Why Williard and Whitman are essential for Americans
Frances Williard and Walth Whitman are two important figures in the history of the United States of America. Frances Williard was a suffragist, a women right defender and an American educator. She developed the slogan of “Do everything” for the women through lecturing, lobbying, petitioning, preaching and her publications. Her influence in her time was her contribution to develop an amendment favoring women rights to the United States Constitution. Her nine publications were all about the women rights in the States. She had been the president of the Woman’s Christian Temperance from 1879 to 1898. The Woman’s Christian Temperance was one of the first mass organizations among women dedicated to create some social reforms in the States. They aimed at developing a social linkage between the religious and the secular groups based on applied Christianity. Frances Williard, as the president of the Woman’s Christian Temperance, could develop ways to create amendments to the United States Constitution.
Walt Whitman is an important figure during the American Civil War. He worked as a volunteer nurse during the war. He is called as “poet of democracy”. He wrote his most influential poem “Leaves of Grass” in the time of the civil war. He was a nationalist person and his lifestyle influenced many other writers and poets following him. Many scientists claim that learning the history of the United States cannot be completed without understanding Whitman. Therefore, Whitman is an important part of the United States culture.
Teaching Williard and Whitman to the New Generation with their Sexuality Preferences
Williard and Whitman are two essential persons for the United States. Their works are introduced to the new generations. At many levels of education, students read the works of Williard and Whitman and learn about their struggle. Thus, their works are enlightening the future generations.
As known, the sexuality preferences in the United States are essential issues in the American politics. During every presidential election, the American politicians make promises for or against the rights for homosexuals. Eventually, the sexuality preference is always hot subject in the United States. As known, Williard and Whitman were the persons who preferred homosexuality. Their sexuality preference can be traced in their works. Even it can be claimed that they accepted the sexuality preferences as a right for them.
How to Introduce Williard and Whitman to the New Generation
At this point, the American education system faces an issue of presenting these two important characters in the history of the United States to the students. Both of the persons had homosexuality preference. Thus, some people in the U.S. will not mind that their students learn more about the sexuality preferences of these pioneering people while some others are against it because it is possible that some students will copy the behavior of pioneering people. In another word, the behavior patterns of the pioneering people in the country might be model for the new generations. Following this idea, the people who are against the homosexuality will not appreciate that their children are taught homosexuality. Also the famous people with homosexuality preferences might normalize being homosexual for the youngsters. Considering that a large number of people are against the homosexuality, then it might cause a social conflict.
How to Teach the New Generation
Taking the right of making free decisions for every person in the country, one might think that treating homosexual people as sinful by hiding their preference is against the human rights. Eventually, this issue might be a subject of social conflict. However, in this case, the main subject is education. Educating the new generations about the history of the country is indispensable. By learning the history, the new generations can understand how the country is developing and what their duty is to develop more. Thus, we need to develop a consideration in this view. Also, as known, the science of pedagogics presents us alternative techniques to teach the new generations efficiently. Therefore, we need to evaluate the alternative teaching styles and pick the best one for our new generations. To figure out how to teach pioneering people to the young generations, we need to aim at developing the most efficient pedagogic technique. We have already the statements of vision and mission and core values for our national education system. The Department of Education’s mission statement as follows:
“mission is to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access”.
The mission statement also indicates that the students need to get ready for a high level of competition in the international labor markets. To have high quality students who can compete in the international labor market, we need to provide them with a high quality education.
Consequently, the education system has a curriculum for every class taught in the schools. The curriculum includes some pioneering people in the American history. The pioneering people are taught to the students to stimulate their feeling of belonging themselves to the country. This way, while a student improves himself or herself, he or she contributes to the American society. From this point of view, it is obvious that teaching everything about the lives of pioneering people is unnecessary. Only the essential aspects of their lives which might contribute to a more efficient teaching and stimulation might be used. Otherwise, teaching the students about every detail in the pioneering people’s lives might destroy the efficiency in the education system or it might lead the students to the undesired ways of making preferences.
Obviously, no one can create barriers for the people who wants to prefer homosexuality; however, the social structure of the American society, in general, is against promoting the homosexuality at schools. Until a certain age, it is not allowed to have sex for the youngsters. Similar to this, it is not acceptable that the American students make their sexuality preferences at early ages. To be able to make this decision, they need to be eligible. It is acceptable that the students are taught about sex at schools although some parents are against this. However, informing the children about further than having safe sex might destroy their minds.
The best way to determine whether teaching a child about the sexuality preference of a pioneering person in the American History is to evaluate it from the student’s point of view. The student might be at different level of education from elementary school to university. The students attending an elementary or middle school would not be interested in learning about sexuality. Also, it is not acceptable to teach them something about sexuality. Let us assume that the student attends the high school. The high school students are more interested in dating at these ages. If they are taught about homosexuality, they might develop a higher level of interest in homosexuality. Thus, teaching them about homosexuality will be like promoting homosexuality at high school. The most probably, the parents will be against this. Also, the young minds, by observing the social responses to the homosexuality, they will be more aware of homosexuality preference. Consequently, it is obvious that teaching about sexuality or further more than this homosexuality is not a good idea before university education.
The students at undergraduate level might comprehend the concept of homosexuality. Also they are eligible to make decisions about their sexuality. However, we still need keep that teaching something irrelevant to the students is not a contribution to the education in our minds. If only if the subject of the class a student takes is relevant to learning sexuality and homosexuality, then we might consider the teaching of homosexuality as acceptable. Eventually, teaching about homosexuality to the students taking a relevant class can be considered acceptable. The number of students eligible in terms of this criteria will not be large.
REFERENCES
Clift, Stephen M. (1988). "Lesbian And Gay Issues In Education: A Study Of The Attitudes
Of First‐year Students In A College Of Higher Education." British Educational
Research Journal 14: 31-50.
D. Wald, Kenneth, Barbara A. Rienzo, and James W. Button. (1999). "Sexual Orientation and
Education Politics: Gay and Lesbian Representation in American Schools." Annual
Meeting of the American Political Science Association: 1-22.
Unks, Gerald.(1994). "Thinking about the Homosexual Adolescent." High School
