In my view, some of the biggest problems students face in highschool are caused by lack of empathy from their fellow students. I've been on both sides of the fence, in terms of situations where I failed to consider the feelings of other people, and people in other situations failing to consider mine, and I'm strongly of the opinion that exercises in personal development (and not just the bit about growing pubes) should form a part of school activities. Even if such exercises help only a few students it would be worth it, I think.
A school in Brisbane has tried to do something along those lines, but because the homework exercise for Year 9 students involves empathising with (gasp!) gay people, politicians from Peter Beattie to the Federal Education Minister, Julie Bishop, have come out of the woodwork to join in giving the school a kicking.
A STATE school assignment that asked 13-year-olds to write about life in a gay community has been attacked by Education Minister Julie Bishop as an example of "a politically correct agenda masquerading as curriculum".
Queensland Premier Peter Beattie also criticised the school project, saying it was inappropriate and not part of the state curriculum.
Year Nine students at Windaroo Valley State High School in Brisbane were asked to write an assignment on living as a heterosexual in a mostly homosexual colony on the moon.
However, the school withdrew the assignment when a mother said her daughter would refuse to write it because it conflicted with her religious beliefs.
Mr Beattie said: "I don't think it's appropriate for a 13-year-old to be doing an assignment like this and I think the authority should withdraw it."
I don't care whether Peter Beattie and Julie Bishop are bigots or just pandering to bigots, they're both dead wrong in their stance on this. Homosexuality shouldn't be any more political than heterosexuality, just like having a skin colour other than white shouldn't be a political issue, or belonging to a religion other than christianity shouldn't be a political issue. It's only political because of the level of bigotry directed at gay people. When the bigotry is stamped out there will be no need for empathy-building exercises such as the one set as homework at Windaroo Valley State High School.
5 comments:
As always, right on the money.
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Hmm, that's odd. The exact same story with the exact same situation but in NSW happened a few months ago.
Pathetic. I wish Beattie would have the balls to tell Bishop to take her homophobic crap and fuck off.
Children should be taught to see things from other people's side of things and to be able to empathise and put themselves in their shoes. This can be done regardless of what you believe, because it's not asking you to agree with it, it's asking you to be considerate of how other people feel and what they believe. We all want people to be tolerant of us, yet we can be pretty slack returning the favour (my personal weakness when it comes to forgeting to display tolerance is stupid people). As a christian my main problem with this kind of stupidity (discrimination) is that there are lots of things that we consider wrong (including things I do as well) and yet we're not calling for those to be made illegal or people who do those things to be discriminated against. After all the whole idea is free choice. And people who whinge and carry on like this give us all a bad name!
I couldn't agree more. What a crock of shit; it really pisses me off how much homophobic discrimination is still - not only tolerated, but actually encouraged by politicians and the media.
but how can you create enough hatefilled adults if you don't start early?
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