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Dear California: Thank You for Thinking of the Children

source: lgbtqnation.com

Lately, it seems like any news is bad news. It’s as though we’ve been taking huge leaps backwards with no regard for the progress that we’re erasing. Thankfully, California seems to have decided to be our ray of sunshine during this nasty storm.

Last Thursday, the California State Board of Education unanimously voted on a History and Social Science Framework that includes a “study of the roles of contribution” of minority groups including LGBT+ Americans. Not only this, but the framework will actually be introduced as early as in second grade according to attn.com. Second graders will learn about different kinds of families, including ones with two moms or two dads. As they get older, kids will also learn about gender norms and roles in the 18th and 19th centuries and people who flouted them. High school students will learn about more recent developments, including marriage equality and transgender bathroom bills.

Now, allow me to explain why this is great. Children will be taught from an early age to see that people who are different from them are their equals. Wait, what? California is going to be teaching children that humans are more than their sexuality? As though it were some simple concept that literal children can understand perfectly? Yes! You know what, though? It gets even better!

The very existence of this framework “allows all students to think critically and expansively about how that past relates to the present and future roles that they can play in an inclusive and respectful society as said by Equality California on their press release regarding the matter. You see, the constant presence of a framework that acknowledges and celebrates the contributions of LGBTQ individuals throughout our school years would also help when it’s time to figure out who we are.

Think about it. Right now, the public school system in the country isn’t the safest place for LGBT+ youth. In fact, Human Rights Campaign statistics show that LGBT+ youth are twice as likely to say that they’ve been physically assaulted, kicked, or shoved at school when compared to their peers. LGBT+ youth experience such bad conditions at school that the CDC has a section on their webpage dedicated to highlighting what schools can do to avoid bullying. This could all be stopped by educating children to see one another as equals from an early age.

In some states, public school teachers are required to talk about LGBT+ people in negative ways. California’s new law bans anti-LGBT+ messages in classrooms. By implementing the new History and Social Science framework, California schools will probably see a decrease in their rates of bullying, depression, and suicidal students in a few years. Not only will this change help educate children on key moments in history, it will also create an open and positive community where LGBT+ youth will feel less pressure to hide.

So to the  California State Board of Education: you just made a great advancement. Thank you for listening. Thank you for caring. Thank you for taking a step towards making classrooms more accepting environments. Finally, thank you for thinking of the children.

 

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