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I'm perfectly fine with an objective take on identity and subculture formation, but it seems like pretty advanced material inappropriate to elementary school st

I'm perfectly fine with an objective take on identity and subculture formation, but it seems like pretty advanced material inappropriate to elementary school students. Deconstructing societal norms is just too advanced for young children. It also directly undermines parents who are trying to instill these very norms. The lessons that are too politically charged are unsurprisingly those that have the least evidential support - namely those rooted in social constructionism. Even the concept of "gender" isn't well-defined enough to teach a child, given that even experts can't ELI5 "what is a woman?". Gender itself is not a plain fact about objective reality (like sex is). > ...judge for himself what will secure or endanger his freedom > ...is caustic to the national constitution These two things are actually not contradictory. Being racist doesn't stop you from judging what will secure or endanger your freedom, you may just reach different conclusions than other people. This should be OK in a free and pluralistic society.

shadowgovt 4y ago
> Deconstructing societal norms is just too advanced material for young children. It also directly undermines parents who are trying to instill these very norms. Kids crossdress in kindergarten; I don't know at what age discussion of why one does or does not do that is appropriate, but I can tell you that absent some rules it's just yet another fun game they play. > Gender itself is not a plain fact about objective reality (like sex is). That implies that when a boy picks up the feather boa in kindergarten the appropriate response from public education is to do nothing, right? > Being racist doesn't stop you from judging what will secure or endanger your freedom, you may just reach different conclusions than other people. Ah, but here's the rub: we had a whole fight about that topic specifically and decided to kick it out because of the damage we observed it doing. Separate but equal and its ilk didn't work; we have a cultural narrative of "all men created equal" (for temporally-expanding definitions of 'men') that is incompatible with racism. On that issue, the nation (as a cultural construct) is pretty decided. There are plenty who would love to reopen the question. The public education system is not obligated to give them a line-item on the SOLs. They can and will try to seize one, of course, via the democratic process (as is their right, and those who disagree with them must be aware that this is their intended design).
- thegrimmest 4y ago
  Yes, kids cross-dress in kindergarten. Just like all harmless childhood play behaviours, they should mostly be ignored by educators. > That implies that when a boy picks up the feather boa in kindergarten the appropriate response from public education is to do nothing, right? Yes, exactly that - nothing. Just like when a kid colours their face with marker, or puts their clothes on backwards, or any other strange thing that kids do when they are developing. The thing not to do is call special attention to this particular play behaviour because it's related to "gender". And if other kids tease or socially reject said boy for picking up the feather boa, then the appropriate thing to do is also nothing. This is how social norms are formed. Interfering with this process is not for educators to do. > we had a whole fight about that topic > "all men created equal" (for temporally-expanding definitions of 'men') > they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness But importantly, continually diminishing definitions of "liberty". All we've done for the last century+ is expand the obligations of the private person/business owner to the public and the state. Segregation is certainly abhorrent for the government to practice, but a private person should be able to choose whom they serve by whatever criteria they see fit. This is the definition of liberty that the nation (as a cultural construct) was founded on.
  - shadowgovt 4y ago
    > but a private person should be able to choose whom he serves by whatever criteria they see fit I don't know what to tell you on this topic other than "You missed the lessons of the 1960s." The soul of the racist was bared in the fight and it was found to contain nothing but fear and traditional power-lust. Their privilege of calling the shots on this topic was stripped with cause... Not by power-mongers or politicians, but by the people, by a generation coming to feel nauseated at the kind of naked belief in racial superiority that enabled the sins of the past. The ERA and related Acts were fairly unprecedented, but passed for a very good reason. And you're right; they are a curtailment of liberty. Most laws are, but we're a country of 330 million people; nobody expects the same laissez-faire approach that worked for a country of 100,000 to work today, right? Do you also rail against the right denied to pilots to buzz a plane twenty feet over your house, or the right denied to motorists to drive on the left side of a divided public road? From whence, then, the umbrage at the notion that a person cannot be fired based on some made-up drop-of-blood rules, or tossed out of a restaurant for having skin darker than the table they're sitting at? I don't disagree the country was founded on the notion that racism was acceptable. I'd hope it'd be self-evident why we are doing the work to jettison that cornerstone. For what liberty can a man truly have when even the provision of water and bathrooms are arrayed against him for something as irrelevant as the color of his skin?

shadowgovt 4y ago

> Deconstructing societal norms is just too advanced material for young children. It also directly undermines parents who are trying to instill these very norms. Kids crossdress in kindergarten; I don't know at what age discussion of why one does or does not do that is appropriate, but I can tell you that absent some rules it's just yet another fun game they play. > Gender itself is not a plain fact about objective reality (like sex is). That implies that when a boy picks up the feather boa in kindergarten the appropriate response from public education is to do nothing, right? > Being racist doesn't stop you from judging what will secure or endanger your freedom, you may just reach different conclusions than other people. Ah, but here's the rub: we had a whole fight about that topic specifically and decided to kick it out because of the damage we observed it doing. Separate but equal and its ilk didn't work; we have a cultural narrative of "all men created equal" (for temporally-expanding definitions of 'men') that is incompatible with racism. On that issue, the nation (as a cultural construct) is pretty decided. There are plenty who would love to reopen the question. The public education system is not obligated to give them a line-item on the SOLs. They can and will try to seize one, of course, via the democratic process (as is their right, and those who disagree with them must be aware that this is their intended design).

thegrimmest 4y ago
Yes, kids cross-dress in kindergarten. Just like all harmless childhood play behaviours, they should mostly be ignored by educators. > That implies that when a boy picks up the feather boa in kindergarten the appropriate response from public education is to do nothing, right? Yes, exactly that - nothing. Just like when a kid colours their face with marker, or puts their clothes on backwards, or any other strange thing that kids do when they are developing. The thing not to do is call special attention to this particular play behaviour because it's related to "gender". And if other kids tease or socially reject said boy for picking up the feather boa, then the appropriate thing to do is also nothing. This is how social norms are formed. Interfering with this process is not for educators to do. > we had a whole fight about that topic > "all men created equal" (for temporally-expanding definitions of 'men') > they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness But importantly, continually diminishing definitions of "liberty". All we've done for the last century+ is expand the obligations of the private person/business owner to the public and the state. Segregation is certainly abhorrent for the government to practice, but a private person should be able to choose whom they serve by whatever criteria they see fit. This is the definition of liberty that the nation (as a cultural construct) was founded on.
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  > but a private person should be able to choose whom he serves by whatever criteria they see fit I don't know what to tell you on this topic other than "You missed the lessons of the 1960s." The soul of the racist was bared in the fight and it was found to contain nothing but fear and traditional power-lust. Their privilege of calling the shots on this topic was stripped with cause... Not by power-mongers or politicians, but by the people, by a generation coming to feel nauseated at the kind of naked belief in racial superiority that enabled the sins of the past. The ERA and related Acts were fairly unprecedented, but passed for a very good reason. And you're right; they are a curtailment of liberty. Most laws are, but we're a country of 330 million people; nobody expects the same laissez-faire approach that worked for a country of 100,000 to work today, right? Do you also rail against the right denied to pilots to buzz a plane twenty feet over your house, or the right denied to motorists to drive on the left side of a divided public road? From whence, then, the umbrage at the notion that a person cannot be fired based on some made-up drop-of-blood rules, or tossed out of a restaurant for having skin darker than the table they're sitting at? I don't disagree the country was founded on the notion that racism was acceptable. I'd hope it'd be self-evident why we are doing the work to jettison that cornerstone. For what liberty can a man truly have when even the provision of water and bathrooms are arrayed against him for something as irrelevant as the color of his skin?