In the school year of 2017, Washington State will begin to teach students about "gender identity" and "gender expression" as early as kindergarden. Your thoughts?

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Ancient Hippy Profile
Ancient Hippy answered

Our school systems are just getting further and further away from educating our kids in the basics of life. Kids will know what a transgender person is, but they still won't know how to do basic math or know ANY history of the US.

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Ancient Hippy
Ancient Hippy commented
Good point Corey.
Walt O'Reagun
Walt O'Reagun commented
Actually ... the WHOLE POINT of the public school system has ALWAYS been indoctrination. Check the history of it.
Corey The Goofyhawk
Walt, I noticed that for one of the government funded colleges I attended. They never taught, they gave us our opinions and what we thought, especially in the areas of history, sociology, and psychology.
Zack -  Mr. GenXer Profile

OY VEY!!!

Yin And Yang Profile
Yin And Yang answered

Nope! That is MY job as a parent. I will end up homeschooling all my kids. Oh yah and I say the same thing about any people teaching MY kids ANYTHING sex ed in kindergarten! It is way too early in my opinion! 

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Corey The Goofyhawk
I'm glad I was homeschooled. That way, I was taught to view both sides of the issue, really think about both sides of the issue, and come to my own conclussion about the issue instead of having opinion given to me.
Didge Doo Profile
Didge Doo answered

Since the jury is still out on gender identity disorder it would be inappropriate to teach as fact something that, at this time, can be no more than opinion.

dragonfly forty-six Profile

What is their reasoning? Do they think by educating the young on such matters that it will teach them tolerance and acceptance? If so, I'm all for it as long as it is age appropriate. As it is we already do things regarding self esteem and acceptance at early ages, this would be an extension of that. If they could do it age appropriately AND have educators take classes to learn how to effectively do it, then fine.

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Matt Radiance
Matt Radiance commented
100 % agree. i like the idea as long as it don't harm the age scale but i think it's soon! and if we suppose to take step over such matters to increase self acceptance, we need to become stronger on other majors such as history as well, our young generation lacks of history and what we've been through to become a nation that we are today.
PJ Stein Profile
PJ Stein answered

I think questions should be answered if they come up, but I don't think there is a real need for a planned lesson on it that early. Any planned lesson should be a general lesson on accepting all people regardless of their difference.

Cookie Roma Profile
Cookie Roma answered

Good plan.  Let's spend less time teaching reading, writing, math, science, and history. 

Matt Radiance Profile
Matt Radiance answered

It totally depends how they define "Gender identity and gender expression" and how they planned to teach it.

I'm not disagree on this but i'm not convinced either. I'm agree with Dragonfly the most, the important question would be about their reasoning, what impacts they expect and on what purpose they attempting such ?

Still i'm not sure if it's really necessary to put this topic on education system, this is a personal matter, you can't put your children on school while you have no idea what they teaching your child about genders in such early age, kindergarten is too early and this topic is barely part of science, definitions are complicated and each family has their own system over this! Schools can't force it down.

Also before adding such new ideas which it's damage could be more than it's benefits in my opinion (at the first sight) we need to first rebuild and make ourselves stronger in other majors, specially history, our young generation lacks it somehow! And this is a damage to our country.

Nina Nina Profile
Nina Nina answered

That depends on what exactly they teach! There aren't clear definitions over what a female and male is, so it's very hard to teach about something so abstract.

Walt O'Reagun Profile
Walt O'Reagun answered

Dodge and Nina have the best answers, IMO.

They point out the fact that ... Well, put it this way: Try to define what a "gender identity" is.  Even adults have a difficult time with that.  According to NPR, getting a professional evaluation of your "gender identity" is a long process.  We're talking 6 months of psychiatric evaluations, to tell someone what their "gender identity" is. 

It's not just a simple matter of someone saying "I feel like a man" or "I feel like a woman".  Because, really, what DOES it "feel like" to be a man or a woman if it's not related to what genitals you have?!?

Barb Cala Profile
Barb Cala answered

That's not their job.  They need to focus more on the academics and less on gender issues.  They're making all sorts of cuts in education .. But think adding this "curriculum" is a good way to spend their time and money?  Doesn't make sense to me.

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