My comment stands. Not sure why you are attempting to spin this, especially if you are still in school...or are you a teacher?
I'm not arguing that validity of your comment. I'm more trying to understand the point of it because there are a LOT of implications being made in that comment that are, in my opinion, not an accurate reflection of what is happenning in schools.
1) I am a teacher. It's not spin. That is a typical scheduled day at school and that is LITERALLY what is happenning in our schools in regards to "normalizing gays". Now I'm in Alberta Canada and NOT the US. BUT our province is notoriously Conservative (refered to as the Texas of Canada).
I'm not in every school in the US, but I would bet dollars to donuts that a LARGE chunk of schools are FAR closer to my school than what you are describing.
And to be clear, the only times we end up talking about homosexuality in class is when a bigot makes an obviously inappropriate statement that we need to unpack and clarify why it's hurtful, unnecessary and mean.
Academics. Period. That's why the kids today cannot perform as they did decades ago.
So, again, what SPECIFIC AND EXPLICIT content is eating up a teacher's day that is not academics? Are you referring to gym? Art? Music? Options?
Because the impression you are giving me (and I don't know if that's your intent) is that they are LITERALLY not teaching science AT ALL and are replacing it with studying gender theory or something to that effect.
Here are three reasons why I think that kids are underperforming in LA and Math.
1) There is a philosophy that went into favour amongst academics in the last decade or two that a LOT of teachers did not like and were not getting good results. Here is the only place where I would say schools have significantly failed. Luckily this is starting to get a new look in and folks are revert to some older strategies (whew!)
2) The "New Math" curriculum. I love it and see the point of it...but it pursues an understanding of that that can appear to be simply too difficult for very right brained thinkers. If you don't "Get" numbers and math, it's not helpful (IMHO) to bog down in terms and 4 different strategies to employ a skill.
I'd say something like 70% of students respond well to basic "here's the most common strategy. Practice". The remaining 30 are part EXCELLENT at math and need an extra challenge OR, struggle SO much with math that they need ONE alternative strategy that MAY work for them.
3) The ambivalence to knowledge and skill that parents and students have is disconcerting. I don't know if I would say MOST parents are like that but a shocking amount of parents ARE like that
in practice. Yes they SAY "we want our kid to do well" but the hard fact is that they never hold their children accountable for....well, anything. Poor grade on a test; phone call home for huge amount of missed assignments; playing on phone in class (often all of the above) and a common response is "Yeaahhhhhhhhhh. it's so hard to get him to do stuff. He's just on his phone/playing video games all the time". That's the response....of a parent.
You can blame teachers but it truly IS a case of "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink".
Given that it is a teacher, a system, the student and the parents who are involved in educating an individual, it seems reasonable to suggest that no ONE person is at fault but that everyone bears responsibility for the slow slide down. And I think that each group would need to reflect on what could be better. To be clear, in regards to teacher's fault, I do think that can be on a person by person basis, very different. There are some teachers who are literally doing it all....and just UNBELIEVABLE at their craft....no kids (or old kids)....and just super hard workers. Kind friendly, smart all that stuff.
But, like all of humanity, not every teacher is like that. And there are certainly some bad teachers. Having two teacher parents my daughter has become ....very good at spotting bad teachers. Luckily, she would say she's only had one really bad one (and he has improved immensely this year which is great!) and one not so good when she was younger.
