Should gay history be taught into schools?

I'm really glad that I'm done with formal education myself and that my nipper is not far off done, because at least we both got to learn actual factual information before education became entirely about propagating political agendas.

Stained Class wrote: »

Now way!:mad:

Nothing wrong with being gay, but don't force your perversion on the rest of us.

This reminds of a "Now I'm not racist, but..." type answer.

GarIT wrote: »

BTW for anyone that doesn't know SPHE and CSPE are only taught in 1st to 3rd year. CSPE can be taken as a LC subject but I've never heard of any school that offers it.

Regarding SPHE, last year when I was in 6th year if you didn't do LCVP then you did SPHE. So some schools do still have it, but not for everyone. I've never heard of CSPE being available at Leaving Cert, are you sure about that?

Aoifey! wrote: »

Regarding SPHE, last year when I was in 6th year if you didn't do LCVP then you did SPHE. So some schools do still have it, but not for everyone. I've never heard of CSPE being available at Leaving Cert, are you sure about that?

The department of education says Schools must have a minimum of one class every second week of SPHE from first to third year. There's nothing about leaving cert, so I suppose the school could offer it but its not on the curriculum. From September 2011 Fifth years will have to do SPHE too. I'm a bit behind on my information about CSPE, until a few years ago you could do it, but it doesn't seem to be a LC subject anymore.

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

If anything this is just proving the shocking absence of lesbianism in the curriculum. Schools need more lesbianism.

Not really, I just chose men, there are plenty lesbian women who we all know aswell, but we don't know them for being lesbian, we know them for their talents

Okay, let's take a step back here.

Historiography dictates that there generally is no such thing as 'pointless' or 'worthless' history if it is a past event or past, connected series of events, individuals and their shared experience for which there is verifiable source material available to quantify sufficiently.

Quoth Leopold von Ranke - 'each epoch is immediate to God.' What that means is that balkanisation of History into the 'important' and 'unimportant' bits can be culturally biased and methodologically unfrutiful. He spoke as a Prussian aristocrat in a time when entire countries' and peoples' histories were chalked up as not meriting study.

Now, I can see that some would outright reject a tokenistic approach here. I can empathise with that. But present currents in historical thought are tending towards a recognition that we've neglected social history and the history of cultural groups and sub-groups. This imbalance, it is generally agreed within the profession, needs to be addressed. History is not just political history: the history of powerful people, wars, diplomacy and policy. Though those phenomena are perhaps what the historical method is frequently applied to, it is too narrow to reduce history to that.

The proper way to treat 'gay history' is as a thread within social history and the history of minority groups. There most certainly are courses in universities devoted to homosexuality in the ancient world, and books which select as their topic the history of homosexual persecution. These are worthwhile, scholarly endeavours. They are not worthless. They give us an insight into that particular past and that satisfies the only useful criterion of 'worthwhile history'.

As to how you'd incorporate this into the syllabus - you'd do it in the same way that anti-semitism and the feminist movement come up. There is no 'PC-hijack' afoot here, crowbarring historical personalities into the narrative just because they're gay. A gay historiography would be much more meaningful than that - it would focus on victims, advocates and processes of agitation, persecution and reform. This probably would obviate a 'list of notable gay people' as that would, indeed, be tokenistic.

Indeed, good history never amounts to that

Plautus wrote: »

Okay, let's take a step back here.

Historiography dictates that there generally is no such thing as 'pointless' or 'worthless' history if it is a past event or past, connected series of events, individuals and their shared experience which there is verifiable source material available to quantify sufficiently.

Quoth Leopold von Ranke - 'each epoch is immediate to God.' What that means is that balkanisation of History into the 'important' and 'unimportant' bits can be culturally biased and methodologically unfrutiful. He spoke as a Prussian aristocrat in a time when entire countries' and peoples' histories were chalked up as not meriting study.

Now, I can see that some would outright reject a tokenistic approach here. I can empathise with that. But present currents in historical thought are tending towards a recognition that we've neglected social history and the history of cultural groups and sub-groups. This imbalance, it is generally agreed within the profession, needs to be addressed. History is not just political history: the history of powerful people, wars, diplomacy and policy. Though those phenomena perhaps what the historical method is frequently applied to.

The proper way to treat 'gay history' is as a thread within social history and the history of minority groups. There most certainly are courses in universities devoted to homosexuality in the ancient world, and books which select as their topic the history of homosexual persecution. These are worthwhile, scholarly endeavours. They are not worthless. They give us an insight into that particular past and that satisfies the only useful criterion of 'worthwhile history'.

As to how you'd incorporate this into the syllabus - you'd do it in the same way that anti-semitism and the feminist movement come up. There is no 'PC-hijack' afoot here, crowbarring historical personalities into the narrative just because they're gay. A gay historiography would be much more meaningful than that - it would focus on victims, advocates and processes of agitation, persecution and reform. This probably would obviate a 'list of notable gay people' as that would, indeed, be tokenistic.

But good history never amounts to that

:eek:



pssssssst: this is AH!!!

:pac:

I think it should be taught at leaving cert level,
Personaly I think it would stop attacks on gay people and it would make todays youth understand 'gays' unlike the older generations, my grandmother this homosexuals are perverts and a shame to society,
My grandfather believes that homosexuals should go to hell and that they should be castrated.
He also believe older gay men seduce 'straight young boys' and turn them gay and he doesn't understand how women can enjoy being lesbian!
Ireland is becoming of modern age now and the youth should be taught about gay history as there is and was many great gay men and women out there who have made a change to our lives and culture.
I say god bless them as he loves every creature on earth.

Richard Dower wrote: »

I bet you belive in unicorns as well, bless

You can't just dismiss my comment like that, I'm not a kid!!!
I bet there are gay people out there who have never met someone with a problem with their gayness.

I think there should be something like this

www.lgbthistorymonth.org.uk/