TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/121492/1214120.000

Text File | 1993-04-08 | 9.3 KB | 190 lines

                                                                                EDUCATION, Page 52

Jack and Jack and Jill and Jill


In the quest to instill tolerance, schools are increasingly
instructing children about homosexuality. What should they be
taught -- and when?

By RICHARD LACAYO - With reporting by Ann Blackman/Washington,
Sylvester Monroe/Los Angeles and Elizabeth Rudulph/New York


    Daddy's roommate is a congenial children's book about a
boy in a not-so-unusual position: his parents have divorced. The
rest of his story is a bit more unconventional. His father is
living with a new companion named Frank. Kids who turn the pages
will learn that the two men live together. They "work together,"
the text explains. They "eat together." And one other thing.
They "sleep together."

    The text and pictures in Daddy's Roommate may give off a
warm glow, but glowing books can light fuses. The book is on the
recommended reading list of a new first-grade curriculum in New
York City -- sort of a gay companion to Jack and Jill. And that
has led to a bitter fight about when and how to teach children
about homosexuality, a question that schools all around the
country have begun -- very cautiously -- to confront.

    Developed to foster respect for all races, ethnic groups
and religions, the New York City teachers' guide called
"Children of the Rainbow" is mostly unexceptional. It suggests
presenting folklore through Chinese tales; or, for music class,
the Mexican hat dance. But in a segment on the importance of
families, it reminds teachers that some of their pupils may
come from households in which one or both adults are gay. And
its original wording urged teachers to encourage first-graders
"to view lesbians/gays as real people to be respected and
appreciated." Among proposed -- but not required -- readings,
the guide suggests Daddy's Roommate, along with Heather Has Two
Mommies and Gloria Goes to Gay Pride.

    When more than half the city's 32 local boards balked at
introducing first-graders to the notion of same-sex couples,
chancellor Joseph Fernandez agreed that they could hold off
until the fifth or sixth grade. But the board of District 24, in
the largely blue-collar borough of Queens, refused that offer.
Board president Mary Cummins labeled portions of the guide
"dangerously misleading homosexual/lesbian propaganda." Even
after Fernansoftened the guidelines concerning homosexuality,
District 24 board members refused to meet with him. Last week
the exasperated chancellor suspended them. In their place he
appointed trustees who will now meet with parent groups to try
to adopt a compromise curriculum. "It is very important," he
insists, "that children learn early on that there are different
family structures out there than the traditional one."

    While New York appears to be unique so far in attempting to
raise the subject with first-graders, schools all over the
country are discovering reasons to consider teaching about
homosexuality at some grade level. In AIDS-awareness programs,
pupils have been putting teachers on the spot with questions
about gay life generally. Some teenagers are coming to the
realization, usually an uncomfortable one, that they are gay
themselves. And with gay-bashing assaults on the rise among
adolescents, school administrators interested in curbing
bigotry are trying to teach kids the meaning of the word
homophobia.

    Though a few states, including California and
Massachusetts, are thinking about statewide guidelines on how to
discuss homosexuality in the classroom, most of the change is
taking place at the city or county level. After a 1989 federal
study showed that one-third of adolescents who kill themselves
are young people struggling with their sexual orientation,
school officials in Virginia's Fairfax County decided to expand
their wide-ranging family-life education program. "We had a
moral obligation to combat a devastating trend," says Gerald
Newberry, coordinator of the county's family-life education
programs. "We needed to communicate to our kids that people are
different, and that we don't choose our sexual feelings -- they
choose us."

    Now Fairfax ninth-graders see a video called What If I'm
Gay? Originally broadcast on network TV, it concerns three
teenage boys who are friends, including one who is struggling to
come to terms with his homosexuality. For homework, students are
encouraged to ask their parents what they would say if one of
their children had a gay friend. In the human-sexuality course
he teaches in Alexandria, Virginia, Larry Gaudreault
concentrates on the accumulating evidence that sexual
orientation may be in some measure biologically determined
rather than a freely chosen "life-style." "We try to dispel the
myth that homosexuality develops later in life as a result of
one's environment," he says.

    Fairfax permits parents to have their children excused from
classes in which homosexuality is discussed, an option that
school officials say only about 1.5% of parents exercise. Wayne
Steward, 17, a gay senior, is convinced that such programs work
toward eliminating prejudice. "When students don't understand
what differences there may be [among people]," he says, "they
can let fear cloud their judgment."

    In Seattle this year, the public health curriculum will
include for the first time a two-lesson segment for juniors and
seniors on sexual orientation. In lower grades, teachers and
administrators are being trained to take seriously any
incidents of antigay graffiti and name calling. "School
buildings are not automatically going to be safe and comfortable
places for kids unless adults take an active role in making them
that way," says Pamela Hillard, coordinator for sexuality and
HIV education for the Seattle public schools.

    In the future the notion of the gay-positive classroom may
go further, to examine the contributions that gay men and women
have made. Arthur Lipkin, a Harvard University research
associate, is developing a curriculum to help high school
teachers incorporate information about gays into history,
literature and psychology lessons. A series of lessons dealing
with the history of gays over two centuries was recently tested
among 10th-to-12th-grade social-studies classes in Cambridge,
Massachusetts. "The kids were riveted by the subject matter,"
reports Lipkin, "because they don't ordinarily see it discussed
as a serious academic subject."

    It might not be controversial for high school seniors to
consider whether Tennessee Williams' sexuality fueled the
outsider lyricism of A Streetcar Named Desire. But telling
six-year-olds, however gently, that some other six-year-olds
have two mommies is still a red flag in many households with
just one. Some parents involved in the New York City
controversy fear that exposure to the subject might predispose
young children toward homosexuality. Others simply don't want
to teach their kids that gay couples are acceptable. "We're
asked to park our values about life-style at the door,"
complains Joanne Gough, a nurse and mother of three children.
And a lot of parents are wary of raising premature questions
about sexuality in any form. "A six-year-old child cannot
understand homosexuality," says Louise Phillips, a New York City
attorney who is the mother of two school-age youngsters. "Every
parent I spoke with said their six-year-old cannot understand
the nature of adult heterosexuality."

    When is it too soon to open discussion about differences in
sexual orientation? "As early as kindergarten, such things as
appreciating differences and respecting all people can be
taught," insists Dr. Virginia Uribe, founder of the Los Angeles
school district's Project 10, which uses counseling and support
to discourage lesbian and gay teens from dropping out. "And as
kids get older, teachers should be prepared to respond to the
questions they have. Kids don't have any big prejudices to start
out with. They learn those things."

    That kind of controversy is one reason that most schools
are still wary about dealing with the issue at any grade level.
Project 21, a San Francisco-based organization that favors
teaching about gay and lesbian issues, mailed out
questionnaires asking 35 Midwestern school districts what
assistance they provide for gay students. Only 10 responded.
"Most districts want to avoid the whole topic," says Robert
Birle, the organization's Midwestern-states coordinator. "But
if schools get beyond looking at gay youth as the problem and
look at the homophobic atmosphere instead, we'll get some
positive results."

    In New York some gay students have been so badly harassed
that the city supports a separate minischool for gay teens who
might otherwise drop out. "Gay and lesbian issues need to be
raised in the schools because of what we see in our work," says
Frances Kunreuther, executive director of the Hetrick-Martin
Institute, a nonprofit organization that operates the
35-student school under city auspices. "The amount of violence
gay kids face, the harassment, the rejection by their families."
The angry and sometimes distorted debate over the Children of
the Rainbow curriculum in New York, she says, "is really a
great example of why we need the curriculum." And a fair example
too of why it won't be easy to get one.