.
If your child has been having human sexuality classes and ISL has never told you that they will be covering LGBT, and this is all a surprise to you….the school has violated your parental right to know exactly the nature of your child’s education, and prevented you from exercising your parental right to be the FIRST educator of your child’s morals.
(ISL has changed its logo since the issuing of the weekly parent newsletter (Feb 15, 2019), picture above. It appointed a new Director two years ago, and along with the new Director is this new direction into LGBT Sex Ed, and now a new logo..)
.
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, Article 18
.
If your family values, whether due to religion, culture, tradition, conservatism etc., are contrary to what is being taught through LGBT sex ed curriculum, then your human right to manifest your religion/belief in your family teaching has been undone because the school is teaching against your family’s moral teachings. Your right to lead and teach your children according to your freedom of conscience has been usurped.
.
.
.
Is all this news to you? That’s why I’m writing.
Our family only found all this out when our 13 year old son, in January 2018, was told in “circle time” with the student counsellor, that though he and his friend (a female) were “straight”, —that “Time would tell!” I wrote in to complain, expecting an apology and a promise from the principal that he would speak to the teacher about how inappropriate it was for her to teach sexual morals to my son. I didn’t get either of that. I received the statement about the school counsellor’s beliefs on sexual orientation being fluid (forwarded to me by the principal, so this must be the school’s position too), and I received a statement that the school was going to embed human sexuality throughout the primary school and secondary curriculum! “Well, why haven’t you told the parents?” …and 15 months later, parents are none the wiser, —and that’s why I’m writing.
I even went to the Chairman of the Board of Governors (May 2018) and asked that a board meeting be called to discuss this issue. I told the Chairman that the school MUST tell parents they are teaching LGBT and give them an anonymous way of feeding back on this idea. To me, this was an imperative— the ethical thing to do!
Shockingly, I had a difficult time convincing the board that this was an important issue, worth calling a board meeting for. I had to send the school news articles of parents protesting this in other nations to convince them to discuss the issue. The reply from the chairman (assuming the meeting even took place) was that they would tell parents “what they choose”. Then, for the following 15 months I read every newsletter and watched as the school did NOT ever tell parents they were teaching LGBT Sex Ed. The closest they ever got to it was to tell parents that they’ll be “teaching human sexuality” citing the UNESCO document.
I took this UNESCO document, quoted by the school principal, and continuously referred to by the school when “notifying” parents about the sexual education classes to a Professor of Virology (including the AIDS Virus since the 1980s) at the CHUV (teaching hospital in Lausanne). He is not affiliated with any religion. He lives in my community, where the International School is located too. His children attended ISL many, many years ago. So, he has more than a passing interest in what is happening at the school.
He read the document and he said that he sees no justification for teaching LGBT in this document. He said that if ISL was using this document as justification for teaching LGBT, they are SUPER-IMPOSING an interpretation on top of it that doesn’t exist.
He says that he finds what ISL is teaching (LGBT) “disturbing” and he “feels sorry for me”. This is coming from a doctor that has worked 30-40 years for the benefit of the gay community.
Note that the words, “evidence informed” in the title of the UNESCO document means that it is not “evidence backed“. This is a huge distinction. This means that there is not enough objective scientific data to claim that it is evidence backed.
The other language that I saw the school use was that they will “teach congruenceto students’ beliefs and values”. This “teach congruence” is coded language meaning teaching of LGBT.
After almost a year of watching the school obfuscate about the matter while I kept on telling the school to TELL THE PARENTS, I finally took matters into my own hands and wrote this blogpost to TELL THE PARENTS. The school was warned by me, that they need to TELL THE PARENTS and the optics would look better if they did it themselves.
What precipitated the writing of this blogpost was when I received a parent newsletter arrived in my email inbox (May 2019) the SAME DAY that the next round of Sex Ed classes were to start (to last for the next two months) and by the time I read the email, my child had already had one class of Sex Ed. THIS!–, after the school knows how unhappy I am about their LGBT Sex Ed intentions. This was not respecting parents’ “religious, moral, and political convictions” (Article 9.2 of Swiss School Laws).
I just HAD to tell my son’s 75 classmates parents so that they can choose according to their conscience, about the upcoming two months worth of Sex Ed classes. It is THEIR RIGHT. If the school won’t be transparent about their LGBT Sex Ed curriculum objectives, then I’ve provided them 10 Questions that Parents should ask the school about its LGBT Sex Ed.
The parents can choose what they want, but they need to know what is happening first. The school can teach whatever they want, but ethically they must tell parents what they are teaching and legally, they are required to in order to respect parental rights (Article 9.2)
Parents can have any opinion they want about my actions, but I was only thinking of their child and their parental rights. After the Chairman of the Board came back to me in July 2018 to say that the , “School will choose what they will tell parents”, I told them the school that I would work my way down a list of authority lines over the school to force them to be transparent. All the research that you read here is the result of consulting and studying the various authority lines. It is a year’s worth of research. The school should not be surprised that I’ve gone public with the issue, because I told them I would if they didn’t do the right thing. I nevertold them to stop teaching LGBT. I only told them to TELL THE PARENTS.
If they had told parents, the issue would have been contained, but now it’s going to be a Swiss national conversation via the upcoming Swiss national referendum on censorship laws https://www.censure-non.ch/ . See this blogpost for our family’s involvement in the Referendum to protect the right of parents to speak about, debate, and disagree with LGBT Sex Ed.
In addition to a national conversation in Switzerland, it has become an international conversation, now that I know that Canada is exporting its LGBT Sex Ed curriculum to other nations through the United Nations.
School Laws in Switzerland
Parents have a right to know and a right to choose the nature of their child’s education, and especially when it touches on the areas of morals and especially sexual morals.
The image above is a screenshot of the School Laws for the Swiss province of Vaud, where ISL resides. The translation into English reads:
Article 9.1 Schools must be neutral from the point of view of religion and politics.
Article 9.2 Schools must respect the religious, moral, and political convictions of students and their parents.
Article 11.1 All forms of political, religious, or commercial propaganda towards students is forbidden.
Again– I’m not asking the school to stop the teaching of human sexuality and/or LGBT, but that they be completely transparent to parents about what they are teaching. If not, they are not respecting the religious, moral, and political convictions of students and their parents who would want to know what LGBT is in the curriculum (Swiss School Law, Article 9.2).
They could be a LGBT Charter School if they wanted to, but then no longer an International School.
Parents, note that School Law Article 9.2 requiring schools to respect parents’ convictions means the school must easily allow you to withdraw your child from teaching that goes against your religious, moral, or political convictions. In the Swiss public system, the notice about Sex Ed comes with a waiver on the bottom for parents to sign if they don’t want their child to participate in Sex Ed classes. Don’t allow your private school to tell you that Sex Ed is compulsory.
Article 9.1 (need for neutrality) and 11.1 ( forbidding propaganda) is of concern, since the LGBT Sex Ed movement is spearheaded by social politics. If a school really wanted to address society’s,problems ofdiversity, inclusion, intolerance, they should be embedding the teaching of tolerance for muslim and jews. Hate towards muslims and jews has spiked in recent years; yet people turn a blind-eye to it. Let’s embed the idea of religious tolerance into curriculum, if we really want to have more peaceful world (one of the aims of the International Baccalaureate – IBO curriculum).
The image above is a screenshot of the School Laws for PRIVATE SCHOOLS in the Swiss province of Vaud, where ISL resides. The translation into English reads:
Article 2.1 of School Laws for Private Schools: “The legal provisions valid for public schools concerning hygiene as well as the public order and moral standards are applicable by analogy to private schools.”
Thank you to the local Swiss medical doctor and professor for helping me find the relevant Swiss legislation. Parents, don’t allow your private school to tell you that they have their own sets of rules, apart from Swiss public schools. They must follow the same standards . You have the links to the entire set of “School Laws” (public school) and School Laws for Private Schools above. Use them.
See this blogpost for 10 Questions to ask your school about its LGBT Sex Ed.
NOW, —you have the minimum knowledge as a parent to choose the nature of your child’s sexual education.
Parents love their children and nothing can replace the protective and lasting effect of parental love. Parents, don’t let a school or any body, institution, or person take your place.
~Vivian
for the English version
.
(Aside: No religion of any sort, or Middle Eastern, Asian culture believes that sexual fantasies are to be encouraged. That’s why they encourage meditation—to empty ourselves of selfish desires. What is the difference between self-generated pornography and online, paper pornography? It’s euphoric addictive effects on the brain are the same. The damaging effects of pornography are well-documented, so will we encourage children to self-generate their own pornography? An International School that purports to respect students from all nationalities, cultures, religionscannot teach that sexual fantasies are “natural”. They might be for Western cultures. I don’t know because I’m Asian. I’ll let the Western parents weigh in on this.)
(For any person to feel they have the right to influence our children’s inner thought-life—-I shudder to think what this signals about our society. This is breath-takingly shocking interference by the State (in our case—the school). American parents—don’t tolerate this aggression into your privacy. American parents are best at fighting for the fights of the individual against interference from above. Is there no domain that is sacred to the individual anymore?)
NEW: about “COHERENCY” Anytime you read or hear language from teachers/school counsellors saying they will “teach students to be coherent with their beliefs and values”, KNOW that this is coded educational language to teach LGBT i.e. “If you feel a certain sexual orientation, go ahead and BE that orientation. If that changes on a daily, monthly, yearly basis—that’s absolutely normal so go with it in order to be “coherent”; or “If you feel like a boy one year, and then feel like a girl the next year (no matter what your biological gender is), then go with it, in order to be “coherent” with your beliefs at the time.
When your school sends out school newsletters about its Sex Ed curriculum, you must write back and ask, “Is there LGBT content? If there is, what is it?”. If you don’t use the words LGBT, don’t expect a private school (that can keep its curriculum hidden) to voluntarily use the word towards you.
In the recentpast, we lined up our thinking with reality (i.e. genes, biology). Now—the pendulum has swung so far the other direction, that we are now “changing reality” to fit our thinking (our world-view). This is not education. This is not schooling. This is the OPPOSITE of what I trained as a school teacher to do.
(Aside: If gender is socially-constructed, why can’t “race” be socially-constructed too?! I am Asian in ethnicity but I was born, raised, educated to M.S. degree in a white country. I’ve spent 80% of my life living in “white” countries. Why can’t I be “white” then? My Asian features are only skin-deep but you are saying that internal, external organs, hormones coursing through our blood 24/7 are irrelevant to my gender identity? If gender is socially-constructed, then let’s make RACE socially-constructed.
Note: I don’t believerace is socially-constructed. I’m only saying this as an example of the absurdity of cherry-picking “science” to fit whatever “warm & fuzzy” idea flits through our heads. If this was science, then it would ALL ALIGN logically and in parallel. If gender is socially-constructed, then so would be race. Think about it.)
See this article where Martina Navratilova objected to men who have transitioned to being female competing in FEMALE sports: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47301007 This is because they have stronger muscles (and other advantages in sport) due to testosterone due to their BIOLOGICAL GENDER. Martina Navratilova is of my generation, where facts, biology, objective-evidence are STILL important! You don’t want to espouse a world-view that flies in the face of biology. Unfortunately, due to back-lash and rejection from her LGBT community, Ms Navratilova has recanted her position. The science hasn’t changed though, no matter what. (I feel sorry for her. Why can’t she have her own opinion about the issue? Are we all to be controlled by politics?)
How are we going to guarantee equality for women’s rights, if we lose the definition of female?
You would think the United Nations would be firmly rooted in facts, scientific evidence, wouldn’t you? and especially the World Health Organization (WHO), that is part of the United Nations?! Well, read this Forbes article where the WHO is now endorsing traditional Chinese medicine with no scientific, factual evidence, behind the endorsement.
I imagine the WHO has endorsed traditional Chinese medicine, because it is “trendy” to be “touchy-feely, inclusive, diverse, liberal in ideas”. Even the United Nations is not immune to this “change reality to fit my world-view” syndrome.
I am Chinese in heritage, but there was NO WAY, I was going to use Chinese medicine to treat my son’s leukaemia (blood cancer) when he was 3 years old. (Yes, the same son involved in the inciting incident with ISL). We were living in Hong Kong at the time, and NONE of the Chinese doctors even HINTED about using Chinese medicine to treat his cancer. See what happened to the Chinese actress that used Chinese traditional medicine to treat her lymphoma https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-37370201 She had a high probability to survive her cancer (just as my son did) if she had accepted Western medicine (chemotherapy), but she lost her life, months later, due to “airy-fairy” ideas that sound wonderfully “liberal” (liberate yourself from the strictures of side-effects, facts!) but were not rooted in objective, external evidence. My son battled his cancer for 2 years and now he is completely healthy (10 years later). In our family, during the same period, we had another young relative, living in HK, who went the Chinese medicine route for her autoimmune issue and she did not survive, and suffered greatly while she was alive. Don’t be FOOLED by anything coming out of the United Nations, —just because it says “United Nations” or “UNESCO”. This includes whatever LGBT Sex Ed is coming out of the United Nations. Read the BBC article about the WHO’s endorsement of Chinese traditional medicine, in opposition to scientific evidence to understand that the UN has lost its way too… and where is the United Nations getting its LGBT Sex Ed curriculum? Read the following:
Canada’s LGBT Sex Ed (cancelled after 3 years 2015-2018, after the parents protested and voted out the government that installed it): https://www.campaignlifecoalition.com/sex-ed-curriculum
Canada is exporting its LGBT Sex Ed to other nations through the United Nations: https://www.campaignlifecoalition.com/clc-blog/id/66/title/canadian-bureaucrats-at-the-united-nations-take-cues-from-kathleen-wynne-to-force-controversial-sex-ed-on-other-nations I believe it is Canada’s LGBT Sex Ed curriculum (or something similar) that is in the International Schools, since the International Baccalaureate Curriculum (IB) has a close working-relationship to the United Nations. The IB’s offices sit beside the UNESCO offices, here in Geneva, Switzerland. Note that this curriculum is a failed curriculumthat lasted only 3 years and ousted the government that put it into place. The Liberal Party of Ontario, Canada who had been in power for 15 years, was ousted because it forced this curriculum into public schools. It went from 58 seats to only 7 seats in parliament. In Canada, one needs at least 8 seats to be an “official political party”, so the Liberal Party lost even official party status. Canada’s LGBT Sex Ed curriculum is a failed curriculum that lasted only 3 years, so will your nation really accept a curriculum that failed in its country of origin?
International Schools have to think carefully about whether they want to be an International School or an LGBT Charter School. You can only be either but not both.
I have my own personal opinions about the nature of Sex Ed that should be in schools, but it’s not my place to dictate to a private school what it does. You can teach whatever you want, in theory, as long as it is lawful and ethical. I only ask that private schools do the lawful and ethical thing, which is to be completely transparent to Parents about its curriculum–any curriculum. (Would society accept a school was covertlyteaching abstinence, celibacy, saving sex for marriage, anti-abortion?) International Schools are limited as compared to other private schools, by their over-arching mission to teach intercultural understanding which requires them to respect children that come and go from nations all around the world. This is what makes an International School, an International School. (I have Masters level studies at the University of Bath, UK that taught me about the definition of International School.) That’s why I say that an International School cannot teach LGBT.
I am a parent, but I was forced todo the job of what the International School of Lausanne should have been doing on its own to fulfill its legal and ethical responsibilities, —which was to TELL THE PARENTS so they can exercise choice. (See discussion above about Swiss School Laws.) I am bound by my own conscience and code of ethics as an International School Educator, such that I could not sit idly by and stay silent while parents remained unaware. (So, don’t shoot the messenger!)
Parents pay for private school education—to exercise choice in the curriculum that their children participate in. Now that you parents know, feel free to exercise your choice. Choose whatever you want. Whatever you decide is none of my business.
~Wishing you the best for your child to grow up with values coherent with yours.
-Vivian
Tag: International School of Lausanne Switzerland