Patrick Peterson wrote: > 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.
Is this somehow different than treating boys and young men with respect? > 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. How do you propose to do this? > 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)... Just what is "healthy sexuality?" > 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. Research has shown that the surface structure of words has little to do with the way that people interpret them. In other words, calling people "firemen" does not prevent little girls from becoming "fire fighters." There are far more powerful social forces at work. > (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. To me, being politically correct is about trying to artificially enforce respect in violation of individual rights. > 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. Good idea; can you cite research to show that such programs are effective? > 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. So how would you feel about offering Human Sexuality course to students? Do you support providing access to brith control in schools? > 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. This seems very Minnesotian to me: you are running as a Gay candidate, but you are unwilling to discuss gay lifestyle issues. I wasn't asking about your personal romantic life, I was citing an example of when "no" doesn't mean "no." > 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. Without directly answering my questions. Supplemental teacher training does not have much of an impact on achievement, without accountability. What type of accountability do you propose? > 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. Why don't you respond to my questions here? I asked you what your educational philosophy was and what you propose to do about the dropout rate? Michael Atherton Prospect Park _______________________________________ 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
