just not for it. Most importantly, when people use that phrase 'That is so gay,' it hurts everyone, not just gays."
You don't need 37 days of class time to broach the topic of hidden homophobia, Arnold notes. Short nonfiction works such as "A Rose for Charlie" take only a few class periods to explore and are easier to work into a schedule. By keeping an eye out for current events related to gay issues, teachers may find opportunities to start a discourse. Arnold recalls how she sparked a lively discussion by simply providing her students with a copy of a newspaper story about a hate group that protests at the funerals of gay people and soldiers killed in the Iraq war. "All you have to do is bring it up, and the kids launch into a conversation," Arnold said. "They say, 'can you believe people would say these things?' And that's a chance to talk about what we ourselves are saying, and the effect our words have."
Teachers and administrators who have seen Arnold's work have been inspired to incorporate it into their own curriculum. Colleen Rafter, principal of Raritan High School in Hazlet, N.J., said that after seeing Arnold's approach, she encouraged her English department to adopt a similar curriculum.
"We really want to make a change in how people think and act," Rafter said. "I will try to be more brave on these issues myself."
Exposing Hidden Homophobia: Support Materials
Sarah Arnold's unit on hidden homophobia inspired her students to take steps toward a more tolerant worldview – and it met her state's academic standards by challenging her students to think critically about the media.
You don't have to set aside an entire unit to make a dent in your students' anti-gay biases. Many of the lessons in Arnold's unit will work as stand-alone lesson plans.
Arnold shared her lesson plans and resources with us. We hope you will use them as source material for your own efforts to help students spot hidden homophobia.
That last sentence reminds me of the old "let's root out Communists" campaign of the 1950s. Got a homophobe in your midst? He just needs a good reprogramming. Think it'll take too long to accomplish? Don't worry, you don't have set aside an entire block of classtime to chip away at a kid's religious or moral upbringing. You can use the material as a standalone lesson!
As one popular Houston talk radio host says when he's frustrated beyond all measure, this makes my eyes bleed. Buckets and buckets and buckets.
This whole thing would be bad enough if it was confined to the one Wisconsin school but as you read for yourselves, it's likely to find its way into even more communities as everyone jumps on the bandwagon to prove how tolerant they are.
And the quote from the SPLC about the fact that many people in Elkhorn attend churches that "interpret" the Bible as condemning of homosexuality? This floors me as it reveals the sheer stupidity of either the writer of the SPLC article or the folks at Elkhorn High School who thought this curriculum would be A-okay. The Bible is plain-spoken in its denouncement of homosexuality and if I'm not mistaken it says so in more than one place. (See two mentions in Leviticus and another in Romans.) This doesn't leave much to "interpret."
Advocates for the brainwashing of our children would like you to believe these wacky Christians are just choosing to read the Bible a particular way so as to bolster their mean old anti-gay argument because they'd rather be mean to gays than, say, watch kudzu grow or paint dry. That subtle slant in SPLC's article is not to be overlooked.
So once again, we have a colossal failure on the part of public education officials to respect or at least consider the feelings and religious background of Christian students. Yes, the project was optional, but how many 11th graders have the guts to stand up and be different? And once again we have public educators wasting students' time and taxpayer dollars to support social engineering when what they oughta be doing is TEACHING THOSE KIDS THE THREE R's.
Critical thinking, my big fat fanny. You can critically think your way through some of the great philosophical or scientific questions of the last 3000 years. You can critically think your way through real problems facing the majority of the world's people. (Hint: Homophobia isn't one of them.) The claim that this skill is being developed by teaching children to embrace a way of life that is morally repugnant to most and at the least rife with proven health hazards is nothing short of evil in disguise.
If I had children at Elkhorn High School I'd become that district's worst nightmare and they'd be glad for me to yank my kids out. From the tone of the abovementioned articles, though, it sounds like far too many parents bowed their heads, stepped back, and allowed their children's integrity to be violated.
All in the name of tolerance.
Rise up, parents! Take back your children!
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