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Grooming By Teachers In Us Public Schools, What Should Indian Parents Do?

Discussion in 'Schoolgoers & Teens' started by rosequeen, May 11, 2022.

  1. Rihana

    Rihana Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    Your concerns are valid.

    I am out of touch with how these topics are currently taught in elementary and middle schools. So, I googled it for California.

    I first read What is Comprehensive Sexual Education? and some of the claims there about what is being taught in schools are disturbing.

    Then, some more googling lead to this FAQ for Sexual Education, HIV/AIDS, and STDs - Comprehensive Sexual Health & HIV/AIDS Instruction (CA Dept of Education) which is the CA Dept of Education's official website. I read through all the 21 questions there.

    The "opt-out" strategy rather than "opt-in", teachers need not be specially trained, the name-sake vetting of outside speakers, and how the medical facts are checked before being taught to the students -- all these left me shaking my head in disbelief.

    The CA law requires CSE to be taught in grades 7-12. For K-6, it is left to each school district to decide. So, a bunch of tenured school district staff have full control over what is the "age appropriate" way of teaching all these topics to kids under 10-11 years old. Good Lord.

    What should Indian parents do? Read up good quality balanced opinions on both sides of any debate. Research. Get to know the many terms, acronyms and definitions around LGBTQ, gender identity etc. Be aware of their rights such as all the materials used in schools have to be available for parents to inspect. Don't blindly believe that the school and teachers have the child's best interests at heart. I used to think if I vote Democrat, pay taxes, vote regularly, check the child's Friday folder, read the newsletter, sign all forms in time, I am good. Had some rude awakenings.

    Above all, develop an atmosphere at home where the child feels comfortable to come to parents for support and answers. There will be times and years when the child trusts their friends more than parents, but always keep the lines of communication open.

    For the record, I consider myself very pro-LGBTQ, was shamefully ignorant about the gender identity related concepts and educated myself on those and have come to respect those. But, legislation that these topics should be taught in publics schools in this manner is giving untrained teachers too much influence over highly impressionable young children, IMO.
     
    Last edited: May 11, 2022
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  2. rosequeen

    rosequeen Bronze IL'ite

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    Thanks, this is very helpful advice. I have opted all my kids out of any health, anti-bullying or literary club and am constantly telling my kids its OK to not like LGBT and you should avoid them. My views have changed quite a bit, I am now rabidly anti LGBT (need to balance out propaganda from schools), because I am seeing attempts by these groups (actively supported by most public school teachers) to break apart families. In one case the teacher was monitoring teams chat between two boys and searching for 'keywords'. She then invited some of them to an after school student club without informing parents. Here they talked about how you can pleasure each other without girls. This teacher is against all man-woman relationships as she believes this is the root cause of abuse to women and how great society would be if women were left alone and men lived with each other. In the west coast of US, these ideas have full support
     
  3. MalStrom

    MalStrom IL Hall of Fame

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    Then why were you so concerned that a certain woman golfer did not mention trans women when she was talking about her menstrual period?
     
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  4. Rihana

    Rihana Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    Oh.

    Children tend to repeat at school and other places what they hear from parents. If a student in a school or anywhere says "I don't like LGBT" and if the student actively avoids them, it will lead to all kinds of trouble for the student, including suspension and this bullying will go on the student's record.

    Telling your child it is OK to not like LGBT and to avoid them is like a white parent telling their children to avoid certain skin colored classmates at school.

    Schools consider "I don't like LGBT people and will avoid them" same as they consider "I don't like brown/black skinned people and will avoid them."

    For families whose views and values are so different from that of the public school, it may be a better idea to opt for homeschooling or a private school.

    I'll confess that I sometimes feel you are posting such stuff to rile up readers. But then again, I've seen cases of exactly what you have described above. "Without informing parents, child invited to a questionable (after) school club run by teacher" was the reason we met the principal 1-1 for the first time. Principal heard me out and said will look into it. In less than 12 hours, we received a phone call, I didn't pick it up, and the principal left a long apology message along with what steps are being taken to avoid a repetition for any student. Later, I found out that the club had been running in the past years and continued to run after my complaint.

    It was not some tame book club, math club, recycle-save the earth club. It was a club for which if they sent home flyers, hardly any parents would allow child to attend. To avoid scrutiny, they ran the club in lunch time, not after school. But my kid told me they attended it during class time too. A few kids were pulled out of class and they had this club in the "forum" between classrooms while classmates were in the regular classroom.

    It still can upset me to think of my 10 year old attending that club for almost 5-6 times till I got to know, and got to know by chance.

    The video below is from a preschool. But such things happen in public schools too.
     
    Last edited: May 12, 2022
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  5. hrastro

    hrastro Platinum IL'ite

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    I dont know about politics at US and I do support ADULT LGBT as their life their choice, but I know that little children should not be learning "If you like this touch it is ok" - how easy it would be to convince a child that he/she/pronoun likes it !! This is not "LGBT awareness" this is an acceptance of (or precursor to) paedophilia !

    Please do correct me if I am misunderstanding something here!

    Allow them to grow up normally at least till they are 14! Kids have enough pressures in their school life itself, we don't need to add new confusions about their sexual identities...

    HR
     
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  6. MadhuRK

    MadhuRK Silver IL'ite

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    This is such a critical, useful and well-balanced response. Thanks @Rihana.

    I'm the parent of a 5 year old who is joining Kindergarten in August-2022 and I've been such an ostrich. This is the first time I'm learning about CSE.

    If kids are the most important entities in our houses and their education is one of the most influential factors affecting their lives, then by extension, thats where we should be putting the most care about. But all of us parents are having to contend with this public school vs private school debate.

    Private schools are no better in this one:"giving untrained teachers too much influence over highly impressionable young children"

    Daughter goes to pre-K private school and I have gone to the Principal thrice already, once when their retarded teacher (considered as one of the veterans in this school) told these young ones that if they kept writing out of their cursive lines, they will all be failed and sent back to Pre-school instead.

    In-order to have a healthy discussion on any subject, I want to have a very open and honest conversation and avoid a "Holier than thou" attitude regardless.

    Sharing this to say that Private school are equally a black box and does not guarantee that its the best fit for a parents.

    " We must be doing better than this, right ? " is the debate I keep having with my husband.

     
  7. Rihana

    Rihana Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    Be very careful with the r-word. It has long been regarded as a pejorative on par with the 6-letter n- slur for African Americans.

    Going to the Principal for this offence by the teacher is like tattling. Tattling Versus Reporting

    Such offences by the teacher are best dealt with by talking with the teacher only and leaving it at that. Children will face such comments from teachers over their school years. The teachers spends more hours directly interacting with the child than parents do. Cut them some slack. There will be no perfect teacher whose every statement is fine by every parent. Teachers have minimal discipline options and yet have to teach 20 distracted kids. I recently came to know that our local school has eliminated even time-out in kindergarten.

    I like to think of each academic year like hiring cleaners to deep clean the house. The cleaners won't do as great a job as I could. There will always be some things they miss. Yet, when the cleaners drive away, my house is overall brighter than when they arrived.

    One has to look at all the options: public school, private school costing $7000 per year, the $10k to $20K reasonable ones, and then the 45K plus at rhymes-with-New-Yorker. : ) Or the lesser known ones like Waldorf.
     
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  8. Rihana

    Rihana Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    You are not misunderstanding anything. Rather it is a very complex issue where, to use the cliche, no one size fits all. When is the right age for introducing what topics and how should they be introduced is a very subjective issue.

    There was an Indian teacher in our local middle school (6th-8th grades). She saw two students boy and girl walking holding hands in the corridor and while walking to their seats. She scolded them in class, in front of all students, and told the entire class said they should focus on studies etc etc. and time enough for boy-girl stuff later in life. Someone complained and the principal spoke with the teacher, told her she can only enforce rules that are in the school handbook.

    Coming back to LGBTQ and gender identity related topics, on the surface it can feel unbelievable or "fake" that a child under 10 (for example) has opinion about their gender and so on. To understand it one has to read research and balanced opinion on it. That takes time. The shorter cut is to decide what values we want to impart to our own child, and always be accepting, respectful and tolerant of those who may think differently. A simple example is if a family does not eat meat, how the child behaves when classmates eat meat at the same lunch table.
     
  9. MalStrom

    MalStrom IL Hall of Fame

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    I was going to say the same thing about the “r” word. If you use it in public in the US you will be immediately ostracized. Better to avoid it.
     
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  10. chanchitra

    chanchitra Platinum IL'ite

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    yes. its offensive. our kids learn from us
     
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