4-6th graders FLE all genders together and more

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Keeping kids together will ensure they don't ask the questions they need to

- parent of a 4th and 6th grader, plus a few other younger grades.

I'm sure the girls puberty and menstruation sessions will be great with all the boys present.

The more of a big deal you make it, the more of a big deal it becomes.

Do you think you can find a class of firth grade girls anywhere in the county where the majority are comfortable discussing menstruation with boys? Maybe one or two per class, but not anywhere close tho the majority. If they don't want girls to be able to freely ask questions, just cancel the class

The teacher sets the tone and can easily provide opportunities for all kids to safely, anonymously ask questions.

The kids you teach kids that these are taboo topics the more they believe you.

[Anonymous]

^ The *more* you teach kids that these are taboo topics the more they believe you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Research has shown that when girls are with all girls, they are more confident and willing to ask questions. That’s what all girls’ schools have shown.

Girls don't matter anymore. Who would have thought it would be the left to discount them?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Why shouldn't they combine everybody? Should only girls know about stuff?

+1

We were never separated out back in the 80s.

+2
Same here...and I was embarrassed to ask a question about period blood in front of other girls, there would be no way I'd have the courage to ask (or even write it down) a TMI question in front of boys.

But they can at least teach basics. Overall this is going to make people a *lot* more knowledgeable.

Can't they teach the "basics" in separated genders? That way, specific questions and details pertaining to gender can be discussed.

No questions are asked spontaneously. All questions are written down and vetted first by the teacher. You won’t have a girl embarrassed to ask a question in front of classmates about her period because won’t happen. There’s no reason to separate by gender. As another PP noted, you don’t separate for any other subjects.

They have the option to write them down, plenty ask in front of their peers by raising their hand.

Not in the FCPS elementary school where I teach. I’ve been teaching FLE for over 10 years at 5th and 6th grade. We teach the kids to write down their questions. It’s not that difficult. If a kid raises their hand, I simply don’t answer. I say, “I see your hand is up. You can write down your question and we’ll review them.”

I also have been teaching FLE for over 10 years, some write down their questions and some ask. Either way is accepted. It’s not that difficult.

Correct. And if boys and girls are combined, no one will raise their hand anymore or feel safe. This is outrageous.

What’s outrageous is your faux outrage and lack of basic comprehension skills. ALL STUDENTS CAN WRITE THEIR QUESTIONS ANONYMOUSLY. No one is stopping anyone from asking anything. All the kids are given blank notecards. They write questions. The cards are collected. Questions get answered. No one knows whether a boy or girl asked it.

Faux outrage is correct.

I thought FCPS was an educated area. What is with all of these ass-backwards parents and teachers? Are they even from FCPS? Might be outside agitators trying to stir up trouble.

No, not everyone is post-gender like you. Most of us are modest and are embarrassed by embarrassing things.

All learned behaviors. Stop teaching your kids to be embarrassed.

+1
I’ve posted a few times earlier in this thread. This doesn’t need to be an embarrassing topic.

ES Teacher

Nope. My kids grew up in an household where we openly discussed. Fast forward towards the tween years and it didn’t matter. They were embarrassed and reading about puberty in a book or talking about and it suddenly happening to you is a whole different thing. They suddenly became more private and embarrassed and yes around their friends and at school they were more embarrassed and didn’t talk openly. It’s actually developmental and not something you can “parent” out of a child.

This. I grew up in a very open household. I knew all of this stuff. But, most of these kids don’t come from households that talk openly. You can tell with the types of questions they ask. I have a lot of gripes about FLE. It takes away from instructional time for a full week. There are so many things we cannot answer, which is dumb if the county wants to do this for equity purposes. If they truly want to do this, then we should be able to talk about same sex relationships, other ways to have babies(ivf,surrogacy), etc. I get more questions about these things and we cannot answer them. I personally think it is a huge mistake combining ES grades. Most adults are not embarrassed but the kids are. If a book has any romance in it, some kids get embarrassed. It is part of life. The majority of northern VA does not do mixed for ES grades. What will end up happening is there will be a large influx of parents opting out and the schools won’t have anyone to watch them when 10 kids from each class stay to be educated on this stuff. It will be a waste of instructional time.

Hell no.

In my 15 years of teaching ES FLE, the question(s) I get most often are: how do I insert a tampon? how do I prevent pregnancy? does it hurt to have sex? does it hurt to have a baby? and do I have to have a baby? These are the things girls care about. I can’t say a lot in regards to this, so I doubt IVF and surrogacy will be covered soon.

Every year we get questions about same sex relationships and how they have babies.

They don’t together in a biological way. Hopefully that’s a pretty clear teaching point.

In many ES grades, we aren’t even allowed to answer this question.

That is the point. If we cannot be open about this topic and answer, then why do people think it is ok to combine children and teach them explicit content that is sensitive. Looking at a diagram of a penis is uncomfortable for 10 and 11 year olds.

Nope. We shouldn’t cater to the religious nutters. Let them opt-out. Or homeschool/brainwash their kids at home.

We should not cater to the chdless leftist activists that don't seem to know anything about child development and do not have the children's best interests in mind.

If you are a political activist trying to indoctrinate children, get the heck out of the schools.

I have kids in elementary and middle. You can keep your religious nuttery to yourself, thanks.

Sure you do.

No one is buying that.

I do. The big difference here is that I’m not a religious nutter who wants to push backwards ideas on my kids.

Menstruation happens.
Erections happen.

It’s ok to talk about them with anyone, regardless of gender.

No it’s not. Each child can decide who he/she is comfortable with and not be forced to talk about it with the opposite sex. Do you think it’s a good idea for boys to go up to girls and say I’m getting erections? This could be considered sexual harassment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Boys and girls are in class together all day and *still* are embarrassed to talk to or about the opposite sex. Its a part of growing up. The insistence that throwing kids together for FLE will magically make them not embarrassed is silly.

Separating them will only reinforce that they should be embarrassed.

Or maybe it promotes a safe space to ask questions.

It is about creating a place where ALL kids feel safe to ask questions and not judge. All of the parents on here clamoring how this is no big deal, clearly should be asking teachers what teaching FLE is like. Every year is different and maturity levels are different. This year was awful, maturity wise. I could barely get through the slides. The questions we get are very clear parents are NOT speaking to their kids about this stuff at home. My girls would have cringed and sat silent if they were with the boys this year.

I agree kids should feel safe with all genders. I’m the PP and a teacher as well, these students are not ready to ask these questions with opposite genders present, as you already stated.

[Anonymous]

Girls don't matter anymore. Who would have thought it would be the left to discount them?

I had the same thought yesterday. My daughters and I watched Mean Girls yesterday afternoon, which was based on the book Queen Bees and Wannabes, and I remembered all of the books that were dedicated to developing girls and making sure they don't form toxic friendships and lose confidence. That concern is gone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Girls don't matter anymore. Who would have thought it would be the left to discount them?

I had the same thought yesterday. My daughters and I watched Mean Girls yesterday afternoon, which was based on the book Queen Bees and Wannabes, and I remembered all of the books that were dedicated to developing girls and making sure they don't form toxic friendships and lose confidence. That concern is gone.

+1 it’s all about trans kids now.

[Anonymous]

If this change is truly about trans kids, why not keep the groups separate but let them do the lesson with the gender they identify with? If both groups are given the same information they can still ask about periods or whatever else if needed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why shouldn't they combine everybody? Should only girls know about stuff?

+1

We were never separated out back in the 80s.

+2
Same here...and I was embarrassed to ask a question about period blood in front of other girls, there would be no way I'd have the courage to ask (or even write it down) a TMI question in front of boys.

But they can at least teach basics. Overall this is going to make people a *lot* more knowledgeable.

Can't they teach the "basics" in separated genders? That way, specific questions and details pertaining to gender can be discussed.

No questions are asked spontaneously. All questions are written down and vetted first by the teacher. You won’t have a girl embarrassed to ask a question in front of classmates about her period because won’t happen. There’s no reason to separate by gender. As another PP noted, you don’t separate for any other subjects.

They have the option to write them down, plenty ask in front of their peers by raising their hand.

Not in the FCPS elementary school where I teach. I’ve been teaching FLE for over 10 years at 5th and 6th grade. We teach the kids to write down their questions. It’s not that difficult. If a kid raises their hand, I simply don’t answer. I say, “I see your hand is up. You can write down your question and we’ll review them.”

I also have been teaching FLE for over 10 years, some write down their questions and some ask. Either way is accepted. It’s not that difficult.

Correct. And if boys and girls are combined, no one will raise their hand anymore or feel safe. This is outrageous.

What’s outrageous is your faux outrage and lack of basic comprehension skills. ALL STUDENTS CAN WRITE THEIR QUESTIONS ANONYMOUSLY. No one is stopping anyone from asking anything. All the kids are given blank notecards. They write questions. The cards are collected. Questions get answered. No one knows whether a boy or girl asked it.

Faux outrage is correct.

I thought FCPS was an educated area. What is with all of these ass-backwards parents and teachers? Are they even from FCPS? Might be outside agitators trying to stir up trouble.

No, not everyone is post-gender like you. Most of us are modest and are embarrassed by embarrassing things.

All learned behaviors. Stop teaching your kids to be embarrassed.

+1
I’ve posted a few times earlier in this thread. This doesn’t need to be an embarrassing topic.

ES Teacher

Nope. My kids grew up in an household where we openly discussed. Fast forward towards the tween years and it didn’t matter. They were embarrassed and reading about puberty in a book or talking about and it suddenly happening to you is a whole different thing. They suddenly became more private and embarrassed and yes around their friends and at school they were more embarrassed and didn’t talk openly. It’s actually developmental and not something you can “parent” out of a child.

This. I grew up in a very open household. I knew all of this stuff. But, most of these kids don’t come from households that talk openly. You can tell with the types of questions they ask. I have a lot of gripes about FLE. It takes away from instructional time for a full week. There are so many things we cannot answer, which is dumb if the county wants to do this for equity purposes. If they truly want to do this, then we should be able to talk about same sex relationships, other ways to have babies(ivf,surrogacy), etc. I get more questions about these things and we cannot answer them. I personally think it is a huge mistake combining ES grades. Most adults are not embarrassed but the kids are. If a book has any romance in it, some kids get embarrassed. It is part of life. The majority of northern VA does not do mixed for ES grades. What will end up happening is there will be a large influx of parents opting out and the schools won’t have anyone to watch them when 10 kids from each class stay to be educated on this stuff. It will be a waste of instructional time.

Hell no.

In my 15 years of teaching ES FLE, the question(s) I get most often are: how do I insert a tampon? how do I prevent pregnancy? does it hurt to have sex? does it hurt to have a baby? and do I have to have a baby? These are the things girls care about. I can’t say a lot in regards to this, so I doubt IVF and surrogacy will be covered soon.

Every year we get questions about same sex relationships and how they have babies.

They don’t together in a biological way. Hopefully that’s a pretty clear teaching point.

In many ES grades, we aren’t even allowed to answer this question.

That is the point. If we cannot be open about this topic and answer, then why do people think it is ok to combine children and teach them explicit content that is sensitive. Looking at a diagram of a penis is uncomfortable for 10 and 11 year olds.

Nope. We shouldn’t cater to the religious nutters. Let them opt-out. Or homeschool/brainwash their kids at home.

We should not cater to the chdless leftist activists that don't seem to know anything about child development and do not have the children's best interests in mind.

If you are a political activist trying to indoctrinate children, get the heck out of the schools.

I have kids in elementary and middle. You can keep your religious nuttery to yourself, thanks.

Sure you do.

No one is buying that.

I do. The big difference here is that I’m not a religious nutter who wants to push backwards ideas on my kids.

Menstruation happens.
Erections happen.

It’s ok to talk about them with anyone, regardless of gender.

No it’s not. Each child can decide who he/she is comfortable with and not be forced to talk about it with the opposite sex. Do you think it’s a good idea for boys to go up to girls and say I’m getting erections? This could be considered sexual harassment.

The teacher can say “boys get erections” as part of sex ed. The class can discuss it. That’s not sexual harassment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Girls don't matter anymore. Who would have thought it would be the left to discount them?

I had the same thought yesterday. My daughters and I watched Mean Girls yesterday afternoon, which was based on the book Queen Bees and Wannabes, and I remembered all of the books that were dedicated to developing girls and making sure they don't form toxic friendships and lose confidence. That concern is gone.

+1 it’s all about trans kids now.

But if it is about trans kids then same sex relationships should also be discussed. I am all for including a kid to wherever they feel more comfortable but changing all of this is wrong. In ES, there are very few trans kids or kids already transitioning. There is no reason to change this and I plan on writing my school board members from the perspective of a teacher who has taught FLE for 12 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Girls don't matter anymore. Who would have thought it would be the left to discount them?

I had the same thought yesterday. My daughters and I watched Mean Girls yesterday afternoon, which was based on the book Queen Bees and Wannabes, and I remembered all of the books that were dedicated to developing girls and making sure they don't form toxic friendships and lose confidence. That concern is gone.

+1 it’s all about trans kids now.

But if it is about trans kids then same sex relationships should also be discussed. I am all for including a kid to wherever they feel more comfortable but changing all of this is wrong. In ES, there are very few trans kids or kids already transitioning. There is no reason to change this and I plan on writing my school board members from the perspective of a teacher who has taught FLE for 12 years.

Why do relationships need to be discussed? I recall talking about procreation between men and women not really relationship talk. Since same sex couples don't procreate, what is there to discuss?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If this change is truly about trans kids, why not keep the groups separate but let them do the lesson with the gender they identify with? If both groups are given the same information they can still ask about periods or whatever else if needed.

Do all classes cover the exact same topics? Or is the content specialized by gender?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Girls don't matter anymore. Who would have thought it would be the left to discount them?

I had the same thought yesterday. My daughters and I watched Mean Girls yesterday afternoon, which was based on the book Queen Bees and Wannabes, and I remembered all of the books that were dedicated to developing girls and making sure they don't form toxic friendships and lose confidence. That concern is gone.

+1 it’s all about trans kids now.

But if it is about trans kids then same sex relationships should also be discussed. I am all for including a kid to wherever they feel more comfortable but changing all of this is wrong. In ES, there are very few trans kids or kids already transitioning. There is no reason to change this and I plan on writing my school board members from the perspective of a teacher who has taught FLE for 12 years.

Why do relationships need to be discussed? I recall talking about procreation between men and women not really relationship talk. Since same sex couples don't procreate, what is there to discuss?

It’s a reasonable question for any curious kid. Why wouldn’t it be discussed?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Girls don't matter anymore. Who would have thought it would be the left to discount them?

I had the same thought yesterday. My daughters and I watched Mean Girls yesterday afternoon, which was based on the book Queen Bees and Wannabes, and I remembered all of the books that were dedicated to developing girls and making sure they don't form toxic friendships and lose confidence. That concern is gone.

No, “the concern” is we don’t want any kids to have toxic relationships. Why do you feel the need to genderize everything?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Girls don't matter anymore. Who would have thought it would be the left to discount them?

I had the same thought yesterday. My daughters and I watched Mean Girls yesterday afternoon, which was based on the book Queen Bees and Wannabes, and I remembered all of the books that were dedicated to developing girls and making sure they don't form toxic friendships and lose confidence. That concern is gone.

No, “the concern” is we don’t want any kids to have toxic relationships. Why do you feel the need to genderize everything?

because each gender experiences puberty differently and puberty is the main focus of FLE