Don't cut parents out of classrooms

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

"So, Johnny, what happened in school today?"

"Sorry, Dad, I can't tell you. They made us sign confidentiality agreements that forbid us from telling anyone what was said in class."

A couple of weeks ago I wrote, to the dismay and disagreement of a few, about how tough it is becoming for parents to be involved in their children's lives, what with "it-takes-a-village-to-raise-your-kids" adherents getting in the way. Now comes the ultimate:

North suburban Deerfield High School freshmen last month were required to sign a "confidentiality agreement" promising not to disclose to anyone what was said in a mandatory class involving one of the touchiest of subjects: homosexuality.

To be fair, the class was viewed in two ways:

•The school said the class was about building acceptance, tolerance and safety for bullied or marginalized students, such as gays. A panel of gay and pro-gay students explained to the students what it is like to be homosexual in an unfriendly, hostile or even threatening atmosphere and explored ways for students to become more accepting.

•North Shore Student Advocacy, the opponents, said the presentation by members of the Straight and Gay Alliance student group was an attempt to cast homosexuality in a positive light without presenting opposing views. The opponents feared that 14-year-olds who disagreed would be unfairly burdened with the label of hater or religious fanatic.

Which description is more accurate is difficult to determine, because parents have not been allowed to sit in on the class—which is understandable because there's nothing like the presence of parents to stifle discussion—and a promised videotape has not been made available. All the parents have to go on is what their children tell them, which is ironic because the children aren't supposed to be talking about it to anyone.

My first reaction was disbelief and outrage—at the unprecedented arrogance and stupidity of telling children that they can't talk about what's going on in school, even, presumably, with their parents. The know-it-alls were spinning out of control.

But a reading of the promise that the students were asked to sign indicates that it was more likely the result of a well-intentioned effort to protect children from being ridiculed and punished by their peers for what they say.

"We don't repeat what someone says in class outside of the classroom except if we have permission from the person that said it," the statement read. "We will not continue a conversation outside of class without permission from all the people that were involved during the class."

Such a promise, of course, makes it impossible to discuss what happened in class with the people who matter most: parents. The agreement may have been done without the intention of cutting out parents, which doesn't say much about how carefully this project was thought out. At best, the pledge was well intentioned but naive and ill-considered. At worst, it was really intended to hide a controversial issue from parents. To borrow from the Las Vegas marketing slogan: "What happens in school, stays in school."

Concerned Women for America a conservative advocacy group, later said the school principal told it that the pledge was a mistake. But I think there's a bigger mistake than the pledge itself: The project is an unrealistic attempt to create a non-judgmental environment about a complicated and controversial political, social, ethical and moral issue. Take another look at the pledge statement: "Each person has a chance to say what he or she wants without having it debated or denied or attacked, or agreed with or supported. It gets to stand on its own, without being taken over by someone else, either by cross talk [debating, denying] or piggybacking [agreeing, supporting]."

Here is an attempt to scrub a discussion clean of debate, disagreement or—astonishingly—agreement. It assumes that "choosing sides" is a horrible way to come to a mutual understanding.

This is not the real world. Nor is it right when one side is given an official platform to make value statements, as it was in the Deerfield class. Never mind the gross unfairness of it and how it biases the discussion against people who disagree with the appointed few. Worse, it reflects a fanciful belief that we can and must avoid "hurt feelings," even at the cost of an idea that the recently deceased author Kurt Vonnegut so dearly valued: That from cantankerous disagreement we can extract the real and true.

At least that's what I think, and if that causes hurt feelings at Deerfield High School, too bad.