In partnership with the non-partisan non-profit Restore Childhood, I’m embarking on a project that I hope will help people navigate the school gender landscape. How do we find out what’s being taught? How do we explain our concerns or objections in evidence-based ways that respect viewpoint diversity? How do we debunk suicide myths, or offer better model policies to deal with social transition?
My wonderful readers often have great ideas, so I’m putting it to you: If you had a document that would help you talk to teachers, principals, school boards—and other parents and students—what would be in it? Have you seen curricula or guidelines that horrify or impress you? If so, please link to them. Comments are open. Looking forward to sharing this with you all in the near future.
One thing I would say is that for everything there is a time and a place, so it is inappropriate to inject one topic into another topic. In the first draft of the CA model math curriculum there were several examples of this.
One was an arithmetic problem involving kids toys, something like how many toy cars does a young boy have. The problem itself was fine, but then it went further, advising the teacher to question the students about if boys can only play with cars; why aren't there math problems about boys playing with dolls? My issue with this isn't that boys shouldn't play with dolls, my issue is that math outcomes are awful in this country, and yet we're spending time allocated for math to talk about gender norms.
In another case the students (somewhere around 2nd to 4th grade) were reading "George" (now retitled to "Melissa"), a book about a transgender girl, and in the math portion of the class problems were being chosen based on the book. First off, it's one thing to have books that contain transgender characters. That can be used as a way to promote activism, but it's also the case that transgender people exist, so I don't immediately have an issue with books that contain transgender characters. In this case, though, transgenderism is the POINT of the book. I'm really not sure why kids in those grades need to learn about this. My kids are within that age range and they have no interest in learning about that. Then they tie the math lesson to it, effectively double dipping.
What both of the above cases illustrate (in my opinion) is an attempt to shoehorn controversial topics into a benign topic. That is inappropriate. Now, some make the point that students will be more interested in math if we make it "relevant" to the students. Yeah, probably. But you know what's going to be relevant to a higher percentage of the given 3rd grade math class? Virtually anything else. The teachers could easily choose something that isn't controversial, for example animals. My kids love learning facts about animals. Make math examples about that.
So, in summary, I think it's important for controversial topics not to trespass into the stuff they're actually supposed to be teaching, such as math. Math can be made interesting by incorporating less controversial real-life topics.
As far as what gender stuff should be covered in school? In the early grades, the less the better. The other big point is that the vast majority of these teachers have no special training in "social work", so what gives them the idea they are qualified to talk about any of these controversial issues effectively? They're barely qualified to teach the subject they were hired for, in many cases.
I think it would be incredibly helpful to have a website or document where you could check parental rights laws and education laws for each state - or at least where to look for them or how to find them since often policies are different from district to district. For example, can a school counselor talk to your child even when you explicitly state “I do not consent?” (We were told by our private school that we had no choice and the counselor, who had zero experience and was in her first job after school, would talk to our child with very complex mental health issues (who already had her own private therapist and psychiatrist) despite us saying we did not consent and we wanted it stop. They refused and the outcome was not good). What are the laws in each state about seeing curriculum, opting out, socially transitioning without parental knowledge or consent? Locker room, overnight sleeping arrangements, sports, and bathroom policies? Maybe even a list of suggested questions yo ask would be really helpful.