Wow, this is another day that I shouldn't have subscribed to the Digest version of the list. I'm sorry if this post is exceedingly long, but I want to respond to the comments in various posts. They're in no particular order, just as I read them...
Eva Young wrote in e-mail #1: This ofcourse does not excuse "date rape" -- but it is important to talk to young girls about the importance of giving clear messages. There is a lot they see in the media and elsewhere where women are giving very contradictory messages about sexuality. Giving those types of contradictory messages IS a way of getting attention. You're making a good point. We can't (and shouldn't; that's the parents's job) mediate the media. But we can make our schools places where we treat girls and young women with respect. It's one reason why I support Title IX activities and other organizations that empower young women to to realize their dreams and value themselves. And if elected, I want to make sure that Minneapolis doesn't implicitly discriminate against calling on girls in classes, especially in the sciences and math. Ensuring that women graduate MPS with a healthy sexuality means that we need to make sure that girls value themselves and are assertive in articulating their needs. It also means that we need a better health curriculum (which I'll get to later)... Robert Schmid writes.... So, yes, if the focus of your campaign is to worry about language, then no you won't have my support. If your concern is to insure that the language of YESTERDAY is not lost as it evolves into the language of tomorrow, then that is a valid concern of the language department. If your concern is to reduce or eliminate violence in schools, then of course you have my support - but not if your plan is tell everyone that "no means no." Good point. I'm not interested in substituting the confusing English language with Orwellian Doublespeak. One of the more memorable scenes in that book is when a Party officer exclaims that the Party language is the only one in history that actually gets smaller in words each year. English is confusing, contradictory, and ill-equipped to describe all kinds of things (like love, what chocolate tastes like, how to drive, etc...). But it's our language. We need to recognize the historical shortfalls (e.g. using "men" to speak of "people," and the fact that there is no formal second-person pronoun), while realizing that we can alter our language to fit current reality. (On a side note: I always hate it when people muck up what "politically correct" means. To me, being politically correct is about respect -- you use the most formal term when speaking about something until they tell you otherwise. For example, one of my closest friends is black. She prefers to be called black, but before I knew that, I would refer to her race as African American.) I AM concerned about violence in our schools, and one of the ways I propose we diffuse some of that conflict is by increasing peer mediation programs in our schools. Peer mediation is a program where studnets learn conflict resolution strategies, and then when conflict erupts among students, those peer mediators use the strategies to resolve the conflict without violence or getting administrators involved. Barb Lickness writes... Teen pregnancy occurs most often between the hours of 2:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. That is one of the reasons the state appropriated funding to communities to offer after school and summer break programming. The answers to this are not hard or so it should seem. Keeping children engaged in positive activities whether it be after school, weekends, or during the summer WILL have a tremendous impact on reducing the number of kids who end up pregnant or in trouble. I don't have statistics. I will leave that to the statistical wonks. I just have common sense and practical experience as a parent, and an active volunteer in youth activities in my neighborhood and Phillips. Good point! We need to be working with community agencies, parks, and libraries to provide real co-curricular opportunities for young people, so that they can become well-rounded, dynamic people. Studies also show that providing activities tends to result in young people engaging in sexual activity later in life and engaging in such activity in a more responsible fashion. Eva Young writes in post #2.... . Teen pregnancy prevention is certainly an issue in the Minneapolis Public Schools. So is violence and rape prevention. In this vein, I would like to hear from the school board candidates how they feel about this -- and what the role of the schools should be in this area. What we need is better health education. Health used to be one of the few classes that students knew they had to take or else they wouldn't graduate, so nobody (neither the students nor in many cases the teachers) was really engaged in one of the most important classes students will take. We can start reforming health education by changing the curriculum, which means we should talk to students and find out what kind of education they need. In short, there is a lot that we can do to give young people healthy attitudes about their self-image, their sexuality, etc... If Sharon Henry-Blythe is reading, I bet she has some good ideas on teen pregnancy prevention. Eva also asked what people thought about zero-tolerance politicies.... I don't know what kind of "zero tolerance" policy to which you are refeering, although generally I'm not a big fan of the policy idea. My friend was two weeks away from graduating from high school, and she got caught with a tiny pocket-knife key chain (it was one of those Swiss-Army dealies). As she was in violation of the zero-tolerance weapons policy, she was nearly expelled from school. I think there are more inelligent ways of dealing with our problems than zero-tolerance. Because the moral relativism of my youth (as some on the list might say) recognizes that people are in different circumstances and although it may be attractive politically to use "zero tolerance" in literature and it's easier to administer, dealing with people as people is much more effective. (I'm sorry guys, this is the last one) Michael Atherton writes... So much for balanced and informed decision making. What respect for diversity really means is taking the time to understand why people hold views different from your own, and not making rash decisions on the basis of conformity to political slogans. As it happens, I was involved in the feminist movement a number of years before your birth. Once, in 1978 a gay friend of my introduced me to her sister as the most liberated man she knew. Sounds kind of quaint now, doesn't it? :-) Truth is, you don't know much about me. I believe that even the most abhorrent opinions should be exposed to the light of day where I am confident that reason and wisdom will prevail -- in other words, I'm a big fan of Kant's dialetic. You're right, I don't know very much about you, and I didn't know what you were trying to get at with your post. That's why I asked. You may not realize and others may have forgotten, but for many years it was not socially acceptable for women to say "yes" explicitly. Fostering change in sexual attitudes and behavior was one of the goals of the feminist movement. That's nice. Times have changed. Many years ago it was socially unnaceptable to kiss a woman if you had no intention of marrying her. Your statement and the one I just wrote have equal relevance in this respect. As to my statement about the gay community (and I use this term for both genders), maybe things have changed, but my gay friends enjoyed telling stories of how they had seduced someone who had steadfastly held that they were straight. Many of them are dead now, but I suppose that too was before your time. One would hope that your politically correct indignation is not solely for campaign purposes and merely reflects a lack of maturity. Thank you for your perspective on the gay movement. As a gay man, I have a different perspective. I don't discuss my romantic life in public, so I will not comment on what behaviors me or my friends engage in or if youre anecdote has any relevance to the gay lifestyle today. I think that Patrick Peterson provides a good example. Mr. Peterson's campaign seems to based primarily on his youth and sexual orientation. He seems to know very little about the history or philosophy of education, and as far as I have seen, has no proposals for the big issues facing the MPS. Endorsing and electing someone to the school board simply because they are gay will not help minority students receive a quality education. Oh, Michael, you've made that comment before -- and I've written 3-page long responses to your questions so I'll save everyone the trouble of making this e-mail any longer. If you believe that I'm running on the platform of being young and gay and not on improving teacher training through access to high-quality professional development training, preserving and celebrating the diversity of Minneapolis, and ensuring that Minneapolis has the funds it needs to educate youth in the 21st century, that's your business. I would direct you to my website (http://www.patrickpeterson.com) for my platform, experience, and endorsments. If you'd like, you may send me an e-mail at [EMAIL PROTECTED], or call me at 612.204.3016 and I'll be happy to respond to your questions. I would caution you using my age and my sexuality as an excuse to dismiss me by saying I'm a single issue candidate because clearly I am not, although I do not control what you can percieve so I'm not going to try and change it. Again, I apologize for the length of the post. And I hope I haven't strayed from Minneapolis-issues too much. Since this is my last post of the day, I'll see y'all tomorrow... Patrick 1-4 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Patrick Peterson for Minneapolis School Board http://www.patrickpeterson.com "believe in the promise of tomorrow." DFL / Labor / Progressive MN Endorsed -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
