Israeli schools aren’t yet reaching out to gay kids, LGBT leaders say
Schools aren’t formally required to discuss homosexuality with students, so it’s up to the principal whether to skirt the issue.
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| remember Haaretz Polls lean left, compare numbers with a pew poll, the main point of this poll is to show what the lefties in Israel want to do |
Reality is better reflected by a 2012 survey by the group Israel Gay Youth. In that study, only 13 percent of gay teens felt comfortable talking about the subject of sexual identity with their teachers they want this number to be 100%. Also, 65 percent said they suffered homophobic comments in the hallways, with 17 percent saying their teachers did nothing about it.
Israel Gay Youth is the only LGBT organization regularly budgeted by the Education Ministry.
A major "problem", according to LGBT groups, is that the school system is not formally required to address the topic of sexual preference. While some study units on the issue are taught as part of the life-skills curricula, teachers don’t have to use them. notice what they want, and then after this happens in the regular schools system they will go after all the religious ones. How is this not much more dangreous than the draft? Where are our rallies, articles, etc. for this problem?
“At the moment, school principals have absolute autonomy on whether the units will be taught,” says Mandy Michaeli, Israel Gay Youth’s co-executive director. “The moment there’s no order from the Education Ministry, it’s a judgment call — and the judgment of most teachers is not to discuss it in the schools. We hear every week about more and more teenage boys and girls who suffer verbal and physical violence in school.”
According to Ran Lebel, also co-executive director, “I look at my training as a teacher, and if I weren’t gay, I wouldn’t know how to deal with a student who came out to me. The teachers are speechless when that happens. It needs to become part of teacher training.”
Hila Segal, the Education Ministry official in charge of sex education, says only some schools approach the issue properly.
“Our policy on this matter is clear: We don’t allow rejection or homophobic comments by staff members,” she says. “Every year, as International Day Against Homophobia approaches, our director general issues a circular requiring schools to discuss the topic.”
Segal’s department receives letters from schools that need help with sexual-identity issues. For example, department officials have advised a teenage transgender "boy" meaning a girl with issues. The school staff was unsure whether to let him sleep among the boys at the annual school trip, and whether to let him use the boys’ bathroom at school.
Not a week goes by when a school doesn’t ask for help with the LGBT topic, Segal Says. There’s a difference between what happens in the center of the country and what happens in the outskirts, because students in the center have access to professionals who are "experts" on the topic, she adds.
“Students keep seeking help and say ‘I think I’m gay,’ and the counselor or teacher tells them to wait before they decide to announce it. This response by the system makes it look like they don’t want to deal with it,” Segal says. Instead accepting a false identity, announcing it to the world, and marching in a parade like a good liberal
“Besides the need to listen to the child and ask him what he needs, I think it’s legitimate, especially when the child is young, to say, ‘Take your time; it’s for you to decide what’s good for you, and we’re here with you.’ Children are ambivalent, and I don’t want a counselor or teacher to put definitions in their mouths.”
Another group that works with the Education Ministry but receives no budget is Hoshen, the name an acronym for the Hebrew words for education and change. Its volunteers give workshops at schools, where they tell about their lives in the LGBT community and their process of self-discovery and coming out.
Hoshen and the Education Ministry developed curricula on the topic and distributed it to all the schools. Hoshen has more than 150 activists, who have visited some 80 schools throughout the country. But this isn’t seen as enough.
“We only provide a one-time activity that lasts an hour and a half,” says Hoshen’s chief executive, Irit Zvieli-Efrat. “Even if we had 1,000 volunteers in branches all over the country, the Education Ministry would play a deciding role.”
Zvieli-Efrat also mentions another issue: gay and lesbian teachers and how comfortable they feel coming out to their students and discussing the topic with them.
She says there are 100 teachers in an average-sized high school, "making" around 10 of them gay or lesbian.
“But not many teachers have come out,” she says. “It makes me wonder what sort of atmosphere exists there that doesn’t let teachers come out.”
(Haaretz) highlighted are our addition
Haaretz (and the like): bias and hate
ReplyDeleteHaaretz twisted language, especially on racism: slaps it on cultural divisions or on safety but not on Arab Muslim racist attacks
The "competitive" tantrum trend among hard Israeli left to utter the "racism" terminology has been for some time.
They are ever so loud on isolated cases of violent attacks against Arabs which we all condemn, of course.
Yet, they are silent on every weekly attacks by racist Arabs targeting Jewish civilians (at times travelling for miles far away from own Arab town...). Of course, it's Arab Muslim terrorism but it's also anti-Jewish ethnic racism and religious bigotry.
Yet, will term any Israeli security measure as "racist." As if it's "not" saving lives, what it is really about.
Will minimize Arab Islamic Palestinian use of its own population as human shields (at least since 1980 by Arafat), and Israeli attempts to evacuate before an anti terror operation.
Will maximize, exaggerate any claim of abuse.
Incidentally, with all the heavily funded anti-Israel groups inside Israel. Why isn't there any even as much as a 'peace' movement on the Arab Palestinian side, Hamas' Gaza or Fatah's Ramallah?
If one specific community wants to keep its unique education, they immediately cry "racism".
They are silent on every Israeli court case that favors Arab vs Jew. But ever so loud on any partial-discriminatory incident. Despite the fact, it is rather ultra-orthodox who feel most all out discriminated against, mainly prompted by anti-Religious hatred campaign by hard left like Haaretz - actually.
These supposed "peacenicks", these same hypocrites, incite against, demonize Haredi ultra Orthodox conscientious objectors who refuse to serve in IDF draft in Israeli army.
It might very well be that at the beginning of "it's racism" rant, years ago, it was less meaning it, and more intented to shock, especially Jews, more sensitive, being victims, past and present of bigotry. But it has since become a "normal" language to utter it wherever, if for only that they 'can' float it. There is zero check on it.
The decades routinely vilification of Jews isn't just mere irresponsible. It surpassed that level long ago.
Haaretz and the like, are not just biased. But hate mongers.