Homosexuality as a “disorder”: classification denies potential trainee teaching position
Tuesday, 26 June 2007, 10:46 am |
After a clarification from Alfian Sa’at, who writes for Trevvy, we have decided to only publish an excerpt of this article, as follows. You can view the full article here.
“I watch Francis as he tries to describe how he feels about the turning his life has taken the past few months. He was told being 302 was not going to be a liability in the civil service. He was told that there was nothing wrong with him, and that a psychiatrist would vouch for his suitability. And yet his one dream of teaching Art in schools is now dashed. “I don’t feel like I’m wanted here,” he says.
Read also: Award winning local playwright fired from teaching position
And: Where is the basic common decency?
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If MOE was afraid that “Francis” would fall in love with one of the boys in school, then MOE could assign “him” to a girl school instead. The girls would be 100% safe, if the psychiatrist was correct in her judgment and recommendation!
Is this what the government is calling efficiency?
In the blink of an eye:
1) they can decide to give themselves an obscene pay raise.
2) they can raise GST to finance the pay raise.
And yet drag their feet on deciding matters like this and even worse, give non-replies and contradicting signals.
What I can see here is that as long as it benefits the government and richen their pockets, they will go ahead, but when things do not affect them or their family, they don’t actually give a damn about it.
If a homosexual is deemed medically unfit to be a teacher-in-training, then a homosapien who stigmatized someone else should be socially unfit to exist in a homosapien society.
Seems like bigotry is not just confined to gay people- eplileptics get it tough too, according to an ST report today.
Fair Justice:
Good point, and makes one wonder why MOE dares at all to send male teachers to girls’ schools or female teachers to boys’ schools.
Having read this case, I quite like to think that if one lied about one’s sexuality, i.e. claiming to be hetero when one is homo, then that could get one admitted into MOE. Surely a dishonest person is worse that an honest one.
Frankly, I’d rather have a gay teacher who has the heart and the talent to teach, rather than a straight teacher who only teaches for the salary!!!!
How comfortable are parents with have a gay teacher teach their kids?
How comfortable are parents with a male teacher teaches their daughters, and a female teacher teaches their sons?
I am a teacher in a local primary school and I have to say that the teachers DO really have an adverse influence on their students. Well, instead of saying they are NOT ALLOWED to teach, let’s think it in this way - they are NOT SUITABLE to teach. Like a female not suitable to work as a construction worker.
Looking at ‘Francis’ in this article, the first thing that struck my mind was - he doesn’t love teaching. It seems that he was going more for the free education and allowance. Francis’s passion to teach, nurture and educate (or the lack of it) should be scrutinised in this case.
Sure.. MOE can give the green light for gays to teach. But trust me, the parents never will.
IMHO, the Teacher above is not SUITABLE to teach since he/she has a negative attitude to begin with. A good teacher would think that teachers have a POSITIVE influence on their students.
The first thing that struck my mind reading his comments was that this Teacher is too judgmental and fails to think logically. I suggest that this Teacher’s right to teach should be scrutinized again.
Sure… MOE can give people like this Teacher the right to teach. But trust me, I don’t think he is a positive role model.
Dear Kf, I’m really not being judgemental here. Just that the way the article was written made me think this way.
Well, I’m not putting putting down anything or anybody here but it’s really a fact that we have to acknowledge - the S’pore govt is still not as open as we think it is.
I think no one is in the position to judge Francis’s ‘passion to teach’.
The keyword here is ‘medically unfit’.
They do not strap straight teachers-to-be to polygraphs to evaluate whether they are potential paedophiles or perverts.
But they send gay applicants straight to the psychiatrist to be profiled like so.
What is the common practice here?
The inconsistency of their practices, actions and statements is more important here.
Anal sex betweeen consenting heterosexuals is now legal.
If they have so much problem with homosexuality, think about the straight teachers who can be pretty much doing the same in bed and being a role model to your children as well.