A Minnesota Department of Education advisory council has
approved a new “toolkit” for “Safe and Supportive Schools for Transgender and
Gender Nonconforming Students.” The toolkit was approved by something called
the School Safety Technical Assistance Council, and, though nonbinding, it strongly
encourages schools to implement radical new policies in support of transgender
and gender nonconforming students. The toolkit, which will be distributed to
K-12 schools statewide, recommends that school officials ask before assuming a
student’s name, gender identity or
pronoun. It also states that schools should not exclude students from
activities based on how they identify.
Kindergartners
literally don’t even know what a pronoun is,
and can’t possibly have a sexual orientation, yet teachers are supposed to ask
them what their “preferred” pronoun is- to use in conjunction with their
“gender identity?”
Madness.
Moreover,
the kit advises public schools to stop calling students “boys and girls,” and
to start calling them “scholars” instead. It also has helpful, progressive
guidelines for bathroom and locker room usage, as well as hotel room
accommodations, should schools take their young scholars on road trips:
students should be allowed to choose the restroom, locker room, or
accommodation of their gender choice. If this policy makes any other students
uncomfortable, the guidelines state, those
students should be restricted to a single-use restroom, if available. The
toolkit is going out to all public schools in Minnesota despite the fact that
transgender people are estimated to comprise just 0.6% of the population (of
the United States).
Can you
say, “insane?”
If we
can’t assume a student’s name, gender, or preferred pronoun, how can we assume
anything else, either? What if a white student wants to be referred to as
black? If that’s how he/she/ze/xir/whatever-the-hell identifies, who are we to
refuse to comply? And why should we simply take it upon ourselves to
arbitrarily assume the student is
human? Or, if they so identify, that they are any particular age? Hmmm?
This
will be needlessly- and tragically- confusing, especially to the young grade-school
students.
States that implement this kind of “strongly
suggested,” codified child-molestation should look for chaos to rule, and
depression and suicide rates to soar among young people in the decades to
come.
But, on the lighter side, I can’t
wait to see how the classic, formerly timeless “Dick and Jane” children’s book
series evolves to meet the demands of today’s progressive educator class.
Or maybe they won’t have to evolve all that much. Here is a snippet from the
play.google.com/store/books website: “Millions of Americans remember Dick and
Jane (and Sally and Spot, too!). Now Dick and Jane and all their pals are back
with revised editions of these
classic readers for a whole new generation of readers to enjoy!”
Perhaps Dick now identifies as Jane
and Jane now identifies as Dick- and/or has one. Maybe Sally is now non-binary.
And who knows what Spot might claim to be! The possibilities are endless! I
myself am tempted to peruse these updated treasures for the beginning reader!
Here is an excerpt from the Penguin
Young Readers Book 2, Dick and Jane- Fun
with Dick and Jane: “Look, Jane,” said Dick. “Here is something funny. Can
you guess what it is?”
And this from the Young Readers
Book 4, Dick and Jane- Guess Who:
“Guess who this is,” said Jane. “Guess who this is,” said Sally. “And see the
two little ones. Guess who.”
Perfect.
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