Piano World Home Page Forums Restricted and Archives The Coffee Room Has your K-6 grade kid had cootie shots yet?

I have to go to bed but before I do, Larry, I must get in another laugh. Ha!

I will let those who know me personally, decide for themselves whether or not I am a pervert. Whether or not I carry a chip on my shoulder. Whether or not I am smart (whoever said I was?).

As far as personal attacks go, again, I'll let everyone who's been around here for a while decide who it is who's modus operandi is to go on the attack.

Oh, I know. I just though you'd appreciate what it was like having the shoe on the other foot. Damn those southerners!! Rednecks! The whole lot of 'em.

[This post will come back later if necessary.]

OK. Here's where my homophobia comes out.

"Marry" and "merry" are homophones, i.e. words that have the same sound but are spelled differently.

Homographs are spelled the same but pronounced differently, e.g. lead, to go in front of, and lead, the metal.

Homonyms are spelled the same and have the same sound but have different meanings and different derivations, e.g., bear, the animal and bear, to carry.

Unfortunately, our education system has these homo's all messed up and homonym has become the common, yet incorrect, usage.

DT
word bigot

DT, since you seem to know this stuff, is there a term for words which are spelled and pronounced the same but mean the opposite?

One example is "cleave" which can mean "to seperate", as in meat cleaver, or to "cling together" ,as in husband and wife (the subject of this thread notwithstanding). (I didn't chose that word to be a smarta$$, it was just the first example I could think of. I think there are but a few more.

Bob

I think they are called Kerryphones.

Wow. I think I'll just tiptoe on outta here...

Absolutely.

From personal experience...

In my neighborhood there's a 10 year old boy with a homosexual uncle. He started sharing 'tricks' with my same age son a while ago that he learned from his uncle....

games to play,
things to say,
ways to pass a rainy day
things not appropriate to share in this forum.

This kids little brother now is trying to get my daughter and her friend to play "kiss my peepee" and other stuff. I talk with these kids. They love their uncle. They have no idea this type of behavior is innappropriate.

I know children will be children and play whatever silly sex games they will.

I resent it being introduced into this innocent community of children by some gay uncle who wants his nephew to **** his ****.

I don't mean to focus or accuse a member of the gay community, altho I'd like to see this guy stay out of our neighborhood. (and incidentally I've talked with him). I just want to illustrate that it is inappropriate for children to be exposed to sexuality by those who are not their parents. It should not be taught in schools.

For many of us, sexuality is not something to be taken so lightly.

whoopsie

As a parent, what concerns me more is that the school administrators (at least in the case of the King & King story) are not responding to the parents' concerns.

Tolerance does not need to be taught with a specific subject matter. Teaching it to elementary aged students with material oriented towards sexuality is way over the line.

There are aspects of my life that would not really be accepted by much of society. I haven't come out of the closet to my friends yet...as we dine together they have no idea that there is a .380 in my pocket and a small aresenal locked up safe. I'm OK with that because I've taken the time to understand their position and the effort required to make them "accept" these things is a wedge that would be driven between us. You can argue that this analogy is "different" because mine is based on a choice, not a predisposition. It is, however, a symptom of who I am...

Quote from Gryphon:
"Besides, you can't shoot an M4 well in high heels."

This, to me, is hillarious.
Wasn't Carrie Fisher wearing heels in "The Blues Brothers" when she shot the M16 in the flood control culvert?

View from a parent:

There is too much intolerance among kids towards other races, religions, ethnicities, and - yes - gays.

In a perfect world children learn values, morals, tolerance, etc. from their parents. In the real world either too many kids learn the wrong values, morals, and to be intolerant, or they learn nothing at home. As a result, schools should have a role in reinforcing positive values, tolerance, and so forth.

How they present this issue will be extremely important in determining how the message is received. I'm not so sure that a kid on stage in high heels is the right way to present the issue. Some parents will not have a problem with this. Some parents will be uncomfortable with this. Some parents will say "homosexuality is against my religion, and I don't want my kids exposed to this." The end result will be a lot of parents exercising their right to not have their kids exposed to the play, through lawsuits, pressure on the school, or simply taking their kids out of school for the day(s) it is being shown, and refusing to allow their kids to have any part in any curriculum associated with it. So, you will end up with a lot of bad will from those parents, and a lot of "preaching to the converted" towards the other parents.

My daughter goes to a private school that I pay a lot of money for. My daughter's teachers think I'm a pain, because I complain that they do too much extra stuff that takes time away from learning. Tolerance should be taught as issues arise in the classroom - bullying, name calling, etc. If schools need an outside theatre organization introduce tolerance, they are not competent.

Your first point is interesting to me. My town is significantly diverse...while my kids are young, they don't seem to notice the outward differences in their peers. Maybe that will all change when they get deeper into the machine.

Your second statement I can't quite reconcile. I don't think others' values are "wrong" unless they are contrary to what society has mandated by law (even that is a gray area); they are either in agreement or disagreement with our own. If someone wants to teach their kids to hate [insert qualifier here], the schools have no business telling them otherwise. The problems arise when kids act out on their hatred in a manner that either causes disruption to the education process, or is actively projected at an individual group. This should be handled via discipline, IMO.

There are positive and negative values. When I observe parents using the worst kind of racial slurs in front of their kids, telling their kids it's ok to bully, it's ok to have boyfriends and girlfriends in 3rd grade - all of which I have observed - that is teaching negative values. Schools can and should counteract that. The question is how do they do it.

Yep, this is just teaching tolerance :rolleyes: .

It is awful to see that kind of behavior from parents; even worse to see it taught to the kids.

I just worry about the lack of a line of demarcation. Whenever I find myself trying to apply the laws of unintended consequences to these situations, I err on the side of personal freedoms over the apparent greater good. Sometimes, like in the case of gays, you can have 2 equally justifiable, opposite positions that are rooted in cultural or philosophical differences (a la Larry and Barnard). You've used an extreme, but valid example of parental values that a teacher would view as negative. But what if that teacher decides that Johnny's parents are teaching negative values because they drive an SUV?

I say let the teachers teach the academics and provide positive values through example. I guess I'm ultimately saying that these value issues should be part of the school environment, but not part of the curriculum.

Did you notice that the "normal" kids carry shrunken heads and dead cats for show and tell, while the one in high heels is presented as the reasonable one. That is, if a boy wanting to be queen is reasonable. You see how well she did.

The biggest problem with the song is that it implies a superiority to crossdressers over regular folk. that's not teaching tolerance, that's saying "If you want to rule the world, be a crossdresser".

Th other thing is it's not teaching anything about homosexuality, it's about crossdressers. Crossdressing has nothing to do with homo or hetero sexuality. Their are gay crossdressers and straight crossdressers, and they are far in the minority of both groups. Is anybody ever born with a genetic disposition for crossdressing? You'd have a hard time selling me on that one. It is psychological abnormality. This song does nothing to promote tolerance of gays, and if anything will put older heterosexual kids on the defensive. It should put homosexual adults on the defensive as well, as it put's iup the message that homosexuals are crossdressers intent on ruling the world and getting revenge on straights.

So tell me Bernard, is that the message you want to send, I don't think so. You're an intelligent well spoken gentleman. I just think your vision gets a little blurry and you get defensive on issues dealing with sexuality.

I pretty much agree with that. As I said before, issues should be addressed as they arise.

I have a gay uncle, and several friends who are openly gay. Interesting to me is that two of the four gay men are shrinks, one is a nurse, and one a businessman. They're all great guys, and the only lesbian couple we socialized with were also very nice, both physicians. That said, the song/skit Larry posted offended me.

I'm not intolerant. I was gung ho to leave Vermont because my daughter never saw a black person until she was over two. Now my kids are in a school where 50% of the children have or are at risk for a developmental delay due to a physical or mental handicap. It's awsome, my kids simply accept as normal that some kids walk, some don't, and that people are different.

BUT! That skit is over the line for little kids. The line about beheading people and becoming a Queen is clearly not needed. It has a sexual meaning and references violence at a time kids get expelled for playing cops and robbers with their fingers! K-6 is not the right time for this. That skit about the little boy who loved his doll was fine. No sexual implications or language.

5 year olds don't need to have normal-variant sexuality thrown in their faces to teach them to tolerate it. All it will do is confuse them.

Also, while I think homosexuality is fine if that's someones orientation, why are they trying to associate it with cross-dressing. When put together, they are showing that little boy trying to attract strait little boys. That may occur in real life before the little guy figures out what he is and wants, but you don't want the gay little kids in the audience to think this is how he has to dress or act. And you don't want the strait kids to think this is what homosexuality is about.

Gay men and boys aren't all sissies. Lesbians aren't all butch. To imply they are is stupid and offends me. It probably has a slew of dead gladiators rolling in their graves too!

Todd

PS) NY1911, what are you doing with that little sissy Kel Tec? My next buy will be a 642 with crimson traces and leather from Lou Alessi's or PCS.