Wielding her teaspoon*

Caitlin's class has recently re-arranged their seating and each table group gave themselves a name. Caitlin is sitting with the "Gaybo" group. I asked what the hell that was supposed to mean. Apparently, according to the kid who suggest the name, it means "we're not gay."

*sigh*

I was glad to hear Caitlin had no part in choosing the name. David tells me that "gaybo" is used as an insult by kids at the school, so how it also means "not gay" isn't quite clear to me, but either way it's problematic.

Thing is, if my "that's dodgy" radar went off, why didn't the teacher's?

When I pointed out the problem with the name, Caitlin instantly said she should go to her teacher and tell her "that it's homophobic". It's pretty cool that she wants to do that but I can't help but feel apprehensive about the possible fall-out for her. Guess that's what letting your kids grow up is about, at some point you have to step back and let them take risks and I do think it's better coming from her than from me.

This'll follow on nicely from the class discussion that was had last week when the scripture teacher was away. They all took turns talking about their beliefs about religion so Caitlin found herself proclaiming her atheism to the whole class (I think there were a couple of others who also said they didn't believe in god, so about 10% of the class, which I found interesting).

*the teaspoon reference comes from here.