Tennessee poised to ban public drag shows, hormone therapy for children

[osaka35]

I can shake on that, and I absolutely agree. My problem is adding more money into the fire pit when we know ahead of time that it’s going to be squandered. Education reform can’t be boiled down to throwing money at the problem, there are serious administrative issues that are wasting money intended for children on pencil pushers. There’s a distinct lack of efficiency there that needs to be addressed. If my car is burning, I’m not going to the dealership to get it replaced just to park it inside a garage that’s on fire - that’s counterproductive.

Of course they’re slowly phasing SAT out and opt for other testing methodology - they have to, given the declining state of both education and testing standards. The plan is to get rid of the requirement entirely by 2025, but as you may have noticed, it’s not 2025. They’ll come up with a different method of separating the wheat from the chaff.

Private school = disposable income for the purposes of education, by definition. Asians earn the most out of all ethnic groups in America, you would expect them to flood private schools, but they don’t. There’s an unresolved disconnect here that you’re trying to dodge, hiding behind an anecdote.

Can definitely agree to that. I'd rather see a discussion about what should change, rather than a discussion on whether we should just defund it. My education system utterly failed me. I had to teach myself to get to where I am now. Not everyone is capable of that, or have the financial resources to do so, and i've missed out on a lot of opportunities and made a lot of mistakes because of it. My life could have gone down paths I really wish it had, if public education were better. So i'm pretty pissed at it, but just in a "get your shit together" kind of way rather than a "burn it all down" kind of way.

 

[Foxi4]

Can definitely agree to that. I'd rather see a discussion about what should change, rather than a discussion on whether we should just defund it. My education system utterly failed me. I had to teach myself to get to where I am now. Not everyone is capable of that, or have the financial resources to do so, and i've missed out on a lot of opportunities and made a lot of mistakes because of it. My life could have gone down paths I really wish it had, if public education were better. So i'm pretty pissed at it, but just in a "get your shit together" kind of way rather than a "burn it all down" kind of way.

I will say that most of the worthwhile skills I know are either self-taught ahead of time/after the fact *or* skills I’ve learned with the help of my family. The only reason why I did so well on CS is because of, coincidentally, the DS-Scene and GBAtemp. Homebrew sparked a passion to code and the rest is history - I’d do my own assignments and, once done, I’d do other people’s assignments for fun. I only know math as well as I do because I spent 2 weeks with my aunt tutoring me, and I learned more in those 2 weeks than in an entire semester at school, though admittedly, she’s a professional mathematician and runs a school herself. She was tough, disciplined, but fair, and that worked. Not everyone’s cut out for that. My main point was that not all holes can be patched with dollar bills - something’s fundamentally changed about education in the last few decades, and that’s coupled with general societal changes. There’s a lot of animosity against “the system”, a lot of youths are rejecting it outright because they consider it to be a construct antagonistic to them, which is a problem. Efforts to further integrate seem to have an opposite effect, no doubt due to heightened racial tension in general. It’s not an easy time for teachers, but that’s not something a higher budget can solve.

 

[osaka35]

I will say that most of the worthwhile skills I know are either self-taught ahead of time/after the fact *or* skills I’ve learned with the help of my family. The only reason why I did so well on CS is because of, coincidentally, the DS-Scene and GBAtemp. Homebrew sparked a passion to code and the rest is history - I’d do my own assignments and, once done, I’d do other people’s assignments for fun. I only know math as well as I do because I spent 2 weeks with my aunt tutoring me, and I learned more in those 2 weeks than in an entire semester at school, though admittedly, she’s a professional mathematician and runs a school herself. Not everyone’s cut out for this, least of all pencil pushers. My main point was that not all holes can be patched with dollar bills - something’s fundamentally changed about education in the last few decades, and that’s coupled with general societal changes. There’s a lot of animosity against “the system”, a lot of youths are rejecting it outright because they consider it to be a construct antagonistic to them, which is a problem. Efforts to further integrate seem to have an opposite effect, no doubt due to heightened racial tension in general. It’s not an easy time for teachers, but that’s not something a higher budget can solve.

I'm of the mind public education should be just as focused on getting students to know how to self-teach and pursue knowledge on their own, while being able to assess for fake/false/incomplete knowledge, as it is on ensuring a base-level of understanding of the world around us.

And i agree. lack of funding is an issue, but insofar that the right areas which do need it aren't getting it and the areas which don't need it are getting too much. I can understand the "give more money" because there are areas that need it, but without efficiency and focus, it's just mostly going to go to waste. some will go to the right areas, but not nearly enough.

I swear, I took many years of biology and hard sciences, but I never grasped any of the underlying core concepts until I went and taught myself. text books are dry and fact-nugget based and don't like to really teach mechanics of how it all fit together or at least, that's how it felt as a student. I didn't really understand the casual relationship between good-enough genetics and evolution beyond recognizing the related statements as true, but dang did i know that mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. Text books are another area that completely infuriate me, even at the collegiate level.

I want to say the "after-school" stuff which has shown to be beneficial, is more like creating a structure like you found with the DS scene. I got into modifying software and hardware back in the Wii era, and i've certainly learned a lot from that. GBAtemp is an amazing "communities of interest" / "communities of practice", and these sorts of communities really do make a world of difference. Public education is in a position to enable students to seek their own interest out and engage with a community, and giving them to tools to excel and learn efficiently...but. yeah. it certainly isn't doing that now.

 

[Foxi4]

I'm of the mind public education should be just as focused on getting students to know how to self-teach and pursue knowledge on their own, while being able to assess for fake/false/incomplete knowledge, as it is on ensuring a base-level of understanding of the world around us.

And i agree. lack of funding is an issue, but insofar that the right areas that need it aren't getting it and the areas that don't are getting too much. I can understand the "give more money" because there are areas that need it, but without efficiency and focus, it's just going to go to waste.

I swear, I took many years of biology and hard sciences, but I never grasped any of it until I went and taught myself. text books are dry and don't connect the dots. I didn't understand the casual relationship between good-enough genetics and evolution, but dang did i know that mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. Text books are another area that completely infuriate me, even at the collegiate level.

I want to say the "after-school" stuff which has shown to be beneficial, is more like creating a structure like you found with the DS scene. I got into modifying software and hardware back in the Wii era, and i've certainly learned a lot from that. GBAtemp is an amazing "communities of interest" / "communities of practice", and these sorts of communities really do make a world of difference. Public education is in a position to enable students to seek their own interest out and engage with a community, and giving them to tools to excel and learn efficiently...but. yeah. it certainly isn't doing that now.

One of the core responsibilities of a teacher is to inspire a thirst for knowledge and to impart that knowledge as efficiently as possible, in a manner that the students can understand and ingest. There will always be brighter kids and less bright kids, teachers don’t like to put it in those terms but it’s just true. In my estimation the system is currently set up with the express intent of catching up those who are less bright in subjects they’re completely uninterested in at the expense of those who excel. That’s fine if you hold the belief that the playing field should be level at any cost, but the inevitable consequence of that is a class that’s middling at best. The problem is distinguishing promising kids who simply don’t have the time/resources to develop their skills from kids that just hear the sound of a flashbang in their heads for 45 minutes at a time.

I’m sounding cruel, I know, but we both know this is true.

 

[osaka35]

One of the core responsibilities of a teacher is to inspire a thirst for knowledge and to impart that knowledge as efficiently as possible, in a manner that the students can understand and ingest. There will always be brighter kids and less bright kids, teachers don’t like to put it in those terms but it’s just true. In my estimation the system is currently set up with the express intent of catching up those who are less bright in subjects they’re completely uninterested in at the expense of those who excel. That’s fine if you hold the belief that the playing field should be level at any cost, but the inevitable consequence of that is a class that’s middling at best. The problem is distinguishing promising kids who simply don’t have the time/resources to develop their skills from kids that just hear the sound of a flash bang in their heads for 45 minutes at a time.

I’m sounding cruel, I know, but we both know this is true.

We definitely agree, but I would probably frame it as, allowing each individual student to achieve their personal best and their personal goals. A student who will never be able to comprehend theoretical physics shouldn't hold back the students who would, and the students who would comprehend theoretical physics shouldn't let the students who wouldn't be forgotten. The educational system needs to be dynamic from student to student, and each student needs to be pushed and assessed in a way that benefits the student and their impact on the world around them. Standards are a different topic altogether, really.

If we're not talking about tech doing the dynamic on-the-fly adjustments, I've heard positive things about two-teacher classrooms, as well as peer-teaching. The curriculum need to be updated all around, and I think those skills needed for students to be independent and self-reliant promoted a bit more than not at all. Empowering, rather than stamps of approval for passing the bare minimum.

AI is pretty exciting for this as well; imagine an AI that can do pretty well at assessing the level of understanding of a student. as the student progresses through an online module, doing assessments or playing games based off the curriculum, the AI would add/recombine content in the next page/module based on what the student seemed to understand well, the parts not super well, or maybe misunderstand, or just plain didn't get. it wouldn't fix the problems, but it would be an important piece in doing so.

 

[Foxi4]

We definitely agree, but I would probably frame it as, allowing each individual student to achieve their personal best and their personal goals. A student who will never be able to comprehend theoretical physics shouldn't hold back the students who would, and the students who would comprehend theoretical physics shouldn't let the students who wouldn't be forgotten. The educational system needs to be dynamic from student to student, and each student needs to be pushed and assessed in a way that benefits the student and their impact on the world around them.

If we're not talking about tech doing the dynamic on-the-fly adjustments, I've heard positive things about two-teacher classrooms, as well as peer-teaching. The curriculum need to be updated all around, and I think those skills needed for students to be independent and self-reliant promoted a bit more than not at all. Empowering, rather than stamps of approval for passing the bare minimum.

AI is pretty exciting for this as well; imagine an AI that can do pretty well at assessing the level of understanding of a student. as the student progresses through an online module, doing assessments or playing games based off the curriculum, the AI would add/recombine content in the next page/module based on what the student seemed to understand well, the parts not super well, or maybe misunderstand, or just plain didn't get. it wouldn't fix the problems, but it would be an important piece in doing so.

I think we’re coming from the same place and have the same general idea, but you’re optimistic for the future whereas I’m cautiously pessimistic. My general attitude towards anything public is that it will get worse over time unless there’s overwhelming evidence of improvement, but that’s just me. The day I stand in support of a public system is the day you should call the police and the national guard because I’ve clearly been replaced by a skinwalker, which means the alien invasion is well-underway. I admire your optimism and creativity though - I’ve heard similar things about peer teaching, but have some reservations - peers are not in a subordinate/superordinate relationship and it’s hard to enforce respect towards the teacher, let alone peers. AI will definitely help, as will the proliferation of technology in general. It’s funny, we all have the world’s largest repository of knowledge in our pockets at all times, it’s instantly accessible, and yet the times seem stupider than ever. Exaggeration, of course, but you get my meaning.

 

[osaka35]

I think we’re coming from the same place and have the same general idea, but you’re optimistic for the future whereas I’m cautiously pessimistic. My general attitude towards anything public is that it will get worse over time unless there’s overwhelming evidence of improvement, but that’s just me. The day I stand in support of a public system is the day you should call the police and the national guard because I’ve clearly been replaced by a skinwalker, which means the alien invasion is well-underway. I admire your optimism and creativity though - I’ve heard similar things about peer teaching, but have some reservations - peers are not in a subordinate/superordinate relationship and it’s hard to enforce respect towards the teacher, let alone peers. AI will definitely help, as will the proliferation of technology in general. It’s funny, we all have the world’s largest repository of knowledge in our pockets at all times, it’s instantly accessible, and yet the times seem stupider than ever. Exaggeration, of course, but you get my meaning.

I think you're 100% correct. I figure it's because good information has to be correct and validated to be good, but it's more about how "interesting" information is as to whether it spreads or not. And bad information tends to be far more interesting and drama-llama. Whoever tells the more interesting story is the one remembered, as a rule of thumb. Which sucks since reality can be so incredibly boring or difficult to explain interestingly.

 

[Foxi4]

I think you're 100% correct. I figure it's because good information has to be correct and validated to be good, but it's more about how "interesting" information is as to whether it spreads or not. And bad information tends to be far more interesting and drama-llama. Whoever tells the more interesting story is the one remembered, as a rule of thumb. Which sucks since reality can be so incredibly boring or difficult to explain interestingly.

Speaking of “good” information being boring and “bad” information being titillating, we got here by discussing drag shows for children. 2023 sure is a riot so far.

 

[TraderPatTX]

So all this talk of education is very fascinating and enlightening, but I'm having trouble correlating it to the topic at hand. A law that makes it illegal for children to attend adult shows, which should have already been a thing and it makes it illegal for doctors to amputate healthy tissue from children. It's crazy nobody wants to talk about these two subjects that this thread was originally about in the first place.

 

[tabzer]

So all this talk of education is very fascinating and enlightening, but I'm having trouble correlating it to the topic at hand. A law that makes it illegal for children to attend adult shows, which should have already been a thing and it makes it illegal for doctors to amputate healthy tissue from children. It's crazy nobody wants to talk about these two subjects that this thread was originally about in the first place.

Afaik inappropriate exposure to children is illegal in the US, and Monty Python does drag. Assuming that restricting "drag shows" is necessary, it would be because of upward trend of increased inappropriate exposure being facilitated by drag shows. Not that all drag shows are raunchy, but they are rooted in sexualization of, at least, the performer.

As for the matter of people resorting to medicine and surgery to mold their body to "match" how they envision themselves--they either hate their bodies enough to superficially alter it, or they have bought into the idea that they can truly change their sex.

I find all of the above to be an antithetical step towards honesty and acceptance--but there are cases where you can fight fire with fire. I'm not here to attribute morality to the choice of striving to "pass", but there is an aspect of concealment/deception in relationship to one's sex, whether it's by shame or embraced as an art form (thinking about the purpose of make-up). Gender is a social construct, sure. So is language. If someone finds virtue in "dressing up", I don't think think that their words and way of thinking are going to be independently free from the same treatment. You have to accept them as they are or not engage the subject with them directly.

 

[TraderPatTX]

I'd love to see somebody explain why kids should be able to watch and participate in this.

 

[Hanafuda]

I'd love to see somebody explain why kids should be able to watch and participate in this.

Wondering if @Sir Tortoise and/or @MikaDubbz thinks the drag show happening in that video is sexual/prurient in nature, and completely inappropriate for the many children watching it ... or if it's nothing more than "men in women's clothes?"

 

[Foxi4]

Wondering if @Sir Tortoise and/or @MikaDubbz thinks the drag show happening in that video is sexual/prurient in nature, and completely inappropriate for the many children watching it ... or if it's nothing more than "men in women's clothes?"

I will say, I definitely saw a male thong, and I see children in attendance, so that answers one of the questions. If I recall correctly, I was told that I’m making a “category mistake” and that my Devil’s Advocate question made me, I quote, “a bigot”. If anyone would like to recant, I’m all ears. As a side note, that looks like an exceedingly boring drag show - I don’t see a bar and I don’t hear any stand-up going on, so this is subpar representation.

 

[MikaDubbz]

Wondering if @Sir Tortoise and/or @MikaDubbz thinks the drag show happening in that video is sexual/prurient in nature, and completely inappropriate for the many children watching it ... or if it's nothing more than "men in women's clothes?"

Sure, that's a sexual drag show, I never once said that not a single drag show is sexual in nature lol, just that they aren't inherently, there are plenty of sexual drag shows, and plenty of non-sexual drag shows. I gave examples of the kind of drag shows I was talking about: the ones where the man in drag sings or lip syncs a song, reads a book, or does a stand-up routine. Nice try on your gotcha questioning though.

Heck, the fact that after looking into this law more, they specifically do specify drag shows that are sexual in nature shows that even their state government recognizes that there are non-sexual drag shows, and I'm at least happy to see they're not so scared to be going after those too.

 

[TraderPatTX]

Sure, that's a sexual drag show, I never once said that not a single drag show is sexual in nature lol, just that they aren't inherently, there are plenty of sexual drag shows, and plenty of non-sexual drag shows. I gave examples of the kind of drag shows I was talking about: the ones where the man in drag sings or lip syncs a song, reads a book, or does a stand-up routine. Nice try on your gotcha questioning though.

So we can agree that children should not be at shows like this, right? If not, what is the cutoff? Is it the men wearing thongs with their penises slapping around, the provocative dancing or something else?

 

[MikaDubbz]

So we can agree that children should not be at shows like this, right? If not, what is the cutoff? Is it the men wearing thongs with their penises slapping around, the provocative dancing or something else?

Depending on your personal values and what you want to shield your kids from in life, yeah if you want to be a good parent, you probably shouldn't let them go see sexual shows of any sort. Again though, this really shouldn't be something we need the law to do in order to parent for us, we should take some responsibility ourselves, take a part in our kids lives, and make sure they are bearing witness to things in life that we think is appropriate for them or not.

Here's another way to look at it, I don't think a child should ever have to bear witness to someone being attacked or killed, but I don't think we need additional laws to say it's illegal for a child to be in a dangerous neighborhood lol. Just be a good parent and make sure your kid never gets to that dangerous neighborhood to begin with.

 

[Foxi4]

Depending on (…) what you want to shield your kids from in life (…)

“Penises of strangers” is on that list, I think.

 

[MikaDubbz]

“Penises of strangers” is on that list, I think.

Sure, so don't bring your kids to a nude beach, which by the way are legal in parts of the US. And maybe this will shock some of you, but its not illegal for children to be at those nude beaches. I would never bring my child there of course, but I also don't need the government to suddenly strike down nude beaches either.

 

[Foxi4]

Sure, so don't bring your kids to a nude beach, which by the way are legal in parts of the US. And maybe this will shock some of you, but its not illegal for children to be at those nude beaches. I would never bring my child there of course, but I also don't need the government to suddenly strike down nude beaches either.

I would argue that a nudist beach is a designated area where nudity or general exposure can be expected, which is why many statutes treat it as an exception from the general rule (if you’re looking for an example, check Florida Statute § 800.04). There is no such expectation in a library, or in public, and indecent exposure is generally punishable by law unless there was no sexual intent (public urination, breastfeeding, accidental clothing slip and so on).

 

[MikaDubbz]

I would argue that a nudist beach is a designated area where nudity can be expected, which is why many statutes treat it as an exception from the general rule (if you’re looking for an example, check Florida Statute § 800.04). There is no such expectation in a library, or in public, and indecent exposure is generally punishable by law unless there was no sexual intent (public urination, breastfeeding, accidental clothing slip and so on).

So then why not make the law so that sexual drag shows can only happen in strip clubs and the like? Why make them illegal entirely? It's just silly, we don't need the law to do our parenting for us, and I'll always feel that way. I don't like guns, but I don't need the government to make them completely illegal just so a child can never come across one; it should come down to a parent with a gun to take good care of their guns and ensuring their kids can never get access to them, keep them locked up in a gun safe and stuff like that.