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School tried to stop 5th grader from giving speech on SSM

sharon said:
Hiding it? NO.

When they are ready to know, a parent will know IF they are listening.
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And apparently the boy in the OP was ready to know, since he knew, and wanted to share his observations with others.
 
roguenuke said:
And apparently the boy in the OP was ready to know, since he knew, and wanted to share his observations with others.
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That's a problem.

I don't want other children teaching my five year old that there is no Santa..
 
sharon said:
That's a problem.

I don't want other children teaching my five year old that there is no Santa..
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But its going to happen anyway unless you keep them away from all the other kids. I remember arguing with another student in either K or 1st grade that there had to be a Santa. You cannot protect your children from not learning things you may not want them to know. The best you can do is prepare them to be able to deal with new information and to talk to you about any questions they may have concerning the subject.
 

LOLOL.. My children are all adults with children of their own.. and of course we can't isolate our children ... What we can hope for and encourage is that they come to us with questions about what they may have learned on the playground.

I just don't think its appropriate for show and tell in the 5th grade.
 

On the subject of marriage, even same sex marriage, it is completely appropriate. It is in the news and even in 5th Grade children should be studying current events. And they will know about marriage and relationships by that time, likely very much before. They may not completely understand what marriage is, but then again neither do most teenagers. That doesn't mean they can't figure out if certain relationships are similar to others when it comes to individual couples.

Children likely see this subject like this "So, these couples can be married because they are a girl and a boy, but these couples can't be married because they are a boy and a boy or a girl and a girl." If the child has an open mind and isn't already fixed into the belief that marriage is only for a man and a woman because of religious beliefs or their parents' personal beliefs, then they will very likely question why this is. And they will very likely think about it more if they know same sex couples who have relationships that appear to them to be just like those opposite sex couples' that they know or who they have seen who are called married.
 
roguenuke said:
But its going to happen anyway unless you keep them away from all the other kids.
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I don't mind kids learning about things along a proper timeline through life experience. When I was in 5th grade, I wasn't discussing something like same sex marriage. I was playing Nintendo with my friends. At school I was shouting at the team captain to pick me in kickball. I was laughing at my buddy cause Jenny thought he was cute. I was hoping the teacher wouldn't make me do a book report I hated.

I eventually learned things, but at an acceptable pace. To say that this child was being pushed by adults with an agenda is blatantly obvious. People are trying to make activists out of children who are being indoctrinated. That's borderline abuse in my book.
 

When you where in school, gays where not particularly open about it. Things have changed, and openly gay people are all around. By 5th grade many if not most kids will have dealt with 2 mommies or daddies, either their own or a friends.
 
I went to school long past the days of Liberace and Elton John. Gay culture was taboo, but it certainly wasn't unheard of.

I assume you think Hollywood is a paradigm of morality? I'd be willing to bet that the alternative lifestyle creeping into the lives of the average prepubescent child has more to do with media sensationalism and rampant celebrity than it does anecdotal homosexual situations of the two guys down the street.
 

You can assume what you want. You would be wrong again. You are also not hearing what is being said and making your own rather strange arguments up to argue against.
 

Unless you went to school during the last decade, same sex marriage would not have been a current event. Even as a sophomore in '96, I was getting rebuttals from other sophomores in same sex rights debates during class that involved the Bible (I wanted to slap the teacher for giving that group an A for using the Bible to justify our laws).

All children are pushed toward one position or another, at least a little. There is no way you will convince me that any child will think it is wrong on his or her own to be married to someone of the same sex.
 

I'm not so sure about that, especially if they're blessed to have what we used to think of as an "average" family with a mom and a dad. Not if they have pets or live in the country and see male-female as "average."

This isn't to say that there aren't other types of families--extended, blended, single-parent, and etc., and I am specifically not saying or suggesting anything about any of these... except that kids who are happy and well-adjusted emerge from all of them. That's not the point, though.

It doesn't explain an ordinary 10 or 11-year old boy or girl wanting to give a speech on marriage. There's some adult impetus there somewhere.
 
Would it be appropriate for a 5th grader to be allowed to give a speech in opposition to gay marriage? On the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the male homosexual community? Would it be appropriate for a 5th grader to promote position opposing homosexuality as deviant behavior?
 
nota bene said:
It doesn't explain an ordinary 10 or 11-year old boy or girl wanting to give a speech on marriage. There's some adult impetus there somewhere.
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An adult can give any child an "impetus", doesn't mean that they actually coach them into doing something. It is quite possible that the child saw a problem and wanted to express himself about it. And really I don't see why that is so hard to believe. I mean come on, we have 7 year olds playing violins and guitars as if they were professional adult musicians. We have children painting pictures that would prolly make Michealangelo jealous. And all because they WANTED to, not because thier parents coached them into them. Is it really so hard to believe that a child could express their thoughts on a political topic such as SSM on their own in a rational way?
 

Yes.

I'm not saying that there aren't extraordinary, precocious children who can, and maybe the student in this case in one of them. I am saying, however, that the ordinary 10 or 11-year old doesn't even think about this stuff.
 
nota bene said:
Yes.

I'm not saying that there aren't extraordinary, precocious children who can, and maybe the student in this case in one of them. I am saying, however, that the ordinary 10 or 11-year old doesn't even think about this stuff.
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But here is the problem. Whenever a child speaks about issues such as this most people just automatically assume that the child was coached to say what they did. I find that just as equally wrong as someone that does coach their kid.
 
Kal'Stang said:
But here is the problem. Whenever a child speaks about issues such as this most people just automatically assume that the child was coached to say what they did. I find that just as equally wrong as someone that does coach their kid.
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You say, "Whenever a child speaks about issues such as this...." Could you provide other examples? How often do you hear about 11-year olds speaking on "issues such as this"? I ask because I basically don't.
 
nota bene said:
You say, "Whenever a child speaks about issues such as this...." Could you provide other examples? How often do you hear about 11-year olds speaking on "issues such as this"? I ask because I basically don't.
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I do remember some but not the full details. Wasn't really that interested before. Still not really. But I figure that if a child can paint a picture like Michealangelo then certainly a kid could grasp the simple concept of love and commitment being around even for homosexuals. Even if they just look at it from the PoV of a male/female child loving and being committed to their dad/mother. Which is what I would bet this kid is looking at it from. So they're prolly not thinking about it in terms like we adults are.
 

Some children see things for themselves. The kid very plainly mentioned Obama. So maybe he admires Pres. Obama. That could easily make him aware of an issue Pres. Obama brought up recently, same sex marriage. He sees his mother's friends who are a same sex couples living like he sees other, married opposite sex couples living, how they interact with each and how they treat each other and doesn't see a difference between them. There is no need for an adult to push him on something like this just because you think it happened.

There have been lots of children, some even younger than this kid, who have decided to do remarkable things on their own. They don't need an adult pushing them straight toward something just for them to pick up on the issue.
 


I agree.. someone is using the child for their own agenda.

I vividly remember when my six year old son fell in love with reading.. He was even reading the newspaper from time to time.

One afternoon I had a friend over for coffee and my son walked in holding a piece of the newspaper and said "what is rape, moma".

I was stunned.. and you know that kids read that in a parent.

Taking a breath.. I said to him .. Well, its a really mean thing that bullies do to hurt girls.

I got a steady look from the bluest eyes you ever saw......

You can't fool kids.. but you might hope that you can soften the awareness of sexual matters, crime and adult issues.

I want them to teach "a Health curriculum" to ten year olds.. and move forward slowly and cautiously from there as age appropriate...
 
From the OP's link [bolding by me]:

NY1 reports that Kameron Slade, a student at PS 195 in Queens, had planned to deliver the speech for a schoolwide competition. After winning a class competition, Kameron reportedly worked on the speech with his mother and teacher.
 

Working with mom and the teacher doesn't mean they coached him in what to say. All that they could have done was answer his questions honestly.
 

Which to me sounds like he wrote the speech first, then worked out some parts, probably some of the technical parts, with his mother and teacher. You are reading way too much into this. They likely helped him with getting the spelling, grammar, and structure correct. Helping him with this doesn't mean that they helped him with the content necessarily. And this would especially be true with the teacher since that sounds like it would be cheating to help a child in her class with a major part of a speech that was going to be a part of a class competition.
 
nota bene said:
So were my kids. So?
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So Gipper's claim that the subject matter is somehow inappropriate for a fifth grader to speak about is bunk.

Now I understand that you probably have concerns about whether or not the child was coached to say what he said, which is another matter. But to say that he shouldn't speak on the subject because he's "only in the fifth grade" is BS in my opinion. How old do you have to be before it's appropriate for you to speak publicly about the love between two people? Why is marriage or love somehow a taboo subject for a fifth grader?
 
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