BC Adds Homosexual Issues to Curriculum

Seeing as there isn't much to talk about in terms of student-teaching during the months of June-August, I thought I'd post some news about the world of education here in Canada. Here's a recent news highlight from British Columbia:

The B.C. Ministry of Education has agreed to add an elective social justice course to the high school curriculum that includes gay and lesbian issues. [...] The new course will be an elective on social justice issues offered to Grade 12 students. It will cover a range of topics, including race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation.
- CBC.ca - Thursday, June 1st, 2006

What's my opinion? I think it's fantastic! When I was a secondary student, our English teacher would teach us about "To Kill a Mockingbird" one day, and then tell us that all gay men wore silver jumpsuits the next! We were taught to be tolerant of disabled students, ethnic minorities and women, but homophobia was never addressed, and teachers heard students use "that's gay" as an insult without ever speaking up! How hypocritical is it to teach selective tolerance? As a Language Arts teacher, how can I talk about the relationship between Sebastian and Antonio (Shakespeare's Twelfth Night) without eliciting giggles and "eeeeew"s? It would be fantastic if these types of social justice issues weren't put into separate classes, or even separate units, but rather if children were exposed to people of different races, genders, abilities and sexual orientations right from Day One within the context of their general education. If they start to see those who are different as "normal" people too, then maybe we won't need a Social Justice elective in 2016!