Here we go -
Teach kids what a family is suppose to do. Sorry mom and dad!
Let's make non-traditional families unacceptable.
WTF is going on here?????



Washington Moves to Teach Family Matters in High School

Sun Apr 24, 7:55 AM ET Top Stories - Los Angeles Times


By Tomas Alex Tizon Times Staff Writer

SEATTLE — Addressing the disintegration of traditional families, Washington lawmakers this month took a step in requiring schools to teach "family preservation" classes — in essence making relationships as important as reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic.


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The Legislature passed a bill, awaiting the governor's signature, that requires the state superintendent of public schools to develop a family preservation curriculum that school districts will be urged to use as a model.


Supporters say the classes would teach high school students how to form and maintain loving relationships, resolve conflicts, and deal with stress, grief and disappointment — all vital to keeping families strong. A few other states have passed or are considering similar legislation, including Florida, New Jersey and New York.


Opponents say the measure could push schools into a realm in which they don't belong, namely defining what is right and wrong within families and idealizing a traditional "Beaver Cleaver" nuclear family that would marginalize others, such as same-sex couples, single parents and blended families.


"It seems innocent enough on its face. I mean what could be wrong with preserving the family, right?" said state Rep. Steve Kirby, a Democrat from Tacoma who opposes the measure. But Kirby said the language of the legislation was so broad that it gave individual school districts the license to veer into sensitive and personal, even private, issues.


Kirby says he is part of a blended family: He and his wife were previously married and now both have step-children. He said he didn't like the idea of "a teacher standing up in front of my son and giving him the impression that somehow his family is substandard."


"One of my concerns would be my son coming home and telling me, 'Guess what, Dad? We're doing things wrong,' " he said.


Children from other nontraditional families, such as those with same-sex or single parents, could also feel alienated, Kirby said.


The major force behind the legislation, Larry Kvamme, a citizen activist from Tacoma, said there was no hidden agenda in the law to advocate one form of family over another. The emphasis, he said, is to teach the importance of relationships and explore the dynamics that lead to either good relationships or bad ones.


According to Kvamme and sponsors of the bill, an average of 114 marriages and 75 divorces occur every day in Washington. Half of the divorces involve couples with children.


Kvamme said studies showed that children from broken or single-parent families did worse in school, had a higher chance of getting into trouble and were more likely to perpetuate a cycle of unstable relationships.


"This kind of teaching shouldn't really be considered controversial," Kvamme said. "The thrust is not in teaching values, it's in teaching personal skills."


The wording of the original bill was so strident that lawmakers made it clear that it would not pass. That version required all high schools to offer family preservation classes as electives. Instead, after some wrangling, legislators settled on a version that required only that the state superintendent create a family preservation curriculum, one that school districts would then be urged to use as a guide.


That curriculum, according to the superintendent's office, would include classes on developing "respectful and caring relationships in the family, workplace and community," and "integrating multiple life roles and responsibilities in family, work and community settings."


Kvamme and supporters plan to keep pushing the issue.


Roxanne Trees, a family-education director for the Seattle School District, said the plan was to lobby the state Board of Education to take the measure one step further by requiring that such classes be taught in high schools.


Trees, a former education chair for the American Assn. of Family and Consumer Sciences, an advocacy group, said such classes were part of a growing national movement to make schools more involved in teaching personal development skills to young adults.





Trees once taught a class on family education and relationships at Ingraham High School in Seattle. She said one of her teaching methods involved the use of role playing exercises to help teenagers get in touch with their emotions.

In one exercise, a student would sit in front of a chalkboard. On the board was a long list of emotions, such as anger, resentment, hurt and joy. One by one, other students would get in the subject's face and make declarative statements such as "You never do anything right. You make me sick," or "You were a big help, and I appreciate it."

After each statement, the student would point to the word that best described how the statement made him or her feel. The idea, Trees said, was that once the subject pinpointed his or her emotions, the student could then communicate it more easily to others.

Bernie Bagaoisan, a 1994 Ingraham graduate, recalls Trees' class. At the time, Bagaoisan's parents "worked all the time and had no time" for him and his younger brother. He said they were basically left to fend for themselves.

"We never learned the basic things about relationships, about treating people with respect and why that's important," he said. Bagaoisan credits Trees' class with helping improve his relationship with his parents — and his future wife.

Rep. Dave Quall, a Democrat and a chief sponsor of the bill, put it this way:

"You can make a case that the most important thing we'll do in this life is be part of a family," he said. And yet many young people "get very little preparation in this area…. We just thought this would be a way for schools to do their part."

They're doing a piss-poor job of funding the schools to adequately teach the fundamentals of reading, writing, mathematics, history/government and sciences and now we want the schools to teach kids how to form loving relationships?

This is part of the "No Family Left Behind" Act... they will be in every living room, every kitchen, and every bedroom... They will tell us what to believe, what to worship, what to feel and what to think...

There is plenty of solid research that shows the advantages of teaching basic
interpersonal communication skills and interpersonal relations skills at all ages and
in many different context--schools, rehabilitation centers, prisons, workplaces,
recreational and fitness programs, etc. A great deal of tax money has gone into
developing and evaluating different approaches. I think that such training is
better presented as coping skills, communication skills and other more generic
human development skills such as career development skills or problem solving
skills and avoid such emotionally laden labels as family preservation.

The thing that suprises me is since the state of the Union Address I checked and asked many people and news agencies to verify if I heard a statement from Bush that suprised me. Only the Newshour on PBS address the issue by interviewing Laura Bush themselves. Yes George appointed Laura to handle the distribution of moneies by selecting agencies "helping troubled boys" under no child left behind funding..............!

No one reacted and no one said anything it just slipped by. Even after Laura Bush told Newshour that Bushie put her in charge.

These may be little things but along with every thing else it is the GOP saying do what we say not what we do. (remember when we didn't want 2 for one with Bill and Hilary).

if it were to cover school bullies and/or absent and incompetent school principles it wouldn't be 1/2 bad

- perry

exactly!

But the way they are coming off is like what magmak said...

This is part of the "No Family Left Behind" Act... they will be in every living room, every kitchen, and every bedroom... They will tell us what to believe, what to worship, what to feel and what to think..

I just wonder how much religion is going to get tucked away in here.

totally.... as if religion could answer all questions

i don't know, between society wanting religion and aliens/angels wanting to give it to us...

i dunno... sometimes there is a lot to be said about living on some south pacific island (with a computer attached to the internet)

- perry

I agree that kids today are so isolated and use the internet so much, that their interpersonal skills could use some work.

But I also agree that the schools are not even able to teach the basics.

Now if there is a correlation here, then perhaps rla's post has some real merit.

In other words, IF qualified teachers could be found, and IF the funding was found, and IF the curriculum could be designed to teach only inter-personal skills with no bias..... then helping children to cope with what life throws at them would not be a bad thing. So many children have no one at "home" to help them out these days...... so if young children could be taught good coping skills, it might even help them learn the basic read'in and writ'in skills better.

That's a whole lot of "IFs" though.

I'd like to hear the teachers on the forum weight in on this.

Schools should be teaching interpersonal skills anyhow. They should be teaching children from a young age not to bully, to ask for help when needed etc. etc. But I disagree with teaching the proper 'formula' for a family that this seems to be going towards. Some children, through no fault of their own are brought up by a single mother or sometimes father, or are split between two homes, or have parents who are loving but both the same sex. I think it is too much like Big Brother, to start outlining how things OUGHT to be. What are they going to teach the children of war widows?? The money should be spent on something more concrete like library books.

Don't these developments go towards even more hikikomori?
Hikikomori (Japanese: ひきこもり or 引き篭り) are adolescents and young adults that feel overwhelmed by the Japanese society, feel unable to fulfill their expected social roles, and react with social withdrawal. Hikikomori often refuse to leave their parent's house, and may lock themselves in a single room for months or even years. According to some estimates there may be 1 million hikikomori in Japan, or one out of 10 young men. Most of them are male, and many of them are the eldest son.

Thanks Global Chinese. It's been on the news all day on one channel. The death toll has hit 50 and looks like it could still be higher. They haven't finished recovery on the site of the accident.

The above quote is the wrong one obviously. Sorry.

That other problem has been known about in Japan for a few months but has been going on for years apparently. I can understand them, pressures here are enormous, not least, in Tokyo, the lack of space.

Actually, it's not as though we had a choice. Both small persons and large
persons have the task of manageing themselves before they can successfully
take on additional task.

Actually, it's not as though we had a choice. Both small persons and large
persons have the task of manageing themselves before they can successfully
take on additional task.