Comments by "L.W. Paradis" (@l.w.paradis2108) on "'Don't Say Gay' EXTENDED To K-12: Lessons On Gender/Sexual Orientation BANNED In FL Public Schools" video.

@cjlb49 This is strictly a position among certain empiricists. Most philosophers do not believe that transfer of knowledge without values is possible, or, if it were, they would consider it training at best, and not education -- neutral at best, if not profoundly dangerous. The choice of what "knowledge" you choose to transfer implies a value judgment.
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It depends on who is doing the vetting, and how. Would you be all right with a teacher being disciplined for introducing Socrates to high school seniors, given that he was -- by contemporary lights -- bisexual?
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@bsn1009 Anti-bullying is part of the curriculum. And in my opinion, before age 16 or 17, that is all that needs to be said. And it DOES need to be said.
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@DoctorCataclysm They may self-censor, and almost certainly will. You must think public employees are more courageous than they are. Socrates was controversial in community college; what he had to say was too stirring, and went beyond color by numbers. What the administration wanted was insipid textbooks and multiple-choice tests. IOW, punch the ticket and move on. I should know, I used to teach community college part time, back when I was more public spirited than I am today. Socrates' sexuality didn't usually come up, but if we read Protagoras or Symposium it did. The Apology, no, Gorgias, no, Republic, no. I did not bring up extraneous matters, NOR did I censor anything.
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@cjlb49 No, you certainly do not have to tell students how to feel, nor should you -- but values are not about feelings. Or at least not for most ethicists. Some radical empiricists claim there is no other basis for values. I disagree. Even J. S.. Mill saw the flaw in that position. Concerning slavery, it seems that quite a few Americans were willing to die for the right to secede from the Union for the express purpose of deciding for themselves whether slavery should end or continue. I suppose it would be difficult to teach the history of the Civil War and omit that fact?
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@cjlb49 Fair enough.
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@cjlb49 How much should what parents want weigh in the teaching of history? As for making a child feel bad about anything that happened before they were born -- I consider that emotional abuse and possibly even dangerous to certain children (I know of suicides provoked that way). There is nothing that a minor is responsible for in our current politics, though I believe that as they mature, taking an interest in civics is a very good thing -- but they are not responsible until they attain the age of majority. This is also a fact.
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@cjlb49 I am serious when I say that if any child is made to feel responsible by any teacher or other authority figure for ANYTHING that they themselves did not do, and especially for historical events that took place before they were even born, then that is emotional abuse of a child. No mincing words. It is also miseducation. It's using "education" as an excuse to bully and abuse a child, which makes it even more wrong. There are few things a teacher can do that are worse, without unwanted physical contact.
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This is a problem, too: the curriculum might be fine, and the goal of making every child feel welcome at school is essential, no matter what kind of family the child comes from, BUT what happens when an activist teacher teaches something that is not part of the curriculum? Would people be all right with a teacher saying that everyone who has had an abortion is a murderer, when a lot of the kids' mothers may indeed have had one? I bet they would not. No teacher should say anything that undermines parents in this way.
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@coolhandvader I think you're right.
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@jameswyman3973 You obviously misunderstood my point. How you could miss it is a mystery.
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