No 'Him' or 'Her' in Preschool. Wait, what?

[Moonlight Butterfly]

A bit over the top yes, and I see how SOME fairy tales could reinforce stereotypes like girls are princesses to be saved men are heroes but they may have taken it to far.

There was a fairy tale when I was little called 'The Dancing Princess' or somthing where a King tasked someone to stop his daughter sneaking out and going dancing. In the end the lad, having tricked the girl, was given the princess to marry and , it actually said this, 'Then the princess was never allowed to leave the castle again.'

Now even as a little girl I could see that was complete bullshit although ofc at the time I had no idea of why it pissed me off so much. I recently saw the story on Jackanory with my baby neice and they had changed the ending which was very satisfactory.

Fairytales are notoriously sexist. It's ridiculous.

 

[Astoria]

And they wonder why kids are acting worse and worse. They are PRESCHOOLERS! They shouldn't be taught about homesexuality and adoption or anything like that until they start asking questions about it which probably won't be for years. Let kids be kids for heavens sake!

Lolwut? Why not teach kids about homosexuality and adoption? Are you afraid it's going to pollute their minds or something? We will never get true tolerance in our society until people are comfortable with homosexual couples from a young age. And maybe adopted children wouldn't have breakdowns when discovering that their birth parents are not the parents they know and love if adoption wasn't treated so differently from raising blood-related children.

I think the way to reach these goals is not to try and blind children so much that they don't know that "hen" is not a pronoun, however. That's just stupid.

And where exactly did I say don't teach about it? They are preschoolers. They don't care about homesexuals or any of that stuff yet all they care about is whether or not they get to play with their favourite toy or not. There is young and too young. Preschool is too young. Kids need to be allowed to just be kids for as long as they can be. The moment they start asking about it yes educate them but until then let them remain oblivious.

 

[Jonabob87]

Israelis tried it. Didn't work. Boys still like cars, girls still like make up. Those gender stereotypes have a basis in reality, you know.

They have a basis in the entirety of the child's learning environment. A child spends much more time at home than at school, and will pick up things from around the house. Kid sees dad working on the car and mom putting on makeup? Kid's a girl, going to emulate mom, kid's a boy going to emulate dad. There MAY be valid genetic differences in preference of one activity over another between genders, but it is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to extricate those from any environmental influence without a) committing atrocities in the name of science or b) ruining the experiment because humans are creatures of culture, and if raised sans culture are quite fundamentally different.

To counter that kids learn male/female behavior from their parent of the same gender, I was raised by my Mum and never met my Dad. I'm a gruff man with a beard who likes cigars and vodka and such.

It's my nature as a man, as a male, that causes this. Not what I was taught growing up.

 

[TK421]

This is so idiotic that I can barely articulate any thoughts on the subject. You can't teach anything through forced ignorance. Those children will receive a severe shock if they ever go to a real school, or when they are put into the real world.

 

[Infernai]

....I'll just use this picture to describe my reaction to this Stupidity(bonus points if you know where it's from):

 

[WayOutThere]

People please, creating a school like this does not mean denying their are differences between the sexes. They even say that at the end of the article. Some differences are biological but many, probably more, are creations of society. This school is meant to lessen the harmful differences society creates, not deny reality. This shouldn't be hard to understand.

 

[ultrachicken]

And they wonder why kids are acting worse and worse. They are PRESCHOOLERS! They shouldn't be taught about homesexuality and adoption or anything like that until they start asking questions about it which probably won't be for years. Let kids be kids for heavens sake!

Lolwut? Why not teach kids about homosexuality and adoption? Are you afraid it's going to pollute their minds or something? We will never get true tolerance in our society until people are comfortable with homosexual couples from a young age. And maybe adopted children wouldn't have breakdowns when discovering that their birth parents are not the parents they know and love if adoption wasn't treated so differently from raising blood-related children.

I think the way to reach these goals is not to try and blind children so much that they don't know that "hen" is not a pronoun, however. That's just stupid.

And where exactly did I say don't teach about it? They are preschoolers. They don't care about homesexuals or any of that stuff yet all they care about is whether or not they get to play with their favourite toy or not. There is young and too young. Preschool is too young. Kids need to be allowed to just be kids for as long as they can be. The moment they start asking about it yes educate them but until then let them remain oblivious.

I see I must repeat myself:

Why not teach kids about homosexuality and adoption? Are you afraid it's going to pollute their minds or something?

Nothing negative comes from teaching kids that these things exist. How, exactly, does knowing of homosexuality and adoption hamper children's ability to be children?

 

[SinisterGehe]

Instead of teaching the kids that people are different they are teaching that everyone is the same. Beside that can cause big issue to the children in future, not learning the basic skill of our culture, it will cripple the children mentally, they will get bullied till bring of suicide in school.

Educated children! Do not force children to accept any role, this is what they are doing. They aren't teaching children about role free society, they are forcing the children to accept one and the same role!

Beside, you can't force change changes in to language culture like that. If you have a word for a woman and for a male that represent the defining meta idea of the gender, it has nothing to do with equality. Just like me being Finnish - it represents the idea of me being a person who's nationality and/or origin is Finland, I am just as equal as someone who identity is tied to the word American.

This is stupidity! Our language doesn't cause inequality, it is the way we talk about them. We use words like him/her to define who we are talking about, him being used as description to someone who unknown also. What they are doing is teaching the children to speak incorrect Swedish. In Finnish we have only one word for Him/Her (Hän) and it doesn't cause in equality amongst us. This is like Fundamentalist religion, removing the personal identity from people in order to achieve something. If these children can not taught to define them selfs how are they expected to live in this society?

This is horrible, almost child abuse. I am sure that even feminists would agree with this. This is a organized facility to remove personal identity from the children. And beside if person wants to hate specific people or groups, they can and will hate them.

This is stupidity.

 

[Jonabob87]

And they wonder why kids are acting worse and worse. They are PRESCHOOLERS! They shouldn't be taught about homesexuality and adoption or anything like that until they start asking questions about it which probably won't be for years. Let kids be kids for heavens sake!

Lolwut? Why not teach kids about homosexuality and adoption? Are you afraid it's going to pollute their minds or something? We will never get true tolerance in our society until people are comfortable with homosexual couples from a young age. And maybe adopted children wouldn't have breakdowns when discovering that their birth parents are not the parents they know and love if adoption wasn't treated so differently from raising blood-related children.

I think the way to reach these goals is not to try and blind children so much that they don't know that "hen" is not a pronoun, however. That's just stupid.

And where exactly did I say don't teach about it? They are preschoolers. They don't care about homesexuals or any of that stuff yet all they care about is whether or not they get to play with their favourite toy or not. There is young and too young. Preschool is too young. Kids need to be allowed to just be kids for as long as they can be. The moment they start asking about it yes educate them but until then let them remain oblivious.

I see I must repeat myself:

Why not teach kids about homosexuality and adoption? Are you afraid it's going to pollute their minds or something?

Nothing negative comes from teaching kids that these things exist. How, exactly, does knowing of homosexuality and adoption hamper children's ability to be children?

Because if you teach a child about homosexuality before they know what sexuality is then you have to explain sexuality and a child does NOT need to know about sex until later in life.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

In short? It's retarded.

This is not about "democracy and equality". This is just stupid.

There are some significant differences between men and women, boys and girls, and trying to pretend otherwise is nonsense. "Equality" is great, not treating people as inferior because of gender is great, but there are still TWO DIFFERENT DAMN GENDERS!

More than 2. Even talking in a purely chromosomal sense, there are people who have more than the regular number of sex chromosomes. Even talking in a purely physical sense, there are people who were born with both sets of genitalia. In a cultural sense, there are even more genders than that. There are differences with everyone, and most of the problem is in the idea that there are ONLY 2 different genders.

I have always liked what people consider as 'male' things. I'm straight though. It is really actually very hard for me as I don't really 'fit in' anywhere. Girls thinks I'm wierd for liking computer games, comics and technology and while men treat me okay I'll never be 'one of the guys' and invited on nights out and such.

If gender stereotypes weren't there I would have had an easier time of it when I was younger I think.

I remember once I got beaten up because I didn't like boybands and was therefore considered 'gay' and wierd.

 

[joemoben]

this seems like a pretty terrible idea all in all. i was raised in a traditional school and am not biased at all against homosexuality and im not a gender biased person in fact i know a few people that i grew up with that ended up being either gay or swinging both ways. the legos near the kitchen is a pretty good idea, books that have homosexuality is a great idea but almost all the books isn't. the whole hen idea is ridiculous and i don't see why they are freaking out about this in such a heavy way i mean yeah a huge amount of the population is heterosexual but that's mostly human hormones which is how we were created either from god or from simple evolution. all in all it seems that they are trying to repress children from being heterosexual. they're going overboard however there are some good ideas in this

 

[Astoria]

And they wonder why kids are acting worse and worse. They are PRESCHOOLERS! They shouldn't be taught about homesexuality and adoption or anything like that until they start asking questions about it which probably won't be for years. Let kids be kids for heavens sake!

Lolwut? Why not teach kids about homosexuality and adoption? Are you afraid it's going to pollute their minds or something? We will never get true tolerance in our society until people are comfortable with homosexual couples from a young age. And maybe adopted children wouldn't have breakdowns when discovering that their birth parents are not the parents they know and love if adoption wasn't treated so differently from raising blood-related children.

I think the way to reach these goals is not to try and blind children so much that they don't know that "hen" is not a pronoun, however. That's just stupid.

And where exactly did I say don't teach about it? They are preschoolers. They don't care about homesexuals or any of that stuff yet all they care about is whether or not they get to play with their favourite toy or not. There is young and too young. Preschool is too young. Kids need to be allowed to just be kids for as long as they can be. The moment they start asking about it yes educate them but until then let them remain oblivious.

I see I must repeat myself:

Why not teach kids about homosexuality and adoption? Are you afraid it's going to pollute their minds or something?

Nothing negative comes from teaching kids that these things exist. How, exactly, does knowing of homosexuality and adoption hamper children's ability to be children?

Because if you teach a child about homosexuality before they know what sexuality is then you have to explain sexuality and a child does NOT need to know about sex until later in life.

This and I also repeat that THEY DON'T CARE. They aren't really going to listen anyway and if they do you get the problems stated above. Kids should be allowed to remain innocent and oblivious for as long as possible. I wish I could've been ignorant longer. I have nothing against homesexuals if that's what you were suggesting before. I am all for acception but teaching kids that young is not the way to do it. And how can they be accepting anyway when they are being raised in a society that is still iffy on the whole thing. Wait until they are older and can understand and form their own opinion on the matter or its going to either be a waste of time or a mistake.

 

[ultrachicken]

And they wonder why kids are acting worse and worse. They are PRESCHOOLERS! They shouldn't be taught about homesexuality and adoption or anything like that until they start asking questions about it which probably won't be for years. Let kids be kids for heavens sake!

Lolwut? Why not teach kids about homosexuality and adoption? Are you afraid it's going to pollute their minds or something? We will never get true tolerance in our society until people are comfortable with homosexual couples from a young age. And maybe adopted children wouldn't have breakdowns when discovering that their birth parents are not the parents they know and love if adoption wasn't treated so differently from raising blood-related children.

I think the way to reach these goals is not to try and blind children so much that they don't know that "hen" is not a pronoun, however. That's just stupid.

And where exactly did I say don't teach about it? They are preschoolers. They don't care about homesexuals or any of that stuff yet all they care about is whether or not they get to play with their favourite toy or not. There is young and too young. Preschool is too young. Kids need to be allowed to just be kids for as long as they can be. The moment they start asking about it yes educate them but until then let them remain oblivious.

I see I must repeat myself:

Why not teach kids about homosexuality and adoption? Are you afraid it's going to pollute their minds or something?

Nothing negative comes from teaching kids that these things exist. How, exactly, does knowing of homosexuality and adoption hamper children's ability to be children?

Because if you teach a child about homosexuality before they know what sexuality is then you have to explain sexuality and a child does NOT need to know about sex until later in life.

I don't think that showing two people of the same gender in a situation the same as, or similar to, marriage, translates to teaching children about sex. Otherwise we'd need to hide the existence of marriage in its entirety.

 

[WayOutThere]

So, practically i don't see it working.

It's still useful for them to have experienced such an enviornment. Intervention from an early age is important so they won't grow up thinking of this kind of diversity as freakish. If they grow up thinking that the belief becomes much harder to correct.

You can't teach anything through forced ignorance.

Admitedly it doesn't sound like they're making it clear the enviornment of the school is unusual. However there is no reason why this concept must be executed in such a way as the keep the children ignorant.

 

[SinisterGehe]

I'm Swedish and I can honestly say I don't quite know where I stand on this. Part of me goes, "Intriguing!" Another part of me goes, "But biology!"

I suppose we'll just have to wait and see how this turns out.

PS. Even though I've always been against the use of "hen" - mostly because the people I've heard advocating it wanted to use it to the exclusion of "han/hon" - I do find the idea of a non-specific gender pronoun in singular form interesting. Hmmm...

Well, look for it no longer. The Finnish language has always had a jewel like this. "Hän" is our word for He/she, "Hänen" Him/Her, an so forth. It is totally neutral word.

It is possible but it can not be forced. Finnish has always had this, we are lucky with that. But trying to force thousands or years of language culture to change in matter of generation to achieve forced equality is stupid.

 

[DementedSheep]

Yeah they are over doing it a bit. There is nothing wrong with showing things like snow white. If you?re going to worry about influencing you kids with that sort of thing you should be trying to show a buffet of different roles and trying not to constantly reinforce the same stereotype instead of just not showing the ?traditional? one at all. Kind of reminds me of the extreme feminists who go off at woman who actual want to stay home and look after the kids. Tho I may be misinterpreting it. Not referring to them as ?him? or ?her? seems a bit pedantic.

 

[trollnystan]

Snip

Well, look for it no longer. The Finnish language has always had a jewel like this. "Hän" is our word for He/she, "Hänen" Him/Her, an so forth. It is totally neutral word.

It is possible but it can not be forced. Finnish has always had this, we are lucky with that. But trying to force thousands or years of language culture to change in matter of generation to achieve forced equality is stupid.

Chalk up another point in favour of Finland winning the crown of awesome =)

And yes, trying to force a change in one generation is stupid. But language evolves and hopefully it will eventually come up with a word similar to Finnish "hän" in both English and Swedish. And that evolution has to start somewhere I suppose.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

"What happened to your pee-pee?"

That is all.

 

[Timmehexas]

The books on homosexuality are certainly a good idea, limiting your child's knowledge of the world will never help them. The whole removing him and her, thing and all that I'm a bit iffy about, it seems a bit excessive and doesn't really seem to limit gender roles in my opinion but hey we can only learn by experimenting.

 

[AnneSQF]

I love the idea, but as mentioned in previous posts: Preschool should be preparing kids for the real world and SADLY the world doesn't look like that. But I would love if it was.