LGBT Heroes

[SFfamily]

Next week is LBGT Pride Week at my daughter’s school. I am teaching in a couple of classes. As I prepare my lesson plans, I wanted to know who are some of your children’s LGBT heroes? and who are LGBT names that they are familiar with.

Also, I am racking my brain trying to remember the name of a historic lesbian athlete who played professionally in several sports at a world class level.

Thanks for your help,
Gerry

[Jan V]

Rosie and Kelli, of course, as they are are THE GLBT family that she has seen on television.

[SFfamily]

Rosie is definitely on the list. Many little girls are familiar with Harriet the Spy. Others will also remember her as Betty Rubble. In addition to those, that were brought up watching her talk show.

Also interested in Japanese, Chinese and other Asian LGBT people.

-Gerry

[Jan V]

What grade is your daughter in?

[Nancy]

Kids may not be as familiar with these names as those of us in our 40's...but I'd think they should know about Martina Navratilova, Billy Jean King, Greg Lougainas as athletes that come to mind...
Barney Frank is a Massachusetts politician who is current and very out.
I believe it is fact and not rumor that Eleanor Roosevelt had a female companion.
Of course there is Ellen Degeneres as an entertainer/actress/comedian...and other comedians such as Ant, Judy Gold, etc...
Not to forget Melissa Etheridge and the Indigo Girls for musicians...but there is also the guy from REM, Elton John etc.... :-)

Hope that helps...

[SFfamily]

What grade is your daughter in?

My daughter is in First Grade. She attends a public school that has a Japanese bilingual bicultural emphasis. They receive 1-hour day of Japanese language and cultural instruction.

I'm hoping to understand which LGBT athletes, celebrities, politicians etc. your kids think is cool and why.

I am planning to talk about the following people, but would like it my lesson to be as reverent as possible:


Rosie O'Donnell

Hans Christian Andersen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Christian_Andersen)

Abraham Lincoln

Elton John

Esera Tuaolo
Babe Didrikson Zaharias
James Hormel, lots of the kids love SPAM mitsubi

Eleanor Roosevelt, who opposed her husband's decision to sign Executive Order 9066, which resulted in the internment of 110,000 Japanese nationals and American citizens of Japanese descent in internment camps in the west.

Bayard Rustin, one of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s key advisors during the Civil Rights Movement. Rustin was a member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) inner circle and the primary strategist for the 1963 March on Washington. In kindergarden, the students studied Dr. King and have bridged their understanding of being a "freedom fighter" to include all types of discrimination.

[Jan V]

How about Harvey Milk? His story would be a local connection for you.

[farmerov]

I think Martina and Billy Jean were my first LGBT heroes, but for younger kids -I would think they would recognize Ellen and Melissa Ethridge. (Melissa just went through Breast Cancer too, which is good for kids to know). We are like every oher person - Gay / Straight, Healthy and sick....

[MaryM]

I am so thrilled that this is going on at your child's school. I teach 5th grade, and I can't even begin to describe how backwards the curriculum is in our district!

[scrappykim]

I totally agree with the Barney Frank suggestion...I think he's awesome!

[SFfamily]

Everything went very will on Tuesday for our School’s Pride celebration. Each student made up a flag to celebrate diversity. There were many with peace signs and many colorful rainbows. In San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD), family diversity and gay pride are required parts of the health curriculum. This is separate and different from sex education. Parents can choose to “opt out” of sex education, but not the other parts of the health curriculum, including family diversity and gay pride.

I was invited to read and share in both Kindergarten classes. I read the book, How My Family Came to Be: Daddy, Papa and Me by Andrew R. Aldrich, Mike Motz, shared family photos and showed pictures of famous gay people. I was warmly surprised when one of the classes sent home a book of letters from the students. Below is what some of them wrote:
Thank you for sharing about your family. I liked the story about the two dads.

Thank you for teaching us about family diversity.

Thank you for showing us pictures of famous people and you are the best teach that came to our class.

I love you because you taught us nice things. It does not matter who your parents are. They love you.

I like the pictures and thank you for explaining about different families.
I also received a nice thank you notes from the other kindergarten class and from my daughter’s first grade teacher, who used the opportunity to “come out” and tell the class about her gay son. I was invited to come back next year to share again.

For my daughter’s class, I used SFUSD curriculum and added time for discussion about famous gay people (using photos). The core lesson used the book My Two Uncles by Judith Vigna. I had the children draw in faces to represent each person’s feelings from the story. We then discussed the problem in the story, how each person felt, and how the problem got resolved. We brainstormed and came up with three different I messages that the little girl could have used.

There was a nice transition to talk about family problems in general. The children liked knowing that just because their parents were arguing that they were not at fault. They felt empowered to know that they could tell their parents how they felt when their parents were arguing in front of them. [/URL]

We discussed the terms gay and lesbian, in an age appropriate manner. The children enjoyed looking at the pictures of the various gay people. They especially liked Bayard Rustin, a gay associate of Martin Luther King, James Hormel, and Elton John. They all knew and loved the movie the Lion King.

I feel very fortunate for the freedom and support we have as a family here in SFUSD. Our school is currently recruiting for next Fall. Today I had the chance to meet a gay dad and his son who were visiting the school. They seemed to like our program. I was able to share a little from our family’s perspective and our school’s diversity program. It sounds like their other dad will visit next week. It would be wonderful to have another gay family.

I shared in a previous posting a few thoughts on implementing diversity programs in schools. It is very possible to create an anti-bullying program that focuses on respect, acceptance, and celebration of all differences at any school. Take at look at [U]http://www.rfamilyforums.com/showthread.php?t=31 (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/080755507X/qid=1148069153/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-3097243-3623929?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) for more details.

[Colodad]

I wish all schools would do somthing like this.

[scrappykim]

SfFamily - I'm so glad the class went so well for you! It seems like your school system is light years ahead of others, particularly since the separate the need of 'sex ed' classes from general societal issues which need to be discussed openly. Good for you!

[jewlz]

world class athletes in several sports:
babe didrickson zaharias 1940's-track, golf
joan joyce 1970's-softball, golf, volleyball

[jewlz]

oh, yeah, and then theres donna lopiano-softball, field hockey, basketball, volleyball
shes real smart too...!