LGBT in schools vs religious parents

[iona]

RE at my secondary school (Kent, grammar, early-mid 00s) was taught by a bored PE teacher. It covered different religions but only on the level of being given a worksheet listing some different Hindu, say, deities and having to cut out their pictures and print stick them next to the right name.

CofE primary only taught CofE flavour Christianity and that was taught as fact, no different to history lessons. Think we had an actual church service at least once a term and the one kid in my year who wasn't allowed to go had to stay behind in the school office with nothing to do. There was a Catholic primary school a few hundred metres away but sectarianism wasn't something I was at all aware of growing up in Sussex. Some Catholic kids went to the CofE primary and then Catholic secondary.

Sex education was even worse, only ever covered the most basic biological facts of puberty and pregnancy and STDs up until I left school at 13. Nothing at all about anything LGBT related even though Section 28 was repealed around the time I started secondary.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

I enjoyed RE cos it was basically a debating club - a proto Urban75!

was the cheese / beans question discussed, or is that considered too sensitive for schools?

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

When i was at School it was section 28 and homosexuality promoted as deviant. That was the tories, generations of harm to people. Couldn’t give a fuck what culture war bullshit they drag up in order to promote otherness. They are at the root of bullying and we really should be telling them to fuck off out of other peoples lives.
I called the Swedish customs out on LinkedIn for promoting their inclusivity on pride, I Pointed out the methods they employed on the border were exactly the same as the police employed when they provoked the stonewall riots so could they kindly get the fuck out of spaces they are NOT welcome.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Sex education was even worse, only ever covered the most basic biological facts of puberty and pregnancy and STDs up until I left school at 13. Nothing at all about anything LGBT related even though Section 28 was repealed around the time I started secondary.

Same for me. Don't remember a single word about homosexuality at all. Or sexuality for that matter, aside from maybe some stuff about arousal in biology class. I think all sex education, such as it was, came in biology class.

I'm older than you so this was pre-Section 28.

 

[cupid_stunt]

No problem with it being taught along the lines of understanding the broad outline of different faiths, customs etc

This is what we had in the late 70's, and that was a CoE school in a posh Surrey town, I assumed that was normal, but it seems not from posts on here.

 

[InArduisFouette]

This is what we had in the late 70's, and that was a CoE school in a posh Surrey town, I assumed that was normal, but it seems not from posts on here.

part of the problem is at itmes RE teaching has attracted the Religious and as it;s always been a bit of shortage of teachers but someothing required the applicants / cvancancies ratio has always been good, as if a school couldn;t appoijnt it would have to sdick other subject teachers of the Senior Management teachers to teach it

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Yes. I can't remember clearly what went on at 1970s ILEA primary school (in what was then a not very multi-cultural bit of SE London) - we had assembly most days which involved a hymn or two, and a bit of light C of E flavoured religion, we did things like a nativity play, and there was a carol service at the local C of E church, I can't remember how optional that was. I don't remember any kids opting out / waiting outside for any of it, but not entirely sure there were many (obvious) kids from other faiths there at that time.

At 1980s secondary school, kids who were non-Christian (presume they had to have a note from parent rather than just say so) had to wait outside assembly until after the hymns and all that stuff then walk in at the end for the head to do the information / notices / collective bollockings bit. We had RE for the first 2 or 3 years (think it was just one lesson a week) which was working through the Bible - the non-Christian kids were allowed to read or do their homework or something as long as they weren't obviously pissing about. We had maybe a few lessons towards the end of the last year that were 'comparative religion' which they did take part in, but I picked up a bit of a 'ok, we've done the real stuff, this is what those weird foreigners believe in' vibe from the teacher - not outright piss-taking, but it didn't seem to be taken all that seriously. i can't remember if it was even an option at O-level or not. I know I didn't do it.



Yes - I don't think there's anything wrong with letting kids know what the major faiths (and maybe some of the minor ones) believe / do, as well as exploring alternative views (within reason - maybe satanism might not go down well with the daily mail) but more about mutual understanding and respect rather than teaching that one particular religion / denomination of it is 'fact' or 'right'

Pretty much exactly the same. Although my junior school was C of E in name, my secondary wasn’t in name but was in practice.

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

Same for me. Don't remember a single word about homosexuality at all. Or sexuality for that matter, aside from maybe some stuff about arousal in biology class. I think all sex education, such as it was, came in biology class.

I'm older than you so this was pre-Section 28.

We asked our teacher if you could pregnant standing up in the shower. He blustered and said it was less possible. Or at least possible. And then told a story about when he lived in Canada about a moped he owned.

He did not mention the hsse aspects of having sex in the shower. Or the noise.
Which leads me to suspect he was probably not best suited to lead such a class.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Of course it had Catholic schools. I just don’t remember there being any us & them feelings. Protestants and Catholics were just two branches of Christianity

Yeah, there wasn’t. But both schools were aligned to Christianity, if not in name, and in the case of my secondary whilst pretending to be secular.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

I enjoyed RE cos it was basically a debating club - a proto Urban75!

I didn’t, because it made Muslims different. I obviously didn’t really care less at the time and was jealous that they were able to get out of RE and I couldn’t but in hindsight, how horrible must it have been to stand outside a classroom on your own because your religion wasn’t being taught?

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Same for me. Don't remember a single word about homosexuality at all. Or sexuality for that matter, aside from maybe some stuff about arousal in biology class. I think all sex education, such as it was, came in biology class.

I'm older than you so this was pre-Section 28.

I don’t remember any sex education classes at all. We cut open a dead rat in biology that was a bit yellow looking though. The rest was playground nods and winks and some awkward fumblings.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

I seem to be carpet bombing. Apols, I’ll bow out for a bit again.

 

[planetgeli]

None of you watched Living & Growing at school? I see London never picked it up until 1976 but we got it at junior school, aged 7 and 11.

Living and Growing - Broadcast for Schools.co.uk

''Living and Growing'' is an ITV and later Channel 4 schools TV series from the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, covering Sex Education for primary and secondary school pupils.

www.broadcastforschools.co.uk

All About Us: Living and Growing - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Magnus McGinty that says Tyne-Tees (presumably you?) was one of the first to pick it up (1968, yes I know you aren't that old, but presumably they kept showing it?)

Amazed Living & Growing hasn't had a mention. And no, it didn't discuss any sexuality other than hetero. It did show a baby being born, which was radical for those days.

 

[kabbes]

Our RE was bible studies. And our RE teacher believed and proclaimed frequently that God had come to him in a dream and told him to teach RE. We were a class of atheists, and he repeatedly told us all that we were going to make nothing of our lives and then go to Hell.

What I like about it now was that the detailed knowledge of the bible that I gained has served me well down the decades in (a) arguing with Christian fundamentalists; and (b) answering University Challenge questions.

 

[Orang Utan]

I didn’t, because it made Muslims different. I obviously didn’t really care less at the time and was jealous that they were able to get out of RE and I couldn’t but in hindsight, how horrible must it have been to stand outside a classroom on your own because your religion wasn’t being taught?

All religions were taught in RE at mine, so we didn’t have that. It was only assemblies that Muslims and Plymouth Brethren sat out cos that involved hymns n shit.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

None of you watched Living & Growing at school? I see London never picked it up until 1976 but we got it at junior school, aged 7 and 11.

Doesn't ring any bells with me.

Year above me got sex education (I was told there was a video involved) in last term at primary school.

My year didn't, and I got it in first year at secondary (boys only) school. It was one lesson in 'general science' and teacher (fairly young oxford graduate chemistry specialist) was fairly embarrassed about it (in hindsight, i'm not sure if he might have been closet gay or possibly asexual.) think he did something involving a condom and banana, but it's a long time ago now.

the idea of anything LGBTQ+ being mentioned at that time (bit before section 28) just doesn't compute.

 

[lazythursday]

None of you watched Living & Growing at school? I see London never picked it up until 1976 but we got it at junior school, aged 7 and 11.

Living and Growing - Broadcast for Schools.co.uk

''Living and Growing'' is an ITV and later Channel 4 schools TV series from the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, covering Sex Education for primary and secondary school pupils.

www.broadcastforschools.co.uk

All About Us: Living and Growing - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Magnus McGinty that says Tyne-Tees (presumably you?) was one of the first to pick it up (1968, yes I know you aren't that old, but presumably they kept showing it?)

Amazed Living & Growing hasn't had a mention. And no, it didn't discuss any sexuality other than hetero. It did show a baby being born, which was radical for those days.

Living and Growing was how I found out about sex - skiving off school aged about 8 or 9 and randomly watching schools programmes.

 

[nottsgirl]

I went to school during Section 28. It was pretty awful.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

And didn't we all turn out splendidly!

 

[Magnus McGinty]

I went to school during Section 28. It was pretty awful.

My mate’s brother is gay, in a very obviously camp kind of way. He got tortured at school. I don’t think he ever recovered from it. Never properly came out. Still lives at home with his mother who wouldn’t accept it either. Whilst his tormentors went on to live happy lives but I’m sure lose sleep over it in hindsight.

 

[Santino]

It was one lesson in 'general science' and teacher (fairly young oxford graduate chemistry specialist) was fairly embarrassed about it (in hindsight, i'm not sure if he might have been closet gay or possibly asexual.)

Seriously?

 

[Puddy_Tat]

Seriously?

obviously, i don't know and i wouldn't go any further than i have to identify him. but shall we say there tended to be some speculation about some of the teachers.

from the perspective of now, it really can't have been fun being a (closetted) gay teacher in that era. i'm fairly sure that an out gay teacher in the 80s wouldn't have been a teacher for very long. i was acquainted with a teacher somewhere else in the late 80s and after he got queerbashed he made every effort to explain to the old bill that it was a mugging (i can't remember the exact circumstances, but think someone else called the emergency services, otherwise he wouldn't have got old bill involved at all.)

And didn't we all turn out splendidly!

those of us who didn't try, or didn't 'succeed' with a suicide attempt as teenagers, then yes, maybe.

 

[InArduisFouette]

And didn't we all turn out splendidly!

other than those who attempted or succeeded in unaliving themselves?
those who were beaten repeatedly by bullies for being a 'nonce' and a school unwillingto do anything about it
other than those whose remaining closeted seriously damaged their mental health and/or caused them to resort to self medication with alcohol or illict drugs ...

 

[Rob Ray]

Not every comment needs to be a battleground, that was clearly a "gentle ribbing of the Urban community/of a certain age that we're all a bunch of weirdos" line.

 

[andysays]

Interesting story following my earlier post about the Pope's decision to allow priests to bless same-sex couples

Pope sees 'hypocrisy' in those who criticise LGBT blessings​

"Nobody gets scandalised if I give my blessings to a businessman who perhaps exploits people, and this is a very grave sin. But they get scandalised if I give them to a homosexual," Francis told Italian Catholic magazine Credere. "This is hypocrisy," he said.

Francis also said he "always" welcomes LGBT people and remarried divorcees to the sacrament of confession, according to another passage published by Vatican media. "No one should be denied a blessing. Everyone, everyone, everyone" the pontiff said.

 

[JimW]

Our RE was comparative religion, northern comprehensive early 80s. Sex ed was biological and taught in that class IIRC. Mum got us a quite good book about your changing body (title was something like that) but never sat us down for a talk. She and/or dad would probably have given it a go if we asked but that wasn't going to happen.

 

[Yossarian]

It shows just how fucked up the Catholic Church is that the pope can go around preaching that gay sex is a sin and gay couples should always remain chaste, but he's still being praised as tolerant because he's so much better than his predecessors

 

[smokedout]

Section 28 came in when I was 14 and I don't really remember it making any difference, although I didn't go to that many lessons by that age (truancy was largely ignored in my schools and informal exclusion fairly common, as in don't bother coming in any more but come back and take your exams if you want).

We did the mechanics of sex in biology, and I vaguely remember some life skills type lesson where they told us to use condoms and that Aids, pregnancy and drugs were bad, but like others have said, I don't remember LGB people being mentioned at all beyond fleeting references in discussions warning that heterosexuals could get Aids too. And I went to a large comprehensive with quite a lot of young lefty teachers. Which is worth remembering given Section 28 was brought in after a moral panic that claimed loony left teachers were carrying out a mass indoctrination programme to encourage children into a gay lifestyle.

 

[ven3u]

School defends LGBT lessons after religious parents complain

curious of what people make of this story. opens up some issues for those on the left as there appear to be a contradiction between progressive left/radical views and the religious beliefs of immigrant and ethnic minority parents as regards teaching LGBT issues in school.

Altho the above article is about Islam, there is similar story regarding the Haredi Jewish community and LGBT issues being taught.
Sex education rules could force Haredi Jews into home schooling

whatcha make of it?

i think really children should just be told that " these people exist, they are just like us, just a bit different, respect them ", and generally, most of the time, thats what happens, and i dont think making people aware is really that bad.

 

[likesfish]

apprantly that's a dangerous step on the path of the LGBT ideology .