Among the confusions and calamities of modern culture, the obsession with gender identity and sexual orientation is near the top, and one of its manifestations is the insistence, by gender activists and some educators, that these subjects should be part of the school curriculum beginning as early as kindergarten. Many of those who object are concerned parents, and not right-wing culture warriors intent on weakening public schools that a Press Herald editorial makes them out to be.
Many schools today struggle to achieve student proficiency in basic traditional subjects like math, reading and writing, and it isn’t clear that limited school time should be spent on sensitive issues that many parents would prefer to handle themselves at what they believe is the appropriate time. Activists, and too many educators, not only want to expand the curriculum into uncharted waters, they apparently believe that parents are incapable of providing a desirable cultural and social education for their children.
Ideally, most schools will stick to the basic educational mission they are designed for and can handle best and will skip controversial instruction about gender identity and other fashionable social issues that would inevitably confuse younger students and trigger resentment among parents.
It is up to parents and sensible public officials to remind other schools, and the Maine Department of Education, that some subjects are still best left to parents and the home.
Martin Jones
Freeport
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