Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

tyrael459 t1_iuw39h3 wrote

Reply to comment by TheInnerHam in The Culture War Is Alive And Well In This Pennsylvania School District by zaraalbro

When are the kids being made to read that book?

Edit: Sorry, in reference to Genderqueer from the article.

2

TheInnerHam t1_iuw6re1 wrote

As far as I know, there is no evidence that the kids are being forced to read this book. The problem is the institution is granting access to a book that contains adult material.

0

tyrael459 t1_iuwubtz wrote

There are a lot of books like that in a lot of institutions. What do you believe is the solution?

5

TheInnerHam t1_iux4d2y wrote

There needs to be a system where parents should have to vote on what books are in the school library with a low threshold for what's removed. Say if 30% vote against it the books should be removed.

I think the root of this problem is the lack of parental involvement in their kids education in the first place. As a society we've off loaded too much of our children's learning to institutions.

1

tyrael459 t1_iuxeur9 wrote

Isn’t it the job of these institutions to teach? Should the parents just become the teachers and librarians, maybe?

1

TheInnerHam t1_iuxg52y wrote

The institutions teach at the behest of the parents. Parents should have oversight of what the teachers are teaching. That way they can either keep material they feel is inappropriate away from the children or be aware enough to remove their children from the material if they are in the minority of opinion.

1

tyrael459 t1_iuxje1i wrote

What if parents disagree on what the students should learn?

2

TheInnerHam t1_iuxm7ni wrote

It should be a democratic process and if a parent is on the losing side and feels strongly enough about it they should be able to take their child out of that school and into a school that is more aligned with their values.

1

tyrael459 t1_iuxn95n wrote

So, teachers must: teach, monitor, discipline, lesson plan, grade, and “run by” every topic they plan to cover to the parents of of their students? Do you require daily lesson updates? Who should supply the lessons if the parents have ultimate say over what is covered, the teachers or the parents? I don’t have enough time in my day to be sending lesson plans to my daughter’s school every day. I didn’t go to college to be a teacher, my degree is in something entirely unrelated.

And many teachers in my daughter’s district have well over 100 unique students in a given semester.

Where do you propose teachers generate extra hours in the day to get all of this work done, and/or what should I do with my kid when all of her teachers quit due to such impossible expectations? I can’t miss my own job to stay home and do a bad job of trying to homeschool her.

1

TheInnerHam t1_iuxye8y wrote

Don't teachers prepare lesson plans prior to the beginning of the school year or recycle the same year after year? Why couldn't those along with book lists be publicly available and say over the summer be open for a review/approval process for the parents of the class? I'm advocating for the parents to have the opportunity to be more involved in the process of determining what their children learn. That can be done in a manner that is transparent and efficient for all involved without causing undue burden on the teachers.

1

tyrael459 t1_iuy7wmr wrote

I have a handful of family and friends who are teachers. They prepare lessons all of the above, basically: outlines in the summer, but then day-to-day based on the needs of their classes and how things are going. And yea, they definitely recycle stuff from year to year, mostly the stuff they thought went well.

As a parent, I trust the teachers my daughter has to know what they’re doing and be the educational professionals they went to college to become. I’m not a teacher, I’m sure about that lol, so I’m gonna leave the academics to the people who know best and who have the experience.

If you feel you know better than the teachers, I suppose that’s a point you and me won’t find common ground about. I don’t think the teachers should make their lessons at the “behest” of the parents, as you say. The parents aren’t the teachers and the majority of parents don’t know the first thing about education, especially in the higher grades and high school. I couldn’t teach my daughter polynomials lol

I’ll let the teachers teach and the parents parent.

2