Reading Rainbow

A progressive school wonders about gay rights in its curriculum.

by Kirstin Lindermayer

Michael T. Regan INDEPENDENT-MINDED: ICS, where almost a third of the teachers "called in gay," got to wondering if they could do more.

Students at Independence Charter School (ICS) in Center City arrived last Wednesday morning to find almost a third of the staff missing. The faculty hadn't come down with a mysterious flu. It hadn't decided to get a jump start on holiday shopping. Rather, 25 teachers had called in gay.

The teachers were participating in "Day Without a Gay," a nationwide protest against Proposition 8, the gay-marriage ban approved by California voters last month. The purpose, says Scott Craig, a fifth-grade teacher who helped organize the event with fellow teacher Michael Farrell, was to "stand in solidarity with other people across the nation."

"It's not enough for me to be married and live the way I want to live," says Noga Newberg, 28, a fourth-grade teacher who also called in gay.

But at Center City's ICS, the protest ended up doing more than just show solidarity: It caused teachers and administrators to think about the role of gay-rights issues in their curriculum.

The whole process began about a week before the protest, when a group of gay and straight teachers approached administrators, not to seek permission, but to give them a heads-up about the walkout — they didn't want chaos breaking out. Although some teachers disapproved of the idea, Craig says, they were a minority.

According to Jurate Krokys, ICS's chief executive officer, 41 teachers originally signed a petition. Not all of them ended up calling in gay; some supported the protest by making sure the day ran smoothly. Krokys appreciated this: She doesn't see a single day of instruction as something to be taken lightly.

"[Our students] have to be able to learn as much as they can on a daily basis," says Krokys, who has been at the school since it opened in 2001. Of the school's 732 students, 53 percent qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. "You've got a lot going against you to begin with."

Krokys describes her teachers as "100 percent committed" — to their students and to their ideals. When they approached her about calling out gay, she knew it really mattered to them. "They said, 'This is a human rights issue, one that I am willing to take a risk for,'" she says.

The risk wasn't that great. ICS is what many would consider a progressive school: Students spent half of last Wednesday observing International Human Rights Day — and that wasn't out of the ordinary. The study of human rights is woven throughout the school's social studies curriculum. Kindergartners begin by learning about empathy, which Krokys believes is "a precursor to human rights." After learning about the Civil War and the civil rights movement, fifth graders study women's rights in Afghanistan and apartheid in South Africa, moving far beyond the standard checklist of food and holidays that still characterizes many schools' country studies. 

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Last Wednesday, though, when the teachers who called out gay gathered at Brew HaHa, a coffee shop on 12th Street, they discussed the place of gay rights in their curriculum. LGBTQ issues, they believe, fall under a human rights umbrella. But right now, homosexuality comes up at ICS only as part of a six-week HIV/AIDS program for sixth through eighth graders, which parents can choose not to let their children participate in (each year, one or two do so, says Krokys).

Krokys anticipates many discussions about how ICS can better incorporate gay rights into its curriculum. In order to receive federal funding, Krokys says, administrators need to walk a fine line, teaching tolerance without advocating specific political views, such as legalization of gay marriage (the Philadelphia School District's policy requires schools to foster respect for different sexual orientations, though the charter school isn't bound by it). What's more, any changes to the curriculum have to be approved by a curriculum committee — a rigorous process.

"We can't just decide we're going to do something," says Krokys, though she's optimistic that "this can be brought to the table."

Studies have shown that a majority of Americans believe sex education courses should include discussions about homosexuality. In a 2004 joint study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, National Public Radio and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, only 19 percent of respondents believed schools should not teach about homosexuality at all. But 52 percent believed schools should teach homosexuality "without discussing whether it is wrong or acceptable.'"

One theoretical challenge for schools is to teach gay rights in a way that is age-appropriate — but, says Krokys, that can surely be done. Teachers of younger children can still address issues of diversity and equality by, for instance, asking basic questions such as, What is a family?

"Kindergartners are tough," she says. "They're learning how to tie their shoes." Teachers probably wouldn't talk with kindergartners about sexuality specifically, but they could discuss the different types of families people come from.

Last year, teachers in London began reading "gay fairy tales" to children as young as 4 in order to comply with new gay rights laws. The stories — one of which featured a prince who falls in love with a princess' brother — are intended to familiarize children with same-sex relationships, in the hope of reducing homophobic bullying.

Also last year, though, just across the Ben Franklin Bridge, some parents protested Evesham School District's decision to show third-graders an educational video about same-sex parents.

For now, Newberg tries to meet her students where they are. "Students aren't really coming out," she says of her fourth-grade charges. "It's not on their minds. You don't need to push the issue of sexual orientation, because they don't bring it to us."

But she did have a conversation with her students before calling in gay, explaining what teachers were doing and why. "We spoke about speaking up for what you believe in," she says.

Some students chose to pass when it was their turn to participate. But several made connections between the protest and their social studies curriculum, which has already included a study of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. "They cited documents. Why aren't we being true to our nation's documents?" says Newberg. "I was amazed and honored to be a teacher."

(editorial@citypaper.net)