Students across the state participated in programs for Transgender Awareness Week to help raise visibility and awareness about transgender people and address issues that they face. In the Tigard-Tualatin school district, the schedule and unit plan indicate this was more than educational information.

Parents were notified of Transgender Awareness Week in a newsletter posted, but it made no mention of the activities and lesson plans. Students only needed to have their teacher's permission to get out of class, a parent’s permission was not required even for activities after school hours for making signs to hang around schools.

A Watch Party of the TV Show titled “First Day” took place in which twelve-year-old Hannah Bradford adjusts to school while dealing with the pressures of her gender identity.

The initial presentation was “Talking About Pronouns” with 78 gender identities and experiences of transgender and non-binary folk. The five-lesson slide presentation focused on empathy over hate lessons:

1. What is hate speech? What is empathy? Intent vs impact, stereotypes, and how hat speech has evolved over time.
2. Empathy stories and compassionate empathy.
3. Identities. What is my identity? Social vs self-construct vs genetics.
4. What can I do? How to call out, call in, and interrupt.
5. Activism choice project. Create a project that calls people into action.

Students in the “community” are asked to self-evaluate their feelings and suggest they take a risk and listen with empathy, acceptance, and nod and take note of what others have to say.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

They are taught that hate speech includes fearful attitudes against a particular group, race, religion or identity that is degrading. Exercises identified historical origination of race identifications that over time has taken on a derogatory connotation that has become a racist insult. To make it confusing, only members of those communities can say slur racist words without being hate speech.

The focus of the lesson appears to create empathy understanding and share the thoughts with compassion for underprivileged and transgender students that stirred them to take action. It might be a worthwhile lesson until the slide show identified the privilege as being “white, straight, wealthy man experiences more privilege than a black, trans woman.” The benefits a person gets is based on how close they are to this dominant culture. That lesson defines and asks the students to identify:

• Gender – cis, trans, non-binary, gender-fluid, inter-sex.
• Sexual orientation – LGBTQQIPP2SAADON-B.
• Race – divided into different groups based on physical characteristics that they are perceived to share.
• Ethnicity – cultural identification.
• Religious Beliefs – beliefs around finding meaning in the world.
• Other identifiers: appearance, abilities, Neuro-typical-divergent, social class/wealth, nationality/citizenship, age, language, trauma.

The lesson concludes by encouraging students to be an advocate. “The world is a dangerous place to live. Not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” That is used to motivate students to report what they perceive as hate speech they hear even if not directed at them. Students are asked to pledge to be an advocate.

In classes, lessons on social justice are being passed off as social studies and language arts. Students identify injustices including white privilege and express what they learn in art and language forms. Classical reading has been replaced with readings like ‘On Cracking White City,’ ‘Member of the Club,’ and ‘For My People’ poem.

Reactions from teachers that reached out to Northwest Observer were negative. One said they wouldn’t teach the material because “It was very biased, not educational/researched based, and contradictory”. Another teacher felt “uncomfortable teaching the material due to religious beliefs.” And another said, “Students are struggling academically in Oregon. Teachers are working hard to catch students up after Covid. Having students pulled from classes to engage in non-research based, biased political documentary is concerning.”

Jeanette Schade, high school teacher and university adjunct professor, works with teachers nationally and says Oregon is the epicenter and they all agree Oregon is the worst. She summarized the issue by adding, “I was appalled that students would be missing valuable instructional time to attend a showing of ‘First Day’. I am seeing a huge decline in analytical reading and writing skills. We can blame it on things like COVID lockdowns where children were not allowed to step foot in their schools to learn, but it runs deeper than that. My high school classes are supposed to be sacred learning space to learn skills to do well in post-secondary education or their future career, but it is being hijacked to allow them to watch tv shows or movies on social and political issues of the day. Parents need to get more involved and understand that they have more power if they stand together with one voice. Parents need to say 'No, my child needs to learn how to read and write more than about social political issues' and not allow schools to take over their roles as parents. We are seeing massive decline in reading, writing, and arithmetic skills across the board. When will people wake up and understand we have an educationally declining country?”


--Donna Bleiler

Post Date: 2022-12-24 06:20:18

Last Update: 2022-12-25 14:27:23