He’s Ready For His Close-Up
As readers may imagine, I do have some sympathy with this view:
I have no problem with my child’s teacher being gay.
I have a problem with them being incredibly strange and narcissistic about it.
It’s not because you’re gay that I don’t want my child around you, it’s because you think this is normal or appropriate behavior for a teacher. pic.twitter.com/3chE6L5Hr3
— Frank McCormick | Chalkboard Heresy (@CBHeresy) July 2, 2023
Note, in the background, the prominent reminder to the class – a countdown to the teacher’s birthday. Because, obviously, it’s all about him and acknowledging his fabulousness.
But then, it so often is.
Update, via the comments:
Mike D adds,
It has to be said, in terms of setting an example – a reference point for children of what a functional adult might look like – needy, narcissistic theatre isn’t exactly what one hopes for.
It’s worth noting how rapidly, and seemingly unopposed, it’s become something of a norm for children to be entrusted to emotionally arrested men who think that prancing about in leggings and five-inch heels, and flapping paper fans – and looking “cute” in painted nails and make-up – are part of their job description. As if they were doing us a favour.
And so, we have children being taught by men who, in their thirties, are still buying blue and green hair dye, and who habitually film themselves miming to pop records, before uploading the results to TikTok in search of affirmation, not least from their own students.
Because, it turns out, what the children really need to learn is the importance of continual, flamboyant self-preoccupation, and the round-the-clock foregrounding of one’s “identity” and sexual inclinations, especially in office hours and among children. Along with the conceit that authenticity, being one’s “true self,” entails enacting a caricatured pantomime, a generic cartoon. And of course, the lie that the endless, tedious performance is being done for their benefit.
It is, however, curious how the men mouthing this claim most emphatically – about doing it for the children, to create a “safe space” – just so happen to like parading around the classroom in glitter, stilettos and clownish make-up, and just so happen to already have an extensive collection of rather tarty ladies’ shoes.
A coincidence, I’m sure.
Update 2:
Regarding the paragraph above, and Mr Hey-Kids-Look-At-My-Hooker-Shoes, Clam adds,
What’s remarkable is the obviousness of the lie. If you poke through chappie’s TikTok videos, it’s clearly all about him and what he wants. The children are just a pretext, a rhetorical shield. And it seems that his peers and employers are too cowed and complicit to acknowledge the obvious dishonesty.
Because objecting to narcissistic overreach – and the use of other people’s children as a captive audience – would be “homophobic,” “transphobic,” “right-wing,” etc. And so, our self-imagined hero, our champion of the downtrodden fetishist, is triumphant and boastful: “If we’re not pissing off the homophobes, we’re not doing our jobs,” says he.
And of course, the children are manipulated, dragged into his drama, made to browse his TikTok videos and read the comments, and made to side with him against any parent who might object.
To call it narcissism scarcely covers it.
Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.
It’s all so tiresome.
It has to be said, in terms of setting an example – a reference point for children of what a functional adult might look like – needy, narcissistic theatre isn’t exactly what one hopes for.
And yet.
Harry Potter fan fic ruined an entire generation.
It’s worth noting how rapidly, and seemingly unopposed, it’s become something of a norm for children to be entrusted to emotionally arrested men who think that prancing about in leggings and five-inch heels, and flapping paper fans – and looking “cute” in painted nails and make-up – are part of their job description.
As if they were doing us a favour.
And so, we have children being taught by men who, in their thirties, are still buying blue and green hair dye, and who habitually film themselves miming to pop records, before uploading the results to TikTok in search of approval.
I do hate to sound stuffy, but that doesn’t sound ideal.
Also noteworthy is how such teachers never seem to be filming in private school classrooms.
Though some private schools do offer ‘alternative’ education and at least one of them will do something of this kind, I strongly suspect this simply does not happen in fee-paying schools in the majority of cases.
It’s possible that it’s also because private schools are much stricter than public ones as to what they allow their staff to post on social media (a whole other issue worth paying attention to incidentally).
Related, at least in the more general sense:
The retention crisis has been going on for years and the fact that they think throwing money at it will address, much less resolve, the underlying issues is as alarming as it is laughable.
Oh, and how will this be paid for?
Ah but, what the children really need to learn is the importance of continual, flamboyant self-preoccupation. And the conceit that authenticity, being one’s “true self,” entails enacting a caricatured pantomime, a generic cartoon. And of course the lie that the endless, tedious performance is being done for their benefit.
That.
Well, it is curious how the men mouthing this claim most emphatically – about doing it for the children, to create a “safe space” – just so happen to like parading around the classroom in stilettos and clownish make-up, and just so happen to already have an extensive collection of rather tarty ladies’ shoes.
A coincidence, I’m sure.
When I was a child, we students were not told such things, much less more intimate details of our teachers’ private lives.
Relax. He’s just part of The Long Prance Through the Institutions.
I remain doubtful about this, as I have read reports now and then about private schools with extremely “woke” curricula. Could it be that the difference is merely that there are far more public schools than private ones? I don’t know.
It’s more a matter of osmosis. The public schools have little resistance. The private ones are a bit harder for these clowns to get into but at sufficient concentrations in the bluer areas they are showing up. The general wokeness in regard to other issues has made significant inroads into the private schools. These more extreme aspects are just taking a bit more time.
Conservatives get way too comfortable thinking that they have these fall back positions to retreat to. It’s loser-think. Conservative positions/attitudes, the viable ones of work ethic, responsibility , etc., need to be pressed by conservatives in our schools even harder than these defensive positions are. Make them justify keeping conservative ideas out. Take the book “banning” hysteria. If conservatives fought just as hard to ensure that conservative books, ones that have genuinely been removed or banned from the schools, are in the libraries and curriculum as they (finally try to) fight to keep the groomer porn out, the fight would be much, much more effective. But no, conservatives…”conservatives” are too nice to be so aggressive.
I’m just going to leave this here for no reason whatsoever.
That.
If it’s oppression and injustice for default public norms to exist, for those norms to be determined by majority sensibilities, and for the majority to have the moral legitimacy to enforce those norms – then the logical consequences work themselves out eventually.
If a minority member doesn’t shout his minority status from the rooftops, then to the extent that anyone thinks about him at all, they might take him on balance of probabilities to be a majority member, and this “passing” perpetuates a legacy of shameful erasure, othering, genocide, etc.
Activist sexual minorities are often accused of sexualizing neutral public spaces just as activist religious minorities are often accused of religious displays that are inappropriate in secular contexts. But public spaces are never neutral, but steeped in the sexual and religious sensibilities of the historic majority, in implicit ways like Sundays being a day off.
If all norms are truly equal, then minorities have just as much right to stamp public spaces with their own sensibilities. If children and their parents are embarrassed by such displays, they’re wrong and need to be educated, and if they don’t accept the teachable moment they’re bad people whose discomfort is deserved.
The teacher’s unions might be the source of the difference – they’ve not much of a toe-hold in private schools.
That does seem to be the common conceit.
Likewise, the supposedly unassailable niceness of the Pride flag itself, now seemingly ubiquitous and subject to additions, as if it couldn’t possibly have acquired connotations of a kind that many parents wouldn’t be thrilled about. Say, the propagation of “non-binary” woo and imaginary identities, the ongoing girls’ sports-and-bathroom wars, the deceiving of parents, and the mutilation of children.
It’s just sparkles and ponies, you see.
Really? We’re seeing pervy LGBTQ narcissists doing things in public that would have gotten heterosexuals condemned and even arrested. For most of my life heterosexuals agreed that sex belonged in private and especially should not be shoved in children’s faces. The perv wing of the left has been waging war on such standards, but those were the traditional standards of civilized society.
there weren’t privileged castes
Conservative positions/attitudes, the viable ones of work ethic, responsibility , etc., need to be pressed by conservatives in our schools even harder than these defensive positions are.
History and Moral Philosophy should be a mandatory course, and it must be taught by a citizen.
“The law equally forbids rich and poor from sleeping rough and stealing bread.”
–Anatole France
“The law equally forbids normal people and perverts from sexually molesting children.”
–LGBTQ activists
a reference point for children of what a functional adult might look like – needy, narcissistic theatre isn’t exactly what one hopes for.
Now, somewhere in that classroom are kids with family/extended-family members who just happen to be gay/lesbian. Just regular, old Uncle Bill (or cousin Katie) who show up at Thanksgiving with dessert & their boyfriend/girlfriend or give books as gifts at Christmas. What must those kids be thinking when they see Mr. “I’M GAY GAY GAY ME ME ME” in class?
Such teachers (and the “KINK IS AWESOME let me SHOW YOU!” creatures in “Pride” parades) are a threat to Bill & Katie and how they will be viewed, not the least by the kids in their family.
While I agree significantly in principle, at the current time, in the current culture, especially in a public school environment, you aren’t going to find a significant number of such angels. Putting aside that it’s a huge can of worms. Again, to be clear I agree. But a lot of prep work needs to be done before that is likely to happen.
Imagining the content of that course as devised by current ‘thought leaders’ is to induce a migraine.
If all norms are truly equal
Is it possible for one to be truly fabulous and normal? Fabulosity is clearly above the normal.
Well, quite. As seen in the links upthread, and the further links therein, the message seems to be that gay equals self-absorbed Nancy with cross-dressing tendencies.
From one of the posts linked above,
And,
Which, again, isn’t what might be hoped for.
If it wasn’t clear, that was what I meant when I said (and which is included in your post):
By ‘alternative’ education I meant, alternative, progressive, ‘woke’ and so on.
So I mean, yes, sure.
In the UK at least, some have become minor legends such as Summerhill and Bedales.
I mean, I have no idea whether either of those places have, or would be happy to have, a teacher such as Mr Proctor there, but I doubt it would surprise many to discover that they did.
It could, I suppose, yes.
Though I think a major difference (at least in the UK) between the public (state) and private schools is that the former are far more likely to appeal to those with a sense of mission.
Conceited and patronising, they go not to teach, but to transform lives and whole communities.
Consequently, they are probably far more motivated to share TikTok’s of themselves.
My kids’ school (U.S., Private, silicon valley) had a Fabulous! Teacher. But her idea of Fabulous! was to arrive one morning dragging a roadkill deer, so the kids could investigate it with knives and surgical scissors.
Thanks, Molly!
I always wondered how many laws and school regulations she violated, say, averaged over a typical school year…
Within McCormick’s comments section, some of the more ingenious participants accused McCormick of being anti-gay. He denied it, and then they proceeded to say things like, So you’re against rainbows then? Or are you just against colors? So we’re supposed to avoid teaching students about colors now? Maybe you’re just afraid of rainbows.
It’s a silly argument, but it is an example of the motte and bailey argumentative style. Surely you can’t be against the teaching of colors! That would be insane!
I had thought to counter argue something like, What? Are you afraid of us filling the classroom with images of plus signs with rainbows over them and surrounded by white birds? Are you afraid of birds? Are you afraid of weather events? Should we not teach about weather? And you don’t like the signs saying, JESUS IS LORD? Are you afraid of letter j? Are you afraid of the letter e? Should we not teach the alphabet anymore because you’re afraid of letters?
I don’t even know how to respond to these people, because on one hand they’re obviously trolling with the stupidest arguments possible. But these arguments are not far from the sneaky way they manipulate the system to get their viewpoints into place.
I should just go outside and lay on a grassy hill and stare at the blue sky instead of the blue bird.
That sounds truly educational.
When I were a lad back in the 1960s male teachers made up between 25-50% of the average primary school. Nobody gave it a moments thought.
Over the next 2-3 decades said teachers, with the possible exception of physical education were as near as damn it completely eradicated from state schools. Overwhelmingly this was because of the assumption that they “weren’t safe to be around kids” unlike many women whose proclivities would make a Borgia blush.
The at the beginning of the century something changed and the men came back. Except not the middle aged geography and history geezers with their knitted ties and leather-patched jackets. These men were colourful, unconventional, uninhibited and not at all shy in advertising these facts. In fact it rapidly became their favourite subject and overriding preoccupation to the detriment of anything so conventional as actual teaching. The education establishment twisted itself into knots not to be seen as judgemental and before we knew it the freaks had established an unassailable bridgehead with zero control over their premature (to be extremely kind) proselytism.
I laughed and I’m not sorry.
I’m just going to leave this here for no reason whatsoever.
Related…
It was very very sneaky adopting the rainbow as the woke symbol. Kids love rainbows. It has for years been used on a kids show about books: “reading rainbow”. So so easy to then slip it into the children’s clothing section of target
It saddens me that the LGBTQUERTY activists have hijacked not only the rainbow but also the word “gay.”
Also related: https://stonetoss.com/comic/class-struggle/
Like pst said above, the sorts of things it is inappropriate for school-age children to see if done/worn by XX female humans are ok if XY male humans do/wear it, as long as it is in the sacred name of Inclusion, Pride, and whatever else the Rainbow Cult says we’re worshipping today.
Guess he didn’t bring enough for everybody.
Also related related…
Part the First:
Part the Second
This. I don’t know what the answer is but giving up and letting them repeat their idiocy unchallenged, unchecked has not worked. Pretending otherwise is just that. Pretending.
Snort! What are the odds?
What’s remarkable is the obviousness of the lie. If you poke through chappie’s TikTok videos, it’s clearly all about him and what he wants. The children are just a pretext, a rhetorical shield. And it seems that his peers and employers are too cowed and complicit to acknowledge the obvious dishonesty.
Because objecting to narcissistic overreach – and the use of other people’s children as a captive audience – would be “homophobic,” “transphobic,” “right-wing,” etc. And so, our self-imagined hero, our champion of the downtrodden fetishist, is triumphant and boastful: “If we’re not pissing off the homophobes, we’re not doing our jobs.”
And of course, the children are manipulated, dragged into his drama, made to browse his TikTok videos and read the comments, and made to side with him against any parent who might object.
To call it narcissism scarcely covers it.
[ Post updated. ]
When you put it like that… 😀
Well, it isn’t at all unfair, and is pretty much the nub of it. That’s who he is.
And by the way, a happy Fourth to American readers.
Not much sugar, plenty of spice here.
If only indignation could be harnessed as a power source.
Snort
[ Sprays coffee over keyboard ]
[ Passes bar-wiping cloth. ]
I wouldn’t sniff it.
“It saddens me that the LGBTQUERTY activists have hijacked not only the rainbow but also the word gay”.
Geezer. That was a long time ago.
The current development is the campaign to completely invert language towards being queer-centric so that we no longer have normal people. Rather they are to be referred to as “cis” on account of being different from the new trans norm. In their brave new world we are the freaks.
Incidentally away from government and institutions, in other words among us mere plebs, the appeal of the alphabets is considerably less than some would have us believe. Within the first few weeks of the pandemic the beloved rainbow symbol, which LGB groups had worked so hard to lay claim to, was effortlessly appropriated by the NHS. But that’s another story….