And By Comparison...
You probably already noticed this story, from the Copenhagen Post, but I just came across it. Seems this teacher got a little talking-to by the principal for violating copyrights. I guess you have to get permission first, before you use video materials and publications in class.
I'll tell you what. I can think of some really funny things to say right here, but, look, we'll just leave it at that.
A female schoolteacher has been reported to the police for showing a pornographic film to her eight-grade students
A female teacher's attempts to spark her eight-grade students' interest in sexual education have earned her a police report, daily newspaper Frederiksborg Amts Avis reported on Friday.
The newspaper said a group of parents had reported the teacher for offending their children's decency, after she showed them a 5-10-minute episode from a pornographic film as a part of a longer education program on sexuality and puberty.
The clip showed two adults having oral sex. In addition, the teacher distributed pictures from a pornographic magazine.
The school's principal immediately reprimanded the teacher for showing the material - not for its explicit content, but because it could be considered a breach of copy rights. The teacher was subsequently removed from sexual education ...
I'll tell you what. I can think of some really funny things to say right here, but, look, we'll just leave it at that.
posted by JimK at 5:45 PM
9 Comments:
Which brings to mind the ExRecall posting of the MCPS health curriculum video all over the universe after they obtained it from MCPS under public information request.
Did they ask persmission to post to their website and portray it as "cucumber video"... and more?
Did radio websites and more ask MCPS after it appears that ExRecall gave it to them?
Kay R
I think I have googled up a visual epiphany.
Seems the narrow path was not entirely chosen at random.
Not that your motivation makes it any less noble, just easier to understand.
Wow, thanks for that, ARTY... I think.
Well, it was due to your lack of honesty that I ever saw fit to debate this issue with you.
The revelation of the truth destroys what little motivation I had to be honest with you.
Good luck with the battle. I am sure you realize any victory you may achieve will be an artificial one. You may in fact eventually win the right to force your perspective's incorporation into the curriculum, but you will never be able to alter the fabric of our society's perception. And although I am sure you will deny it is, that has to be your ultimate goal.
It would be mine if I were in your shoes, and I very well may be someday.
The solution you seek down the narrow path can only be found way on down the broad highway you exited from.
Arty said, "You may in fact eventually win the right to force your perspective's incorporation into the curriculum, but you will never be able to alter the fabric of our society's perception."
Uh huh, sure, Arty. Just like the civil rights movement didn't change the "fabric of our society's perception" about people of color and interracial marriage.
Maybe you're too young to remember, but the bigots back then sounded an awful lot like you. For example, George Wallace said, "I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tryanny and I say segregation today, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever."
You are just as wrong as Wallace was too.
Aunt Bea
Thanks Aunt Bea, for missing the point.
Your right, the civil rights era was slightly before my time, I but I see its failures around me ever day.
We may have removed all traces of discrimination out of our laws, but we will never remove it from ALL of our minds. You can exert enough political pressure to force your perspective into legislation, but you can't force society to adopt it in their conscious. In fact your perspective was held up to widespread public ballot lately, and as I recall the public's response was not altogether PC. You can force Politicians and Teachers to enforce your agenda, but your never going to make those opposed to it agree with you. Thus your victory, like the civil rights victories, only switched which perspectives had to move underground.
That was my point Aunt Bea, not that your cause is wrong or doomed to failure, just that true victory is unachievable until the opposing side really agrees with you on a broader basis. Forcing your ideology upon their children, probably wont result in changing their perspective, it will just reinforce their fear of accepting your perspective universally.
It may satisfy your need to impose your perspective on others if you achieve a narrow victory here, but you will really have only further alienated the segment of society you really need to agree with you by choice if you really want a lasting victory.
Artie, you may be right on one level. There is a longstanding norm of disrespect for gay people, and it will be hard to change. But remember, not many years ago a woman could be fired for planning a wedding. Norms do change, especially when the outcomes are positive.
I understand naive people, and ignorant people, clinging to their ways. But how does an intelligent person justify holding out, endorsing bigoted education? You might say, people will never accept this. And that might be excellent grounds for placing a bet -- you could bet that gay people will still be ostracized, say, in five or ten years. But does an intelligent person form his own opinions by reference to the norms of the ignorant masses? It doesn't make sense to me, reasoning that "people won't accept it," therefore you yourself won't accept it. Maybe for someone whose self-esteem is so low that they are afraid to reason with unpopular facts, but a thinking person should be able to rise above that simple and well-known trap, the trap of the social pressure toward mediocrity.
There's no reason that MCPS should avoid talking about this small but significant proportion of the society. Especially if they are talking about sex, it is statistically likely that there is at least one gay student in the classroom, and nearly a statistical certainty that some students will have some gay people in their own families. So why not come out with it? Why avoid the facts? I don't see that there is a reasonable argument to be made, only the "people won't accept it" cop-out.
Why is it that most men are more disgusted by the thought of man-man homosexuality than girl-girl?
Its just natural for humans to be disgusted by what they honestly feel is perverted. I am not the originator of human discrimination, I just play one in the blogosphere.
But seriously, has outlawing racism eliminated it from our culture? Do you ever honestly foresee a day that it will be universally abolished. I submit that maybe its worse now than it was before the civil rights era, its just not as open as it was.
I totally agree that reality should not deter you from waging the battle for change, its just your never going to be satisfied if you are thinking this is a step towards someday having everybody agree with your perspective on this subject.
But just like no one can force conservatism upon you, and if they succeed in cramming their ideology down your throat on a local scale, you are going to redouble your resistance on a broader scale.
Thats just simple human nature, which is something I would think you would acknowledge faster than me. And you cant change human nature via legislation. Society has to come to its own conclusions.
Artie, attitudes about homosexuality have changed extremely without any legislating or school curriculum stuff. When I was in school, we didn't know of any gay kids, and I have asked others my age (50-ish) who say the same. But our kids, now in high school, all know gay students. Of course there were gay kids in our day, they just don't hide it any more.
One reason that we think the schools should address the topic is because the secret is already out. Kids know about sexual orientation issues, they just don't have much in the way of facts. School's the place for that.
Post a Comment
<< Home