The hysteria over Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Bill - that I must begrudgingly refer to as the “Don’t Say Gay” Bill so that way people know what I’m talking about - is literally confusing to me. At the same time, though, it perfectly exemplifies how a false story can run like wildfire, burning the true story to ashes in its wake.
If there’s anything in this world that annoys me more than groomer behavior, it’s having to repeat myself. But we all suddenly want to act like we can’t read, so let’s do this again…
Remember when you turned 18 or 19? You thought: it sure would have been nice to learn how to do my taxes or change a car tire or balance my budget or do anything useful to me now as an adult back when I was in school. Super glad I memorized the Pythagorean Theorem, though!
So… how is it that we grew up wishing our education had more useful concepts within the curriculum, only to cause an uproar when someone actually fights for something like that?!
`All of our priorities are out of whack. Worse still, we have teachers who worry about how this bill is going to affect them personally:
Perhaps I’ve got this mixed up, but teaching is not a profession in which you are required to discuss your personal life. And this concept really gets my blood boiling because from grades 7-8, I had a teacher named Mrs. King. Really, she went through like 3 names in a span of the 2 years I had her because she had a problem with alcohol and shotgun weddings in Vegas.
That’s a lot of personal information about one of my teachers that stuck with me for like 15 years - and why did I need to know any of that? Moreover, why can I recall more personal information about Mrs. King than any inspiring or enlightening material she taught me? Because she was a narcissist who loved talking about herself.
And, anytime we weren’t discussing her favorite topic, we were told it was a free period because we’d already wasted too much class time to begin an actual lesson. I did end up becoming really fond of the card game “Bullshit” so I guess that’s one positive takeaway from all of this. She also hooked us poor ass kids up with the entire HBO series John Adams as an attempt at teaching. So there’s that.
That’s reality, though. Kids would rather veer off topic to avoid doing any sort of homework or classwork. They will exploit their teacher’s weakness and use their vanity against them. If the teacher is anything like Mrs. King, then she will be so spellbound by the pseudo interest her students have taken in her personal life that she will draw no proper boundaries. And- voila! - a one-hour class period vanishes before your eyes.
The overall effect of this was that I entered high school feeling vastly unprepared; feeling like my peers from other elementary schools had a leg up; feeling like Mrs. King had wasted so much of my time.
My point is, if kids know they can get their narcissistic teacher off task and dodge any sort of lesson or homework, it will happen. And so then what’s the point of school? It’s a joke at that point.
Still, I would consider the teacher’s story from the video above about simply wanting to build community with his students pretty harmless and mild.
MSNBC wouldn’t interview emotionally unstable people like this, because then more people would wake up to this bullshit:
I think this lady is a victim of misinformation as well. The bill draws a line between proper and improper conduct in the classroom. It does not say that a teacher cannot tell the parents about his/her sexuality - regardless of how they prefer to get off - which would be kind of weird anyways, right? (Side note: I’ve wanted to be a teacher for quite a while now and, who knows, might still be one in the future. Even though I’ve never had to introduce myself in this particular setting, I can still say for certain it would never cross my mind to say anything like: “Hello, I’m Aleyah and I’ve always been a woman. I’m also engaging in a straight relationship with a man who has always been a man. Please call me she/her.” It would feel inappropriate and awkward to introduce myself that way for a job where my teaching abilities, style, and expectations would be the only relevant topic of discussion… but yeah, apparently it’s the end of the world if you cannot explain to your students and their parents who you bone and how you bone them. I’m the one that’s mistaken here.)
The bill also does not ban gay teachers from teaching - teachers in general simply cannot discuss matters of sex or gender with their K-3 students, and they can’t keep secrets from the parents. That’s the gist of the bill.
I still want to know why that is so fucking difficult to do?!
One possibility is that they constantly need to be validated or they feel like they don’t exist. In that case, seeking acceptance and/or validation from K-3 students is kind of a sad thing for an adult to do.
Another possibility is that they are hyper obsessed about their own gender identity, thus making them an expert on it and consuming the topic of all their conversations - and, if this is the case, then why would you want this person teaching your child? If all a teacher knows about and can discuss with authority is the topic of them, then your child’s time is being wasted and their mind unchallenged.
Or they are *literal* groomers. If you don’t believe me, watch this teacher’s body language when recalling a memory of speaking to a student:
If you miss the part where she says “queer youth,” you’d think she was referring to another adult - right? Her pacing, her word choice, her tone, her coy smile - she is fawning over a school kid, dog!
This is the shit MSNBC won’t show you. Instead, they showcase wholesome ol’ Mr. Milk Toast teacher. They just want to tell their students about paddle boarding with their partners! It’s so innocent!
Give me a mother fucking break.
Still, I would be remiss if I did not address those who are conflating this into a free speech issue:
One more time for the people with the fucking blinders on:
YOU CAN STILL SAY THE WORD GAY IN FLORIDA.
Let’s end with some food for thought: if we - as “educated” adults - cannot take the 10 minutes out to read the damn bill and dismiss the media’s lies, then the education system in place has failed more than just our current youth.
We’ve all been fucked for a long time.
If you don’t him already, James Lindsay is one of the people who has been speaking out against all this stuff. His podcast is called New Discourses and it’s worth your time. Here’s one of his videos that could help anyone gain a deeper understanding of what we’re up against. Again. James Lindsay. National hero. He’s dope.