School Documentaries on Gay Tolerance

A documentary entitled "It's Elementary: Talking About Gay Issues in School" is being shown to educators around the country by Women's Educational Media, based in San Francisco. It is one of several efforts aimed directly at teachers now that many school boards have said they will not mandate the teaching of gay issues.
"If you spend a day in a school, you will see that 50 percent of the time is taken up with things that aren't in the curriculum because life happens," said Debra Chasnoff. She video recorded her classroom awareness efforts in New York, California, Massachusetts and Wisconsin for "It's Elementary." Proposed, as part of the documentary, is that teachers "brainstorm" with their students about the words gay and lesbian, then lead their class in a discussion about those words and the students' attitudes.

In its own "Back to School Campaign", the National Gay, Lesbian and Straight Teachers Network organized the writing of more than 10,000 letters to teachers and school administrators across the country from former students who are gay. In addition, the organization's 42 local chapters are also showing teachers another new video entitled "Teaching Respect for All."

The intensified appeal to teachers follows highly publicized efforts to go through more formal channels -- through school boards and other groups that control curriculum.

In New York City, the Board of Education became engulfed in controversy in 1992 over a curriculum guide that tried to teach tolerance for homosexuals. After the issue appeared to have cooled, the board adopted a resolution last year to focus the school system's multicultural curriculum exclusively on ethnic, racial and linguistic groups.