"The law —is vague enough that it opens the possibility for parents to complain even if a gay teacher mentions his husband in passing" Frankly, a Teacher's personal life should be unknown to all students in Elementary School. "South Park" ( the cartoon show) does a running Elementary Teacher character who talks incessantly about his r…
"The law —is vague enough that it opens the possibility for parents to complain even if a gay teacher mentions his husband in passing" Frankly, a Teacher's personal life should be unknown to all students in Elementary School. "South Park" ( the cartoon show) does a running Elementary Teacher character who talks incessantly about his relationship to "Mr Slave" (leather clad gay) and others. Cringeworthy but spot on !!!! Teachers need to keep their personal life and opinions out of school. Narcissists........and in Philly they have a 50 year reign of failure.
When I was in 2nd grade back in the 1960s, my teacher’s name changed from Miss Jones to Mrs. Smith because, we were told, she got married. That was as close as I ever got to a teacher’s personal life, in 12 years of school. And I do not recall ever wanting to know anything else about my teachers. Certainly it would have been really weird and inappropriate for them to discuss their sexuality... just as it still is today.
As many others have mentioned, I was utterly unaware of the personal lives of most of my teachers. The difference between Miss and Mrs signaled nothing more than whether a female teacher was married; our teachers simply did not mention their spouses. There was a level of professionalism that kept talk of anything personal out of the workplace. Our fifth grade teacher was absent for extended periods of time due to illness, but we students were never told what that illness was (I suspected cancer, but we were simply NOT told).
I suspect that a lot of the pushback against this law is related to the fact that professionalism is no longer practiced in the field of education. It's not at all uncommon for teachers to insist that their students address them by their given name instead of their surname. Nor is it uncommon for teachers to dress extremely casually in the classroom. It follows that teachers would, indeed, talk about their personal lives with their students.
"The law —is vague enough that it opens the possibility for parents to complain even if a gay teacher mentions his husband in passing" Frankly, a Teacher's personal life should be unknown to all students in Elementary School. "South Park" ( the cartoon show) does a running Elementary Teacher character who talks incessantly about his relationship to "Mr Slave" (leather clad gay) and others. Cringeworthy but spot on !!!! Teachers need to keep their personal life and opinions out of school. Narcissists........and in Philly they have a 50 year reign of failure.
When I was in 2nd grade back in the 1960s, my teacher’s name changed from Miss Jones to Mrs. Smith because, we were told, she got married. That was as close as I ever got to a teacher’s personal life, in 12 years of school. And I do not recall ever wanting to know anything else about my teachers. Certainly it would have been really weird and inappropriate for them to discuss their sexuality... just as it still is today.
As many others have mentioned, I was utterly unaware of the personal lives of most of my teachers. The difference between Miss and Mrs signaled nothing more than whether a female teacher was married; our teachers simply did not mention their spouses. There was a level of professionalism that kept talk of anything personal out of the workplace. Our fifth grade teacher was absent for extended periods of time due to illness, but we students were never told what that illness was (I suspected cancer, but we were simply NOT told).
I suspect that a lot of the pushback against this law is related to the fact that professionalism is no longer practiced in the field of education. It's not at all uncommon for teachers to insist that their students address them by their given name instead of their surname. Nor is it uncommon for teachers to dress extremely casually in the classroom. It follows that teachers would, indeed, talk about their personal lives with their students.