And Margaret Crocco, a professor of social studies there, acknowledges that some teachers-in-training meet the film with skepticism. At New York City's Columbia Teachers College, they've integrated It's Elementary into a class on teaching toward diversity. The question for the adults in charge is, 'Are we going to help them, or are we going to leave them on their own? '"Ĭertainly, even ten years later, raising gay issues among elementary school students remains controversial. Whether you like it or not, kids are dealing with these issues.
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"We are all in this together, and it should not be about a conservative or liberal divide," she explains. "And," she continues, "the one student who did turn out to be gay was very clear that having a fifth-grade teacher who was willing to talk matter-of-factly about gay students had a huge impact on how he felt about himself." Safety Firstįor Chasnoff, preventing antigay bullying and violence in schools - and ultimately promoting the safety of all students - was a major goal of both films. And there's the young man in San Francisco who works with eighth graders and who intervenes in name-calling." It helped me realize that I should just accept people for who they are, rather than base my views on their personal life."ĭebra Chasnoff, the films' director, says Tate-Brickel's response was typical of the students they interviewed again, many of whom told her that watching the documentary in grade school helped "ally them around fighting prejudice and homophobia." She adds, "There's the student who goes to a college in Missouri and who has to deal with antigay sentiments on her soccer team, and she's the one who speaks out. Tate-Brickel, the fourth grader, is now a student at the State University of New York's College at Old Westbury, and he tells the filmmakers that participating in the documentary "definitely helped me to not be ignorant about gays and lesbians. One can also see this efficacy in the follow-up film, which reinterviews a number of students who appeared in the original documentary.
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"The great thing about it is that teachers get to see how to discuss LGBT issues with young students, and proficient teachers demonstrate it." A Long-Term Legacy "A lot of teachers don't know how to integrate LGBT issues into their curriculum or how to discuss them," says Stephen Jimenez, a specialist with the Educational Equity Compliance Office of the Los Angeles Unified School District, which routinely uses the film in its legal and diversity-compliance training for teachers. In the intervening years, gay rights organizations have heralded the documentary for its groundbreaking efforts, and teacher-training programs have incorporated the documentary into their curriculums because it provides sensible and age-appropriate examples for broaching what people often view as a taboo topic for young students. I don't think talking about gay and lesbian sex is appropriate for elementary school - but talking about different communities and about bias and discrimination and how it affects people's lives is appropriate." I think you're talking about a community, and you're talking about people relating to each other, and not specifically about sex. "There's a fear that when you're talking about gays and lesbians, you're talking about sex," Sangree states in the original documentary. The filmmakers received threatening hate letters and became the subject of antigay media campaigns. More than ten years ago, when It's Elementary was first released, it had its share of controversy. (The films also come with sample lesson plans and tips for addressing concerns about discussing gay issues in the classroom.) It's About Society, Not Sex
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It is accompanied by a follow-up film, It's Still Elementary, which chronicles the making of the original and looks at its impacts on students and schools.
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Sangree's class was among the more than half-dozen featured in It's Elementary, a 1996 documentary about how to have classroom discussions concerning lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) people that was recently rereleased on DVD.
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So what? I don't think people should be strict about them, because if they were gay, they wouldn't want to be beat up." "No, because that's how their life is," he responded. "Do you think that was an OK thing to do?" asked his teacher, Cora Sangree.