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Should gay history be taught into schools?

Richard Dower

As in to teach understanding and tolerance for the GLBT community?, i mean....it won't turn your kids gay, same as teaching about the Holocaust won't turn yuo Jewish, thoughts?

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Cavehill Red

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.

Dionysus

Richard Dower wrote: »

Should gay history be taught into schools?

Em, no.

What is it with minorities wanting to seize on one aspect of somebody's character and define them by it to suit their agenda? If a person is famous for being, say, a general, why does the LGBT lobby want to hijack it and make it a gay thing? He's famous because he's a general - not because he's gay. Likewise with the vast majority of other famous people who happen to be gay.

Aoifey!

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?

Guy:Incognito

Lavattack wrote: »

And anyway since when does history in general leave out gay people?

Leonardo da Vinci
Michelangelo
Richard Cromwell
Alexander The Great

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

GarIT

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.

Agonist

Where do I go to complain about T being lumped in with LGB?

Lavattack

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

Guy:Incognito

Lavattack wrote: »

, we know them for their talents

I know, I've seen most of their movies.

Plautus

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

Aoifey!

Agonist wrote: »

Where do I go to complain about T being lumped in with LGB?

A lot of the issues overlap. It makes sense that the T be there.

Einhard

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:

Plautus

Einhard wrote: »

:eek:

pssssssst: this is AH!!!

:pac:

Hey, I have to put my degree to some good use. Being immured in the ways of the profession I'd prefer to be the one to pontificate about what you can 'exclude' from History

iguy

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.

Plautus

Furthermore, this is a place that is one of the many highlights of Berlin (and a great resource): http://www.schwulesmuseum.de/

This sort of thing can be done to a very acceptable scholarly standard.

TeddyTedson

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.

Plautus

TeddyTedson wrote: »

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.

History may be justified by some for its 'civic function', that is to say so that people become less anti-gay (in this instance), but that is not actually the point of History. If it happened in the past, and meets a relatively low threshold for significance, it merits study almost at once.

I agree with other posters that 'politicised' or 'agenda-driven' history is to be deprecated. But that means that you don't get to cherry-pick 'only the wars and stuff', whilst also meaning that you don't set down a curriculum with the object of 'improving' people's morals with tales from History

philologos

Richard Dower wrote: »

As in to teach understanding and tolerance for the GLBT community?, i mean....it won't turn your kids gay, same as teaching about the Holocaust won't turn yuo Jewish, thoughts?

I would support its teaching on the provisio that it would be taught without bias. Stonewall and other such events mentioned while looking to it entirely impartially. CSPE can take over where history ends in respect to this in terms of laws, liberties, the difference between marriage / civil partnership etc.

People should make up their own minds into what they think ethically of sexual behaviours though.

holystungun9

Listen, history was boring enough learning about this king and that king. I'd hate to have to go back and learn about queens too.

*no problem with gays disclaimer

OutlawPete

The-Rigger wrote: »

Are gays excluded from history teachings?
Teach tolerance in a civics class or something.
Teach history in a history class.

That goes for "Women's Studies" also which, at best, is just Feminist propaganda.

Mike 1972

Cavehill Red wrote: »

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.

What country did this take place in because it certainly wasnt Ireland ?

Annasopra

I think there should be something like this

www.lgbthistorymonth.org.uk/

papajimsmooth

Learning regular history is gay enough

looksee

Yes of course we should have gay history taught in schools. Along with black history and disabled history and women's history and childrens' history and pacifist history and ... so on. And if you have a gay, black, disabled woman who did something significant, she should get a mention in all four sections.

We could extend the school year, or eliminate Irish or Maths or something to accommodate it.

slavetothegrind

happy times have always been taught in history, it's just that the sad times seem to prevail.

orourkeda

Richard Dower wrote: »

As in to teach understanding and tolerance for the GLBT community?, i mean....it won't turn your kids gay, same as teaching about the Holocaust won't turn yuo Jewish, thoughts?

Absolutely not. Kids are not even taught about the history of their own country, why teach them something that probably wont concern them.

I dont think kids are taught about the holocaust as a means of promoting love for the jews. They're taught because it happened.

El Siglo

When you start pointing out different forms of history (e.g. Black History Month, Jewish History, Gay History etc...) it starts getting awkward. Just teach history as it is, history. Doesn't matter if they're gay or not, it's only if they're worth reading about that counts.

nobody3

johnthemull wrote: »

Whatever goes on between the sheets goes on. homo, hetro, bi, group who gives a ****. gay people need to lighten up. they should be judged like the rest of us. not on who we **** but who we are.

Of course everyone should, but organised Religions define you, as you state, as who you ****; and not as who you are.

Downlinz

Gay rights seems to be the new feminism these days. Attempts for complete over-compensation to problems that aren't especially prevalent in moral society.

The solution to an oppressed culture/race/gender/whatever is always to promote equality and never to big up the suppressed society at the expense of the oppressor.

Biggins

The-Rigger wrote: »

Are gays excluded from history teachings?
Teach tolerance in a civics class or something.
Teach history in a history class.

pmcmahon wrote: »

If it is of historical benefit to the syllabus then why not, however just throwing some pointless piece of history with no basis in to please the gay community or other groups is just stupidity of the highest order. Subjects within the curriculum should be chosen at merit not to please minority groups.

...Thats exactly how I feel, summed up in two good posts.

Downlinz

My memory is sketchy and I only did History up to junior cert but as I recall there was very little social history taught in the syllabus. I don't recall Martin Luther King, Gandhi, the KKK, womens rights, che guevara or the likes being taught in extensive detail in the syllabus.

In primary school it was all ancient history and the junior cert focused on post 1916 Irish history, the world wars and the american revolution.