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

LiquidGrape

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I don't see what the problem is. Did most of you even read the article?

...Egalia doesn't deny the biological differences between boys and girls - the dolls the children play with are anatomically correct.

What matters is that children understand that their biological differences "don't mean boys and girls have different interests and abilities," Rajalin says. "This is about democracy. About human equality."
Honestly, some of you people act as if this was a stepping stone to a fascist society or something.
What is being challenged by this approach is the heteronormative gender, and I say rightly so. Nobody is somehow trying to usurp the biological sex of these children.
 

Amizrael

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This makes me want to go back and read those books I found detailing the differences between the male and female human brain. Then I could provide some useful insight into this conversation other than to say that males and females have very different neurochemistry an therefore very thought processes.

In any case, it is an interesting human experiment. I hope the children never suffer for it, and I hope the parents never forgive themselves if they do.
 

kikon9

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It's not really fair if they only have books that reinforce homosexual marriages.
 

LiquidGrape

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kikon9 said:
It's not really fair if they only have books that reinforce homosexual marriages.
Yes, because every-day examples of heterosexual marriages are so hard to come by.

Eh...sorry if that came across as snippy. But really, that isn't an issue.
 

TheLoneBeet

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Canid117 said:
So they decide to increase equality by including books and stories about gay couples single parents and orphans? Sounds fine to me. Wait they are also removing the stories about straight couples raising and nuclear families? Yay equality! [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SarcasmMode]
This was my concern. If they never learn about straight couples raising nuclear families then won't they grow up to have no faith in their marriages? Or maybe they won't even consider marriage at all?
 

kikon9

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LiquidGrape said:
kikon9 said:
It's not really fair if they only have books that reinforce homosexual marriages.
Yes, because every-day examples of heterosexual marriages are so hard to come by.

Eh...sorry if that came across as snippy. But really, that isn't an issue.
Well, no, it's just that kids don't really notice day to day examples, I know I didn't. Besides, I don't see why they can't have a few of each.
 

TraumaHound

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In relation to what toys kids prefer, as the father of a nearly 12-year-old daughter (and a son who's nearly 6) I can say I've been continually irritated with fast food joints (McDonald's is the primary offender here) for asking whether the Happy Meal I'd just ordered is for a boy or a girl. My daughter has loved playing with Hot Wheels, action figures, and LEGO (since when is LEGO gender-biased anyway? They're building-block toys!) her whole life, passing by the "traditional girl-focused" toys like Barbie, princesses and such. I'd look the McDonald's employee in the eys and say "my daughter would like the Hot Wheels" to which I'd only receive a hollow stare in return as the "boy" button was pressed on the register.

On the other side of that, my son, when he was in pre-school, favored playing in the play-kitchen because there were so many bits and pieces to it, same with the "drama" section where the kids had costumes and props to help them pretend to be all sorts of things.

With both of my children, neither have been discouraged to like or dislike any sort of thing based strictly on the gender-bias that's been imposed on it. I don't think removing he/she pronouns is necessarily the way to do as that's just confusing the children with substitute words. They're kids, just let them play and find their own ways of being entertained with whatever they find interesting and fun.
 

not-sid

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I agree this just seems stupid to me and, if it gets worse, could prove to be a real issue in the future when they get older.
 

Schadrach

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Hero in a half shell said:
When you name your school "Equality School" That is the first sign that whatever is going on inside does not equality make.
They even try to get rid of the words "him" & "her" (han/hon in swedish) and replace it with a made-up word. That is not breaking down gender stereotypes, that is just being unreasonable. What will happen to these children when they get older and realize that there is no subject term called "hen" in the real world.
Does this remind anyone else of "Ingsoc" from 1984? Getting rid of the words that people use to express themselves negatively, with the aim that they can no longer express dissatisfaction at the ruling state. The reason we use 'him' and 'her' are because they give us a good idea of who we are talking about, of who to expect coming through the door. It is descriptive, specific language designed to produce a mental picture. Making this description more vague is a step backwards.

And the library books virtually all proposing minority ideals, that is not gender equality, it is gender bias. If you want equality you need to have "Jim and Tim bake a cake" alongside "Jim and Tim have a swordfight", not replacing it.
The use of "hen" in Swedish is analogous to "hir", "zie", or "xie" in English -- it's a word invented and espoused by the LGBT community (particularly the "T"rans part of that) to function as a non-gendered pronoun in a language that doesn't have such a thing otherwise.

As for the library, I just can't wait until one of these kids comes home and asks "Why is our family so weird? I have a mom and a dad, none of the families in the books at my school are like that."
 

LiquidGrape

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kikon9 said:
LiquidGrape said:
kikon9 said:
It's not really fair if they only have books that reinforce homosexual marriages.
Yes, because every-day examples of heterosexual marriages are so hard to come by.

Eh...sorry if that came across as snippy. But really, that isn't an issue.
Well, no, it's just that kids don't really notice day to day examples, I know I didn't. Besides, I don't see why they can't have a few of each.
Well, I'm guessing a vast majority of the children at the preschool do have heterosexual parents, and that is why they opt for instructing about the other prevalent family and pairing structures.

As for prefering if they had a few of each, I can definitely understand that. I simply believe the school, like myself, reason that the children aren't exactly lacking in exposure to the more traditional makeup as it is.
 

cobra_ky

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Jangles said:
What the creepy ass preschool is doing: Attempting to ignore something which governs who we are. Genetically, hormonally, reproductively, and socially.

There have been many experiments in which the participants ( usually volunteered by their parents) have been isolated, or manipulated into thinking that they are of the opposite gender. Even to the extent where they have had other genitals implanted onto their bodies. Despite these manipulations, however, they have had extreme identity crises because their bodies tell them they are a male, while the lab made them grow up as femlaes, for example.

Thus proving that all gender roles are not dictated by society, but also by your body's and your brain's natural functions.

The "school" is ignoring this fact completely, and a lot of kids are going to have unnecessarily hard lives because of it.
and there have been plenty of people who weren't isolated or manipulated at all who suffer those same identity crises, because society told them that weird thing in their pants defined what their gender should be. the correlation between genitalia and gender identity is not absolute, and it's harmful to pretend it is.

Mimsofthedawg said:
cobra_ky said:
Mimsofthedawg said:
I am NOT just saying this to disagree. I actually see Cinderella as the opposite. That they shouldn't just aspire to clean and all that stuff, but should in fact aspire to break free from the oppressive chains that hold them back, and fight to make their dreams come true no matter what those dreams may be (a peasant woman marrying a prince? Like that'd happen!). I think it's an awesome story (not that children would analyze it this way anyways...).
when did Cinderella fight for anything? a magic lady pops out of nowhere and hands her everything she needs. What exactly does Cinderella teach girls to aspire to? Magical thinking and a literal Prince Charming?
it teaches them to have faith, even when things seem hopeless and beyond your control.
that sounds like something that should be taught in churches. that's not necessarily a message i want my children learning. i want them to believe in themselves, to find things they can have control over, and reach for them.
 

Flauros

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Generic Gamer said:
Flauros said:
My sons bilingual. People tell me that will make him smarter, not talk gibberish when he grows up.
Umm...sorry but I don't understand. I'm not talking about having two languages, I'm talking about substituting a word for another when teaching children their language. It's roughly the same thing as teaching them that a dog is called a 'sneerp', all it'll do is render them disadvantaged when they go to a pet shop. Well teaching them a made-up gender term will just cause people to not quite understand what they're talking about. Or to be insulted of course, I've never found a woman that liked being called 'it'.

Whilst your child will ahve two functional languages these children will have been incorrectly taught a language.
Bilingual means substituting words with other words. They simply wont say it when its not necessary, just like when my son speaks english when its english time.

You realize were not talking about a training facility or the the Truman Show. Its daycare. Where kids play for a couple of hours before theyre picked up again. Saying the place is bad because it has a new WORD is.....wow.

I bet all the kids who say PONG or SNAGGLEPUSS or JESUS are just totally screwed. Its a word. People use gender-neutral words all the time, believe it or not. THEY is a common one.
 

Enrathi

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Biodeamon said:
whenever somebody tries to censor something it just makes it worse.

And censoring a word like "him" or "her", what is this the book 1984?! next thing you know we'll be only using the words "good" "double good" and "bad" and "double bad"...
cookie for who knows what i'm talking about
Except there was no bad, it was ungood.

EDIT: And ultimately, the end goal for Newspeak was for there to ultimately be one word: party (and its opposite unparty) to describe everything.
 

The Lugz

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looking at that at face value, it's no wonder children are so messed up these days
what ever happened to story's being a distraction and educational tool, now they're some social interfacing device?

bricks and food ? i don't even see the link there, seriously what ?

also, more baby-talk? at schools ? the world is going backwards.
i pity the poor parents who will have to fix that mess later
 

LiquidGrape

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veloper said:
Scandinavia seems more and more like a Vault-tec experiment on a massive scale.

In this fun experiment we'll take the big bad Vikings then turn these people into the weakest pussies the world has ever known, through the marvel of social engineering.
1. Sweden, because it is Sweden we are discussing here, never had many vikings. It's primarily been a country of trade and agriculture.

2. What you are saying is very, very silly.
 

veloper

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LiquidGrape said:
veloper said:
Scandinavia seems more and more like a Vault-tec experiment on a massive scale.

In this fun experiment we'll take the big bad Vikings then turn these people into the weakest pussies the world has ever known, through the marvel of social engineering.
1. Sweden, because it is Sweden we are discussing here, never had many vikings. It's primarily been a country of trade and agriculture.

2. What you are saying is very, very silly.
Similar PC crap is going on in Norway and even to a lesser extent in Denmark.

You need to teach boys to be strong.
 

galdon2004

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I do believe they are doing it wrong; they shouldn't enforce neutrality or cram girly things down boy's throats and boyish things down girls throats to be 'fair' what they need to do is provide the options for the child to choose -on their own- and promote a feeling that whichever toy they choose is perfectly normal to play with regardless of gender.

Trying to force children to fit a neutral mold will not nurture children to discover their own identity. Especially if a kid wants to play kitchen and doesn't like all those legos in the way but has to put up with them because the adults think legos belong in the kitchen.
 

Cavouku

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Seems we have something bordering on a divide on this topic amongst the community.

I agree with the core idea: Let them decide who they are. And I agree with those saying we should educate them about differences, both real and perceived, to prepare them for real life. But yeah, I can see how this is a bit much.

I don't know if they're actually banning the use of stick-swords just because it's masculine, and I hope not. See, even if it's just the boys doing it, they made the decision to be the person who uses the stick sword. More so, I'm hoping the focus is in making them accept when a girl wants to play stick swords too, or if a guy wants to play in the kitchen.

I mean, that's what they're doing right? Is it? It's a bit vague at the moment, and It'd be great if someone kept tabs on this, because an update in the future might help. For now, I'm going to hope that what they're doing is making an environment that allows exceptions, not eliminates them by eliminating the consistents.