This morning, their topic of discussion was the suspension of a teacher at West Alexander Middle School in Taylorsville, NC. The teacher was suspended for 3 days for showing Macklemore's "Same Love" video in class. Jared & Katie were taking calls this morning from listeners who had something to say about the appropriateness of showing the video to middle school students and subsequent suspension. As I listened to Jared spout off what I presume he thought was a nonpartisan middle of the road opinion I became enraged. The main thrust of his opinion was that parents should be able to opt-in to their children being exposed to the theme of the song. He argued that students should not captively be forced to listen to the message of the song. One caller was belligerent saying something to the effect of "these teacher's jobs is education, period" and another caller said that she felt this was relevant to the curriculum to teach about equality, after all, a 14 year old she knows was learning about the Equal Rights Amendment in school, something that may have drawn the same ire 40 years ago in a middle school classroom. Jared just kept saying the same things, over and over again, parents should have the option to say "no, I don't want my kid exposed to that". I raced home to look up the phone number for the station and call in, shaking, I pressed the call button, got a busy signal several times and then the message "we're not taking calls on this issue anymore". And its with that that I decided to start this blog.
I'd like to respond to the desire to "opt-in" here:
First, you want the ability to opt in because you are afraid. You are afraid that your child, after being exposed to Macklemore's message will what? Be aware that gay people exist? might be nice to gay people? or gasp, might become gay themselves? You want to control that, you want to determine when and how your children become exposed to ideas like marriage equality. I have news for you, that fear that you have, that's a manifestation of homophobia. Yes, YOU, are a homophobe. News for you, if your kid is gay, its not because they heard this song. Your kid has probably already heard this song, but for some reason hearing it in school, well that will make your kid sympathetic to the gay cause and oh no, YOU can't have that! That fear that you have that your kid might have thoughts about gay people is homophobia. If you are unsure what homophobia is, wikipedia is super easy to use and you can read all about it here. But the cliffs notes are right here: homophobia is the fear of gay people, being gay, and supporting gay things (like marriage or songs about gay marriage). Also, FYI: Homophobia is bigotry. You don't want to be a bigot, but you are because you are homophobic.
Second, opting in is a slippery slope. It should be clear now, the US Supreme Court, several legislative bodies and the populations of several states have all determined that gay marriage is an equality issue and that we can't select certain populations (suspect classes) to deny rights to based on an identity characteristic like sexuality. As annoying as it is, the analogy between this and other civil rights issues is useful and true. 60 years ago people were saying the same things about interracial marriages. Its obvious at this point that gay rights is THE civil rights issue of our time. Should we similarly have opt-in permission slips for lessons on suffrage, the civil rights movement, the ERA, aparthied, the 14th amendment, or even the holocaust (should we leave out discussions of the purple triangle that people the Nazi's deemed homosexual had to wear on their concentration camp uniforms when we teach the holocaust)? The list goes on and on and on. If every time we wanted to teach about equality teachers had to send home a permission slip, we'd be in big trouble. The fact that every American deserves equal rights is not really up for debate in our society anymore.
It should also be noted, that it is difficult for teachers to make material relevant to their students. Its difficult to get a room full of 13 year olds actively involved in a conversation, to get them excited about anything other than themselves is tough. It is well documented that teachers are underpaid and overworked. This has become more apparent to me as my children have matriculated into public school. We've seen teachers sacrifice their time, their money and recently their lives for their students. I have a hard time managing my two kids, but teachers handily manage more than twenty students a day. Teachers are professionals who are trained and educated to teach our children. We should be doing more to enable them to be creative in the classroom and to not be afraid to do what is necessary to keep our children actively engaged in the curriculum. Music is a great way for educators to do this and when a teacher gives students an opportunity to have a guided discussion in the classroom about a song that they have already heard outside of the classroom we should appreciate that our children are being given the opportunity to engage in an intellectual interrogation of this song instead of passively receiving it without question.
About a half an hour after I heard Jared & Katie (mostly Jared) ranting about the inappropriateness of this song in the classroom, I got into my car to run an errand and the very same station was playing Macklemore's "Same Love". So I guess its ok with them if the station's commercial interests align with the song, as long as we keep it out of the classroom. I call BS on this bassakwardness.
Where do we start with opting in? Can I say I need to opt in to my children being taught that the European expansion into America was free of genocidal cost on native peoples? Should I say I need to opt in to any discussion praising the "Founding Fathers" who thought that democracy only applied to white, male property owners when the USA was created? This idea that "what I believe" is education and what I do not believe is not education is nonsensical and does not prepare our children for the real world. We need to educate about very diverse ideas so that children can eventually make their own decision. I loved the video. Very well done.
ReplyDeleteExcellent well reasoned post.
ReplyDeleteI do wish that I'd have had an opt-in for dodge ball in elementary school phys ed. :-)