Florida Kindergarten Teacher Upset Because He Thinks He Can’t Talk About His Love Life With Students
Why are you so eager to discuss your private life with kids? I taught high school and my bosses discouraged us from talking about our private life with students.
These people have not read the Parental Rights in Education bill. It says you cannot teach kids about sexual identity or gender whatever. It certainly doesn’t ban teachers from talking about what they did on the weekend whether they’re straight or gay.
The bill also doesn’t have the word gay in it. I’m so sick of these people.
Florida kindergarten teacher Cory Bernaert whined because he is worried the bill will prevent him from discussing his weekend plans with his partner with his students:
“Absolutely. You are 100 percent correct. That’s what we do as educators, we build relationships with our kids. And in order to build relationships you talk about your home life, you talk about what you do on the weekends, that’s building community. It scares me that I am not going to be able to have these conversations with my children because they’re going to ask me what I did on the weekend. I don’t have to hide that my partner and I went paddle boarding this weekend. Because then they ask, what does partner mean, Mr. Bernaert? And I am worried can I tell them what it means. I’m also worried for my kids. I have a little girl from this year who has two moms and the kids are curious about her two moms. They want to know about her two moms. If they go to her and ask her about her two moms and she doesn’t know what to say, they’re going to come to me and ask me. And then, you know, so what do I do? It just — it opens up for patients to really take some legal action against the school and teachers.”
Teacher on MSNBC worries he can't discuss his love life with kindergarteners anymore: "It scares me that I am not going to be able to have these conversations with my children…I don’t want to have to hide that my partner and I went paddle boarding this weekend." pic.twitter.com/YJperIlzJB
— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) March 29, 2022
Yes, dude, you can talk about what you and your partner did this past weekend with your students.
But did your teachers talk about their private life with you? When I taught the school told me not to do that, even about anything I did on breaks or on the weekend. I taught high school English, not little kids.
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Why the fuck is he talking about his love life with ANY student, regardless of age.
The insane left has done a great job of shocking normies awake with their insanity and actually forcing them to realize just how much indoctrination and just how little actual education their kids are receiving at public schools.
THEY’RE FUCKING SIX YEARS OLD WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT ANY KIND OF LOVE LIFE WITH THEM YOU DEGENERATE FUCK
Agreed. These ideologues have had their way without real oversight or awareness for so long they don’t understand what role parents, taxpayers and voters play. They are shocked that Normals don’t want them indoctrinating much less grooming their kids.
He explained why. If he were straight and had a wife or a girlfriend, it would be completely normal and expected for him to mention her occasionally in conversation. He might say “my wife and I are going to Disney World”. So it is equally normal and expected that if he has a husband or a boyfriend or a partner who uses masculine pronouns he would mention him occasionally in the same way. And Dems have promoted the concern that doing so, and if necessary explaining what that means, would violate this law.
It almost certainly wouldn’t, but since any parent can sue nobody can guarantee that a parent won’t get upset at such a mention and sue for it. Kid comes home and says “my teacher has a boyfriend” and parent says “How dare you teach my kid about sexual orientation?” You can’t deny there are idiots who would try it, and he would have to get a lawyer and answer the suit, and risk losing.
Maybe so today. I can’t remember a single instance in school, from kindergarten through college, where a teacher referred to their personal life in class – including my next door neighbor English teacher and my across the street neighbor who was band director, both of whom were close family friends. (But that doesn’t mean that we never discussed school business outside of school.) OTOH, I lived in a small town and everybody knew everybody else’s business anyway.
When I was that age, my teachers didn’t even exist outside the classroom, much like Donald Duck didn’t exist outside my TV set. If kids my age saw one of them in the supermarket, we practically got PTSD. (Fortunately, I was spared this, since my school was in an entirely different county, and my teachers were almost all nuns anyway.)
The only time I can think of was when I was in the third grade and my teacher got pregnant, so she had her husband come in and they explained what being pregnant is and basically that she was going to have a baby and that she would start looking quite different over the next few months. What they didn’t do was take it upon themselves to explain to us where babies come from.
I was a military brat, and went to a LOT of K-12 schools, all off-base, and I can’t recall one instance of any teacher in any country or state babbling about their personal life or weekend plans. Well, yes, I can recall teachers saying they would be grading / marking papers over the weekend, but that’s it.
This I have to share and connect touchy-feely nonsense from teachers is absurd and one of the reasons our education system is sinking fast. No, “your children” (and they are NOT your children, they are your students, be professional) do not need to know what you and your partner of any gender are doing outside the classroom unless you are going on some sort of educational outing like an archeological dig. In that case, bring back samples and discuss the dig itself, not your love life.
I am so over this whole thing. But then, I am disgusted by every single video I see of teachers these days, they dress like they are going to muck out stables or go to a protest. Maybe if they dressed like they were actual professionals worthy of respect, they might feel more professional and less prone to “sharing” irrelevant nonsense with their class.
OK, so you go to an archaeological dig. How do you tell the students that? Just say “I went” as if you were by yourself? Or do you say “we went”, in which case you have to say that there is a “we”. “Some friends and I went”, or “my partner and I went”, or “my husband and I went”, etc.
That is literally all we are talking about here. It shouldn’t be a problem, and no normal person would object to it. It’s not likely that any parent would try to sue, and if they did it would surely be dismissed immediately. But nobody can guarantee that, because there are a lot of idiots in the world, and that is the fear the Dems are playing up. They’re scaring normal gay people like this teacher, and using their fears to play politics.
If I were in DeSantis’s position I’d have announced right when this all started that in the unlikely event that such a case happened I’d personally make sure the defendant had a pro bono lawyer and wouldn’t have to worry about anything. That would take the sting out of it for reasonable people, and leave the Dems ranting and making idiots of themselves for nothing.
Milhouse, you don’t seem to understand what the bill actually says and are actually buying into the leftists’ deliberate misreading of it. Why would you do that? John Sexton over at HotAir has a pretty good piece about it: https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2022/03/29/ny-times-corrects-charles-blow-mischaracterization-of-floridas-anti-crt-bill-n458734
As Sexton lays out, and is backed by the NY Times’ correction he’s noting, there is no basis for what you are claiming in the bill at all. Period.
My point is simply that discussing one’s personal life in the classroom is unprofessional and should not happen. I don’t care what you do on your off time, but in the classroom, stick to academic subjects. Students are not your friends, your social circle, or your wards. They are students, there for one reason: to learn academic subjects. If this is too hard, then maybe it’s time to cull all these touchy-feeling, share-happy teachers by setting some actual standards to become a teacher, one that involves actually learning the subject they are teaching. Teaching used to be a professional class occupation; it no longer is. But I am veering off the subject at hand here.
And no, Florida taxpayers are not going to pay for the legal defense of teachers. Period. If you want to chip in to some legal fund to do so, go for it. But here in Florida, that will not fly. At all.
My experience is the same as Fuzzy’s. I cannot recall any instance of knowing the relationship status of any of my teachers. Further, outside of my close group of friends, I knew very little of the family structure of my classmates. Finally, I had no interested in learning more about either.
No, Fuzzy, I understand exactly what the act (formerly a bill) says. What I don’t understand is how you can be so blind to why this teacher, and many others, are worried about it.
They are not misreading it. They have found a flaw in it, a careless wording that will allow it to be abused, and they’re exploiting that to stoke fears in reasonable people like this teacher. And the abuse piled on to this teacher in this thread justifies those fears.
The act bans “instruction” about sexual orientation in K-3. It does not specify that the mere mention of the existence of same-sex couples is not “instruction”. That ought to be obvious, but do you seriously believe that there is no parent who will sue for such a mention? From the comments here on this thread it seems that there are many idiots right here who would sue, because they think merely mentioning his partner’s existence is the same as describing what they do in bed. So how can you tell this teacher not to be worried?
No, he doesn’t. Not at that link, anyway. Are you perhaps referring to some other piece of his?
Mentioning the existence of ones partner is not “discussion”. Saying what one did on the weekend is not “discussion”, it is normal everyday conversation, and it is utterly bizarre to me that your teachers never did it. How can you be in a classroom with a teacher for a whole year and have no idea whether they’re married, whether they have children, the basic facts of existence? I can’t think of any teacher I ever had about whom I did not know these basic facts. (For the female ones it was easy, since we had to be told whether to call them “Miss” or “Mrs”)
Then they are right to be afraid. Florida taxpayers created this risk for the teachers, so they are morally required to mitigate that risk by paying for their defense. If they don’t then they are an immoral gang of bigots, exactly as the left portrays them. And exactly as some of the commenters here have exposed themselves as being.
What I don’t understand is how you can be so blind to why this teacher, and many others, are worried about it.
She’s not blind. The primary reason for these folks to “share” their personal lives is because their sexual “identity” is the entirety of their self-esteem and they must share it to reinforce that self-esteem. There is also a very evangelistic taint to this “identity” – which is where the “grooming” label comes in.
Take a look and listen to these folks – they want to talk to little kids about their sexual identity*. This is perverted. Mentioning that you and your “husband” went to the park and saw a flock of ducks on the weekend is NOT what the bill covers. Mentioning your “husband” over and over and over is a method, though, of normalizing homosexuality. And that’s evangelizing homosexuality – grooming.
Again, what you are saying is nonsensical. Saying “I went to the beach with my partner” is not “instruction” by anyone’s definition. Stop being obtuse, it’s really annoying.
If such a lawsuit is brought and actually makes it to court, you can “I told you so” until the cows come home. But it won’t because there is no legal argument to be made that “my partner and I had chocolate ice cream and then went scuba diving” is “instruction” as explicitly stated in the law.
As to my own teachers, nope, never knew a thing about them outside the classroom, wasn’t interested, didn’t care, and would have never dreamed of asking any one of them about their personal lives because they were professionals who set boundaries and didn’t chat with us like we were their pals having lunch or a drink after work. We were there to learn, they were there to teach their academic subject. It worked well. I would have been bored silly hearing a teacher babble about what they do in their free time, who the hell cares? Teachers were ancient, even the young ones seemed older than the hills, what did we care what they did? It was of zero interest to us, and I would bet it is of zero interest to any kid today. I would have had zero respect for anyone that unprofessional in the classroom. In fact, I have zero respect for any teacher to this day who cannot behave professionally in the classroom, including dressing like they give a damn about their career and not looking like they just rolled out of bed.
Who is “afraid”? Florida taxpayers created what risk? How? Next, you’ll be saying that anyone sued successfully in your impossible scenario has grounds to sue “Florida taxpayers” for “creating the risk.” Look, you can keep going, keep digging, but you are wrong and just doing what you always do when you are wrong: doubling down, making things up, and getting yourself all worked up to the point that you are making no sense at all. It’s exhausting, and I’m done with this nonsensical trainwreck of thought.
Let me say that I 100% support this law, but many (including those here) are misreading it. The law does not say that you can’t DISCUSS. It says you can’t INSTRUCT. A teacher who merely mentions that he and his husband went to the beach over the weekend isn’t doing any instruction. A teacher who reads “Lawnboy” to his students is instructing. There is a large difference.
After I retired from the fire department, I became a high school teacher, where I taught Biology and Physics for seven years. I thought it would be easy because I had been teaching college classes on Anatomy and other medical topics for several years. I was wrong. Kids are entirely different from teaching adults.
I learned that one of the things that is important to do as a teacher of children is establish a relationship with your students. There is a bond that must be formed with your students if you are to be an effective teacher. The kids need to trust and relate to you, or you are dead in the water. That means sharing a bit of yourself and your life so they see you as a relatable person.
It can be done, however, without getting into the details of your sex life. Especially at the K-3 level that this law covers. A man can have a husband without talking about gay sex. A child can have two moms without going into the details of lesbianism. I think the left knows this, but they use innocence to push an agenda, just like they used medical marijuana to get laws allowing them to smoke up at work and in the car.
The Democrats are putting forth a red herring, as are you.
On the contrary, it is the Florida legislature that carelessly created this red herring. The Democrats merely pounced on it and are using it to attack what is a very correct law.
It is a red herring, because the legislature never intended to authorize the sort of lawsuits the Dems are getting people worried about.
All DeSantis needs to do to allay these reasonable fears is to say that such lawsuits would be an abuse of this law, and that he will personally guarantee that the first victims of such lawsuits will receive a free defense, until people stop bringing them or the courts make it clear that they will not be entertained.
That would satisfy reasonable people, and focus attention back on what the act is supposed to do, which is right and just and reasonable. And on the insanity of the Dems’ actual reasons for opposing it.
Milhouse, you wrote, “All DeSantis needs to do to allay these reasonable fears is to say that such lawsuits would be an abuse of this law, and that he will personally guarantee that the first victims of such lawsuits will receive a free defense, until people stop bringing them or the courts make it clear that they will not be entertained.”
Uh huh, and who is going to pay for this “free” defense” you are so generously proposing?
As other people have pointed out, things have changed in a generation. High school teachers shouldn’t reveal details of their personal lives because teenagers can be nasty little shits and will use whatever they can to contest a teacher’s authority. Elementary school teachers shouldn’t reveal details of their personal lives because it undermines their position of authority in the classroom. Either way, the root issue here is teachers who want to be friends, counsellors and social workers (read: activists) rather than teachers.
The response to “boo hoo, I can’t tell my students that my gay partner and I went paddle boarding last weekend” is “why would you be telling them that in the first place? What does it have to do with your job as a teacher?”
Two guys playing “marriage” is not equally normal to anything.
The whole idea of pretend gay marriage is offensive to any normal person (though many allow for it because they just don’t care to argue and don’t want to be attacked by the morons and perverts who push this crap. There is no such thing as “gay marriage” any more than there is a thing such as “single marriage”.
Actually it’s not expected for a married teacher to discuss their marriage. While female teachers are obvious – the Mrs gives it away, it is not clear for male teachers – neither Mr nor Uncle pertain to marital status. Note that even if a marriage is known to exist, i.e. your teacher is a Mrs, you can’t be certain she isn’t widowed etc unless she discusses her private life, which she shouldn’t.
As for homosexuals discussing their ‘love life’ to kids, that’s neither normal nor expected. Frankly I wouldn’t want to send kids to any institution where a teacher might groom them.
As for idiots trying to sue, are you sure the Left won’t try suing a Leftist school district after a Leftist teacher deliberately talks about her partner and makes her orientation clear without actually saying forbidden words? If the right er Left judge is selected then the Left can ensure that the precedents set regarding the law suit them.
Milhouse: No.
A teacher can build a relationship with the students in the class without discussing their life outside of class. That requires professionalism and practice.
Students do not need to know about his relationships outside of class.
This a Grooming 101 and with it “recruitment”.
No, it is not appropriate. When I was in grade school we knew absolutely nothing about the private lives of our teachers, particularly in the lower grades. We would have considered it chutzpahdig (although I didn’t know that word at the time) to expect them to tell us anything about their private lives.
We knew that the teachers whose names started with Miss were unmarried and those who started with Mrs. were married, though I suppose it never occurred to us that some of the Mrs. teachers may have been divorced or widowed.
Even for the married teachers, we had no idea whether they had children or how many. It was just none of our business and they felt no particular need to share that information with us.
That used to be called dignity.
All the kids I knew went either to public school or Catholic school. Perhaps at private schools things were different.
At private school it was very different. The Jewish teachers we knew all about. We knew them, their spouses, parents, children, we visited their homes, it was just the normal and expected thing. But even the non-Jewish teachers, if they were female were either Miss or Mrs, and whether male or female they were never afraid to mention family members if it ever came up.
I suppose if one of them were in a relationship that was inappropriate for religious boys to hear about, they would have been afraid to mention it, so we would never have heard about it. But that is precisely the point. Public schools in the USA shouldn’t be like that. It’s not constitutional for them to be like that. The law must consider all kinds of relationships equally valid, and teachers should not be afraid to mention them. They shouldn’t be deliberately bringing them up, but they shouldn’t have to hide them or lie about them. Whether it’s a single teacher having a baby, or merely living with a boyfriend or girlfriend, etc. They shouldn’t have to worry that this will be considered “instruction” and get them into legal trouble. If parents want their children sheltered from the knowledge that some people’s lives don’t follow the pattern that their religion says they should, they should send their children to a school operated by that religion. Which should indeed be allowed to ban teachers in unconventional relationships from mentioning them to their students.
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
John Adams
This is why so many people fought the normalization of homosexuality in the first place.
As to “should send their kid to a religious school”, that’s why we keep arguing for the elimination of ‘public’ schools (meaning thoroughly religious Progressive indoctrination centers) or the creation of vouchers. So parents can easily avoid the perversion prevalent in the Progressive religion that dominates our institutions in this country now.
If a schoolmaster in 1800 had let go a teacher for discussing sex with 9 year olds would Thomas Jefferson have been offended?
Or is such a claim that there is a constitutional right to discuss sex in the classroom so absurd my question would have earned a smack in the back of the head from Thomas Jefferson?
No sexual instruction for kindergarten, it is that simple and you won’t find any sympathy taking up the lefts cause of claiming things not in the bill are there.
If you aren’t giving kids sexual instruction than there is nothing to fear. Furthermore you should be teaching kids academics which should take up teachers time.
“If he were straight and had a wife or a girlfriend, it would be completely normal and expected for him to mention her occasionally in conversation.”
Lookie here, we have a strawman sighting!
The No Room for Groom Act addresses any sexual content in Grade 3 and below, including heterosexuality. So if he limits his talk to “my partner and I went sailing this weekend” then that is the same as “my wife and I” or “my girlfriend and I” and both can be permitted or banned. There is no “discrimination”. However as you and I both know, but you are too dishonest to note, that is used by the LGBTQP as a “back door” to discussing the details of their relationships.
With Kids.
In Grade 3 and under. ”
“What does ‘partner’ mean, I hear you ask little Johnny? Well, when a man loves another man, he often puts his banana in another man’s tailpipe after a few shots of Je$u$ juice….”.
As a kid, I didn’t know, or care, about my teachers’ spouses, let alone did I know most of their first names. They use these kids for their own validation, for virtue signalling, and for spreading their social politics. And you also know that his example is a straw man, because what he really wants is to take “his kids” on a school sponsored Pride march, rainbows a’waving on dildos at full mast, and not to discuss his weekend plans. he can do that in the teachers lounge with his co-workers, or at the bar with his friends.
They aren’t “his kids”, their his students, and he needs to understand, and adhere to, his role, or he needs to get another job, perhaps in the food service, interior decorating, or housekeeping industries.
I think perhaps you are recalling what you knew, from conversations with your parents, about your former teachers and not what the teachers actually said in class. From Pre-K through 6th grade most of my teachers were socially known by my parents. My teachers never spoke about plans or their partners or children. I knew some of this information BECAUSE my parents knew this and sometimes spoke about their social plans, which included said teachers.
What you are describing might also be called deterrence. And that’s a good thing..
And I’m thinking that at some point in the not so distant future this kindergarten teacher is going to go to far with his attempts to be friends with these children and will be asked to quietly leave the profession and not make a big fuss. (And yes, I was once a teacher and saw this happen a couple times. Not with kindergartners but teachers & high school students. School administrators attempt to cover this behavior up. Sometimes more successfully than others. But it’s really nothing new or shocking.)
Depends on the school district and administrator. Some administrators are cheerleaders for the leftist agenda. Those administrators would encourage such behavior and frustrate parents attempt to squelch it.
A case in California had an administrator bringing in dresses from her daughter so one of the male students could pretend to be a girl. That student kept trying to get the attention of a male student who wanted to be male, and didn’t wand the attention. That student and parents complained to the administrators to no avail. When the student pretending to be a girl interrupted a basketball game with the targeted male, by going out during the game and kissing him, he had enough. The next day he brought a gun and eliminate the harassment. He, of course, was in a great deal of trouble. The administrator who brought the now dead student dresses to wear, not so much trouble.
How did this guy get in front of kids anyway?
In front of them? I fear he may be behind them.
That’s right. Every homosexual is out to “be behind” kids.
I would say fuck you but you ‘d take it wrong.
Oh please, I suggested no such thing. I don’t care about your sexuality. But these people are just weird, with their obsession about sharing inappropriate info with little kids.
It is not that he is gay, if a straight man or woman talked about sexual relations with young childen, I would question that too.
Exactly, there is no reason on this earth that a K-12 teacher (or even a college/univ instructor, and I was one for almost two decades) need EVER talk about their personal life in the classroom. It’s just unprofessional and sucks up time that should be spent on actual lessons about actual academic subjects.
My goodness, substitute teachers were a huge joke back in my day because some of my classmates would figure out they could pepper him/her with personal questions, and the inexperienced teacher would actually answer them. Are you married, where do you live, do you have a dog, what are your hobbies? They’d while away the whole hour totally owning that idiot (who probably thought the kids actually gave a crap about him/her). Well, gee, time sure did go by fast, hopefully, when Ms. Jennings comes back tomorrow, she won’t be disappointed that we didn’t cover the material she left for us. Yeah, right. Then when Ms. Jennings comes back, we don’t even find out why she was out, but we are treated to some extra homework to make up for the lost class and get us back on track.
Ms. Jennings, what did you do this weekend? I developed this fun little quiz for you all on the times tables. Books away, pencils out, it’s pop quiz time.
Everyone loved Ms. Jennings. Not one person can remember the name (or gender) of the sub who got owned by students.
Fuzzy, that’s so funny. I had the same kind of experiences. The only time in my life I remember a reason why a teacher was gone was when my HS physics teacher had a bunch of cattle escape a downed fence. He told us the next day. And he wasn’t a great teacher. Causation? I don’t know. Maybe. He didn’t have real good control over that class. I don’t even remember my grade!
Are you seriously suggesting that gay people should not be allowed to be teachers?! That would definitely violate the 14th amendment.
Who said that? Are you going to assume things like a progressive and suggest what is not so, seriously or otherwise? How do you get from “this guy” to all guys?
You literally asked “How did this guy get in front of kids anyway?” What could that possibly mean, if not “gay people should not be allowed to be teachers”?
Watch the video. The guy is creepy and quite interested in projecting himself. There are plenty of gay teachers that would NEVER do that. Strange that you misinterpreted the way you did, and then pointed an accusatory finger.
How did “this guy” turn into all gay people?
Possibly it just means THIS GUY, like it actually says, rather than ‘gay people’. Just throwing that out there.
Stop being such an obtuse sophist. It’s annoying.
Gentle Grizzly: you forgot pedantic and tedious, As in
“Stop being such an obtuse, pedantic sophist, It’s tidously annoying.” My ears grow weary at the sound of your voice.
Huh? He just literally asked “How did this guy get in front of kids anyway?” What else could that possibly mean? How else did you understand it?
You can only see one interpretation. Why is that? Your mistake is on you.
“What else could that possibly mean?”
I took it very literally, meaning “this man”…. this individual alone… this one person.
I am trying to figure out how you extrapolated the comment to mean all gay people which is an incredible leap on your part.
“This guy” is singular. I understood it “as how did this groomer get in front of kids anyway”?
milqtoast is just a troll and needs to be erased.
How about not allowing gay teachers who feel the need to push the gay agenda?
Summerset Maughan and Tchaikovsky were homosexuals. I really enjoy their work. But they didn’t push a gay agenda.
Teachers who are pushing any agenda are going to be ineffective, regardless of the agenda. Don’t need leftist pushing the left agenda, or right wingers pushing the right. We do need content area teachers teaching the content. We need all teachers to be of good moral character, and pushing truth and beauty.
I’m sure you are familiar with Gods of the Copybook Headings.
This guy is not pushing any agenda! He just doesn’t want to have to be afraid to mention the fact that his partner exists! And he shouldn’t have to be afraid of that. That is not the intent of the new law at all. But the Dems found a loophole, a way that it could plausibly be misused, and they’re scaremongering with it, and this guy is now afraid. What would you tell him? What would you do in his place?
Milhouse: “This guy is not pushing any agenda!”
How do you know this?
The gay community in this country does push the gay agenda in ostentatious ways. Teachers do not need to share their private lives with their students.
I would tell him not to share his private life.
Parents do get to shelter the innocence of their children.
Of course he’s pushing an agenda or MSNBC wouldn’t be covering it.
“Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man.” – Aristotle
Young students don’t know the difference between being taught a curriculum by a teacher and being socially indoctrinated by the power figure in the classroom.
That’s the dynamic here and it’s one the woke/left have been exploiting for years to warp young minds and take over institutions. Parents are becoming more and more aware and sensitive to it due to the presumptuous and baldfaced manner with which it is being applied of late. The results have been plain to see and Florida has belatedly but firmly acted on it.
What Florida has done with the new law is enforce professional boundaries in education.
If he’s truly butthurt about not being able to ‘share his life’ with the students (not “his children” as he mistakenly terms them) then he can either leave the profession or the state because his employer just laid down the law.
No they are not seriously saying that. If you seriously know they are not seriously saying that. How could I tell that you were going to come down on this side of this argument before even reading.
No, it wouldn’t. For most of the history of our country homosexuals (at least, out and proud ones) were not allowed to be in positions of authority as relates to children.
My word, your legalism is SO rooted in Progressive malarkey.
Sounds like a feature, not a bug!
I’ve had this conversation several times with my children. The answer is easy.
“Some kids have two dads or two moms.”
No need to go into more detail than that. All the couch fainting and hand wringing over this law is insanity.
Indeed that is all that is required, but this teacher is concerned that some parent will sue him for just saying that, because it’s “instructing” the children about “sexual orientation”. The suit would almost certainly fail, but who can guarantee that some idiot wouldn’t try it?
Certainly no legislator who understood the need to draft the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.
Then again, it’s not a legislator’s job to ensure that idiots don’t sue people for spurious reasons, as there are plenty of spurious reasons already used by such idiots.
It is absolutely a legislator’s job to ensure that, if s/he is creating a brand new cause of action that never existed before. If there’s a possible way it could be abused, s/he should draft the bill in a way that will prevent it. Otherwise s/he’s exposing people to a new risk, and is under a moral obligation to protect them from it.
Alternatively he could make an effort to:
1. Refrain from injecting his personal life into any conversation.
2. Stay on topic with the particular lesson plan.
3. If asked by a student simply state ‘that’s not part of our lesson today’ and move on.
I honestly don’t see how there’s a risk of violation unless one is bringing personal life issues into the classroom. I never had any teacher tell me about their personal life to include their significant other or lack of the same. It certainly isn’t relevant in K-3.
It is indeed odd that he pushes his personal life onto students. He comes across more as an activist than a teacher concerned with his student’s education.
That said, tolerance does not engender a handmade tale with empathetic verses, let alone justify a parade of lions, lionesses, and their unPlanned cubs, and, of course, support the nominally “secular” multi-billion dollar social industrial complex.
If he insists on talking about a homosexual relationship to kindergartners then he should be sued and he should be kicked out of the school, if not criminally charged. This is friggin kindergarten – finger painting and naps and coloring books … and this moron wants to have discussions with 6 year olds and can’t help but yap about his butt buddy to them?
This guy is a pervert who has a thing about talking with other people’s 6 year old kids about sex and perverted relationships. Hell, if he had sex sith his dog then I guess he should be able to tell the kindergartners all about that, too.
Sheesh.
You are the only pervert, since you are the one who thinks merely mentioning the fact that his partner exists constitutes “talking about sex and perverted relationships”.
Student: “Mr. Bernaert, what is the best color to use when painting the grass?”
Mr. Bernaert: I went on a kayaking trip with my partner and sucked his dick.”
Answer should have been: “Grass can be different shades of green, with some being brown…”
Milhouse, this is a shockingly disingenuous take by you.
(Accidental down vote)
He’s a groomer. This hits him where he lives.
“Indeed that is all that is required, but this teacher is concerned that some parent will sue him for just saying that”
And that’s because he isn’t their parent. It’s not in his job description to be discussing such issues with them at all. It’s outside of a school teacher’s professional boundaries. A fact that Florida just made clear by enacting a law about it.
People have sued over McDonalds making them fat. You are just incapable of admitting when you are wrong.
No kid has two dads or two moms, unless you are talking about remarriage, and then the extras are either stepmothers/fathers or adopted mothers/fathers.
If you are going to accept this sort of stuff then a kid raised in a commune could have 7 mothers and 12 fathers, which is obviously ridiculous and silly.
The fact is many kids do have two dads, or two moms, or other unconventional arrangements. That is common enough that in a large enough class there is bound to be at least one kid whose family doesn’t fit the classic model of a mixed-sex married couple and their biological offspring.
“mixed-sex married couple” …. LOL. Let’s take a normal, well-known thing and make it sound alien and unusual in order to let the abnormal people feel more normal. Pretty cute, there. You mean a “normal couple” and the only sort of couple that can actually be “married”.There is no such thing as having 2 moms – though it is possible that a kid can not know who his dad is and might be confused as to that. But one thing that any kid living in a perverted arrangement of homosexuals parading as “family” (which is all they can do since they can’t really have families – the same way that guys who pretend to be women cannot have periods or get pregnant) can know, for sure, is that only one of the couple (or group … who knows, since 2 is no longer a distinguished m=number in this) can be a blood relation to him, at most.
Now you can go and tell me how blood relations mean nothing and how that is anachronistic in this brave new world of normalized perversion …
Kids living with both biological mother and father may be a plurality of students, but it sire isn’t the majority.
A couplet with one dad, or mom, maybe. Another male or female guardian. Couples or couplets, it is uncommon for teachers to push their personal lives onto students. This guy seems to be an activist intent to conjure a handmade tale.
I find it hilarious that the crowd that said Biden would restore norms ,,,
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/11/07/former-senator-heitkamp-biden-will-have-to-restore-norms-to-the-white-house.html
…is at war with the concept of normal.
And it remains a topic to be discussed between parents and children, not by a power figure in a classroom abusing his position and exceeding his remit.
If he can not find any way to connect with the kids without pushing his lifestyle into the conversation, then he should not be teaching kids. Period.
Not because he is gay, but because he obviously has an intention, and because he obviously wants to groom.
If I had a kid in his classroom I would be pulling him out immediately.
Another thing.
He said: “”It scares me that I am not going to be able to have these conversations with my children….”
Yah. Nope.
They are not “your children” dude.
They are somebody else’s children and the law was passed to protect those parents’ rights.
You are free to have your own children and talk to them about whatever you deem appropriate. Oh wait …
The Freudian slip is telling. “My students”, sure. “My children” betrays his atitudes.
This stood out to me, as well. That ownership of our children the left feels is . . . sickening.
“It takes a village” wasn’t just a book title, it was a threat.
My teaching career started January 2nd, 1979 and ended October 2015. Most was as a high school teacher. I have met more than one barren woman who stated “I don’t have children of my own, my students are my children.” My recollection is recent news of teachers in Wisconsin, Eau Claire, I think, who had signs up “If your parents won’t affirm your gender identity, I will. I’ll be your mom.” Parent alienation is a horrible thing when one of the divorcing parents alienates the affection of one of the children. How much more so when a person in a position of trust and authority so abuses their students.
No. The students are not the teachers children.
If you liked the Catholic Church’s pedophilia and teenage sexual assault catastrophe, you’re going to love what is CLEARLY going on in far too many public schools today. They’re letting their mask slip because they believe they have a critical mass of media and union power that will allow them to do what they’ve been doing for a very long time: Sexual Abusing Children.
Rational people who aren’t sexually attracted to prepubescent children – practically toddler – don’t throw fits when they can’t talk to those kids about their sex life. This is ABHORRENT behavior of predators…and if there are predators in the schools (and their are) then that’s means there are victims….probably so many it would shock the conscience.
Indoctrination seems more likely at least for the overwhelming majority but I don’t doubt there are a fraction of predators involved. On the other hand if some rando began discussing their sexual proclivities with your 8 year old in any other setting it would be a problem. Why should some rando with an early education certificate be excused for behavior that would lead to consequences for anyone else?
“If you liked the Catholic Church’s pedophilia and teenage sexual assault catastrophe, you’re going to love what is CLEARLY going on in far too many public schools today.”
The Catholic Church has paid mightily, and continues to struggle with the after affects and continues to pay. As well it should. Such abuse is wicked, and evil, and horrible, and needs rooting out. Some dioceses have handled this much better than others. I know a counselor involved in working out the payment at one diocese. He said the Bishop met with every single victim and repeated sincere apology and deep regret. The payment for abuse usually includes access to lifelong counseling. The Catholic Church has taken steps to prevent further such abuse.
In Wisconsin, I believe, if there is any abuse by teachers or coaches, the student has until one year after they turn 18 to report the abuse. A soccer coach at my school went to prison for sleeping with girls on the soccer team. Not all of his abuse was prosecuted, as the statue of limitations had run out on some cases. However, complaints against priests, the statue of limitations is something like until the victim turns 35 years-old. Go head, hate on the Church. But at least police the rest of society with the same vigor.
Nobody is wanting to talk to kids about their sex lives. Certainly not this teacher. What he wants to mention is his family life. The fact that his partner exists. Teachers whose partner is of the opposite sex feel no constraint at all about mentioning their existence, if the topic happens to come up.
Some of what I’m reading here is really weird, because I don’t think I ever had any teachers whose marital status I didn’t know. Even if I’d never met their spouses, I knew whether they had one. It wasn’t a secret. With the female teachers it went with being told whether to call them “Miss” or “Mrs”. With the male teachers it wasn’t that obvious, but I can’t think of one that I didn’t soon know, one way or the other.
None of this is the law’s intent. There’s nothing wrong with the law, except that by creating a private cause of action it allows the possibility of this sort of abuse, and the Dems are using that to play politics.
“Nobody is wanting to talk to kids about their sex lives.”
Yet they’ll scream to the heavens if you make it illegal.
When you say “nobody is wanting to talk to kids about their sex wise” you know that isn’t true. So why are you saying it?
“Some of what I’m reading here is really weird, because I don’t think I ever had any teachers whose marital status I didn’t know.”
I’m just spit-balling here, but I would hazard a guess that you were in school before same-sex marriages were allowed. (Allowed by that great legislative body, the United States Supreme Court, where all supreme laws come from.)
We have a thin-edge of the wedge. Once upon-a-time homosexuality was that which dare not mention its name. Now it won’t stop talking. The push over decades has been to normalize same-sex activity. Hint: it isn’t normal. But schools can’t discriminate against a teacher because of their orientation, and being married to same-sex partner is now legal.
Recall that Thomas Moore lost his head over his failure to endorse the marital mischief of King Henry VIII. That he never criticized the King was not important. Moore failed to give public approval. So it is with sin and wickedness. The pushers are not content with flaunting their behavior, they want approval as well.
“Nobody is wanting to talk to kids about their sex lives. “
For a long time, there was no research on the sex lives of the geriatric crowd. Nobody wanted to think about the intimate relations their grandparents might be having. We all assume that a male/female couple is, of course, partaking of the marital act. We know this, but this is not discussed in polite society. However, now we have legal, same-sex couples, and of course, the understanding they are partaking in some acts. This is now out there, whether spoken or not. Now it is “In your face:.
He doesn’t need to mention his family life. I don’t talk about that at work. because that’s my PRIVATE life. Remember what a “private life” is? Why does he need to mention it at all in front of kids in Grade 3 and lower? Does he have no one else to talk to? Will he also discuss his finances? Or his dispute with the local Home Owners’ Association? Or a certain spicy episode of “Sex and the City” he binged-watched last night?
Truth is, kids have a greater chance of being molested by a someone in the public school system than they do by someone in the Catholic Church.
Proof please?
The level of betrayal with the church was staggering and the most compelling example of how bureaucracies sooner or later come to represent their own narrow interests. It also demonstrates how group think allows people to spread evil which most people would not do in a one on one situation.
When I was in elementary school (never mind kindergarten, which isn’t even “school”, really) I didn’t even know that any of my teachers had private lives outside of school. We never talked about anything of their lives. We had schoolwork to do, which was the whole point of school classes back then.
And this weirdo wants to have “discussions” with friggin kindergartners?? There’s something seriously wrong with that. This guy is, at most, half a step removed from being an active child molester. He has no business doing anything around kids.
Thinking back, I do not remember knowing anything about the personal life of my teachers until I got to Junior high. Even then, it was just random facts. Like my junior high art teacher had been Miss Sacramento, my 8th-grade teacher owned a Jaguar XK and drove a taxi in his off-hours, and similar. I did not find out that my high school student government advisor, Ramon Cortines, was gay. until a few years ago.
Transgender conversion therapy, maybe. Transgender and trans/social are politically congruent (“=”).
It scares me that I am not going to be able to have these conversations with my children because they’re going to ask me what I did on the weekend. [emphasis added]
Did anyone else find this particular statement disturbing? These aren’t his children. They are his students. And the sooner he comes to realizing that you don’t have to be “friends” with your students the better.
His simple answer should be, “I went on a kayaking trip. But that’s not in today’s lesson. Turn your coloring book to page 15.”
He didn’t have to mention partner, location, or any other specifics.
I never wanted to know what my teachers did, at any time that I was in an educational setting. Not elementary, secondary, undergraduate, or graduate.
I couldn’t wait to get my notes in class lecture, and get out. On to the next class. I found it tiresome whenever another student tied up previous class time asking mundane questions ir tying up the class time with their own personal stories and anecdotes.
STFU. No. One. Cares.
My question is: Why are you so set up on grooming these young children that you must discuss your love life with them?
I had it all figured out: teachers were magic, like Santa Claus, except they disappeared into the blackboard instead of the North Pole.
Then, one day I saw my 2nd grade teacher walking down the street..whoa.. mind blown.
Teachers are supposed to be authority figures, not friends or substitute parents. They certainly shouldn’t be discussing their personal lives with their students.I didn’t know a thing about the personal lives of any of my teachers when I was in school. Maybe they were smart enough to realize familiarity breeds contempt and in order to be able to maintain any authority over their students, they needed distance.
I’m far more interested in protecting the rights of parents to educate these little children as they see fit — we are talking about 3RD GRADE and under — than I am worried about the feelings of some sex-obsessed weirdo teacher.
He is neither sex-obsessed nor a weirdo. You are for thinking that of him. All he wants is not to be constantly afraid of mentioning his partner’s mere existence.
He shouldn’t have to be afraid of that, and it was never the law’s intention that he should. Nobody who drafted or voted for this law wanted that, nor does DeSantis who signed it. To use it that way would be abuse; but unfortunately it does make such abuse possible. DeSantis could allay his fears simply by guaranteeing that the first time someone tries to misuse the law, he will personally see to it that the defendant has pro bono representation. That would leave the Dems’ screeching exposed to ridicule.
The teacher has no business even mentioning his partner, let alone providing context.
He should be afraid. He should also shut up about his private life to kids in the range of 4 or 5.
In the not to distant future teachers will be banned from using the words “heterosexual”. The teacher may even get locked up.
It is odd for a teacher to push his or her personal life onto students. This story reflects a religious element to underwrite a handmade tale.
It is no longer about educating students, it is all about the dramatic teacher far less mature than the student.
Maybe because I live in a small, rural setting, but my kids already know all about my life just like everybody knows everything about everybody. They see me on the lake, or see me skinning a deer, or drive past my house and see me playing with my kids. Hell, one of my students saw me moving a lot of stone and stopped to help.
I don’t devote any class time to my personal life other than a one-liner like “Yeah, they were biting yesterday, now lets talk about waves.”
In my area, if I shut down any talk that made me a person I would be pretty ineffective as a teacher because a lot of kids don’t give a shit of they fail. They do well, particularly on their tests, because they want me to look good and they will all intentionally fail some to make a teacher look bad.
And, yeah, every teacher has “my kids” and it is stupid as hell to think otherwise. Some of you just have a weird hard-on about teachers.
What you described was students using observation and deductive reasoning to discover things about your personal life. That’s far different from a teacher volunteering the information. I think many of us have an issue with ineffective teachers protected by a public sector union. All of us have fond memories of the one inspirational teacher, some of us were lucky enough to have more than one. The rest of them were going through the motions doing enough to not be fired or disciplined.
The out size influence of the ED unions and their refusal to allow reforms of the broken public schools is a problem. The zoom class experience during Covid opened up the classroom practices. In addition the adoption of CRT/Equity, trans gender ideology evangelism and now opposition to this bill is further isolating teachers from the broader public.
There will be a price to pay, very likely to include funding reforms so that ED dollars fund the student not the system. Public schools can then compete with private, parochial and home school on an even playing field. If the Public School has a better product then they shouldn’t fear competition.
I agree with all of that. My dream job is being able to support myself and my family outside of a public school setting so I am free from the entangling snare of goofy/harmful rules. That can’t happen until the money follows the kid.
My area doesn’t have a meaningful union, anyways. I guess I am sheltered from the nonsense in big cities, but I have never seen even a bit of what makes the news on this topic. My boss isn’t based, but he’s a normie conservative and buys a lot of the bullshit. If I did even a bit of the stuff I see reported I would be more than fired, I would probably be assaulted by a group of fathers.
I do admit to a pretty instinctual distrust of male elementary teachers, though. But, people say the same about me because I am a male high school teacher.
That is exactly what I’m talking about. And it’s what this teacher is talking about. And no teacher should have to worry about that sort of casual mention of their unconventional family structure. Not in a public school, anyway. Religious schools are different.
And if there happens to be a kid in the class with two moms or something, and the other kids ask the teacher about it, the teacher should be able to tell them “Most kids have one mom and one dad, but not all kids do; some have only a mom, or only a dad, or more than one of each, and that’s just how it is.” That should be enough explanation for kids anyway. There should be no need to mention that there’s even such a thing as sex.
I agree. I don’t know whether this law disallows that or not. It surely can’t be the intent.
Interesting. I live in a semi rural area where locals tell romantic stories of how their parents sent them outdoors to play alone in the woods all day.
But, nowadays, if anyone sees a 5 year old out roaming alone in the countryside, they call the sheriff. After a few abduction attempts, parents don’t even let their littles walk home alone from the school bus stop.
A few abduction attempts? Yikes.
Our school requires parents be at a bus stop if the kids are below a certain age. We haven’t had any abduction attempts, but everybody is scared of getting sued.
Dewey would be so proud. Public education should produce indoctrinated useful idiots. not informed free citizens
Well, of course – I remember distinctly now. That was the first question out of my mouth every Monday morning when I walked into my 1st grade class, “Hey Teach, what did you do over the weekend?”
Right? You know darn well those kids didn’t ask unprompted.
I taught middle school. My students knew I had a dog because I was often covered in dog hair when I arrived at school. The company my husband worked for sponsored the local science fair, and he thought it was fun to volunteer to be a judge. Some of the kids noticed his name was the same as mine and asked if we were related. Most of them didn’t notice. I taught science, and the kids knew I brought things like beach sand samples back from various trips I took. “I went to Block Island, and see what’s cool about the beach sand there!” They knew I had been an engineer before I became a teacher because I related a lot of what I taught to how it’s used in the real world- what’s the difference between science and engineering?
I got to know my students pretty well, and they got to know the teacher side of me. It was a warm and friendly relationship and entirely professional. The funniest question I was ever asked was, “How do you go all day without using swear words? My mom needs to know,” The answer is discipline, The same discipline this teacher needs to learn,
Teachers inspire students by transmitting knowledge to them, and teaching them how to think-not by discussing their personal , and social lives in any inappropriate manner.
Last century in my progressive NYC middle school there was a teacher rumored to be a witch. He even gave us ESP lessons. Needless to say we were all very well behaved in his class, but no one ever asked him what he did over the weekend.
During a conference call to explain the corporate intents of the company, Disney entertainment president Karey Burke says, “As the mother [of] one transgender child and one pansexual child,” she supports having “many, many, many LGBTQIA characters in our stories” and wants a minimum of 50 percent of characters to be LGBTQIA and racial minorities.
https://rumble.com/vyz918-reimagine-tomorrow-by-the-walt-disney-company.html
Gay school agendafully supported by the Whitehouse
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqcUwVf90TQ
These are internal messages from a 4th grade elementary teacher in @AustinISD
. She’s upset that an entire week dedicated to LGBT still wasn’t good enough. Coincidentally, 20/32 of her FOURTH GRADERS are LGBT and have “come out” to her
https://dailycaller.com/2022/03/29/texas-teacher-fourth-grade-students-lgbt-pride-week/
“Florida Teacher Says She’ll Break the Law to Keep Secrets About Sexuality From Parents”
Tell us the bit where teachers don’t have anti-parental indoctrination agendas again, it’s our favorite part.
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/megan-fox/2022/03/29/florida-teacher-says-shell-break-the-law-to-keep-secrets-about-sexuality-from-parents-n1585274
Why would a kindergarten teacher talk about this at all unless its to groom and normalize his lifestyle with the children outside of parental view? I had a second grade teacher who i found out 40yrs later was a lesbian. Everyone knew except the kids because it didnt matter to, you know, kids. Keep your private life private
I presume Milhouse might want to teach children, young girls, why they need not participate in sports since “identifiers” aka males will soon dominate womens sports. We are supposed to worry about the poor trans mental state but not to care at all about the mental state of our young female athletes. It is refreshing that Mamma Bears are beginning to kick the collective asses of the “its” (all encompassing preferred Personal pronoun for those with gender and other doubts)