Pericles...

I think you are both right and wrong. First congratulations for raising such a child who is clearly not a bigot. I agree that the assignment question would have been difficult to answer for someone who is not in a minority group.

I think you are in error here though: "without noticeable harm" (referring to the use of insults such as 'poofter'). A quick search will disclose many instances, both surveyed and anecdotal, where such name-calling can lead to "noticeable harm" in the victim, even heterosexual ones. It's a form of bullying that, yes, has been with us for ever but that doesn't make it appropriate behaviour. Funnily though if your son was to say as much to his mates I guess he, in turn, would be bullied. It never pays to be different in the school yard.

"There are good reasons - that teachers well understand - for school curricula to foster tolerance of religious, cultural and sexuality difference in Australian schools."

I first came across the term "Heterophobia" in Daphne Patai's book, later Bernard Chaphin wrote;

"In America today, a powerful case can, and will, be made that heterosexuals all too readily defer to homosexuals regarding claims of oppression or that we suffer some kind of psychological malady due to our refusal to celebrate them to the full extent they desire. Most “straights” seem to silently accept the validity of bogus concepts like “homophobia” which maintains that many of us harbor hate for those who happen to be physically attracted to members of the same sex. I hold that the concept of homophobia is fallacious, and that, in fact, the opposite of homophobia, “heterophobia” is a more pressing concern.

I tend to agree with Bernard that heterophobia is a more pressing concern.

Last year, a friend on mine was bashed on a university campus. He had to spend a night in hospital. He now fears to walk around the same campus after dark.

He was bashed because he was openly homosexual.

This is not someone who is "perverted", living and "unhealthy lifestyle". This is a young man who is devoted to his partner of 5 years. This is not someone who is trying to force his "lifestyle" on other, but someone who was, until recently, not afraid to be himself.

While I realise that this event was at the extreme end of the homophobic scale, how many other, allbeit smaller acts of discrimination, are leveled at homosexual people?

Programs such as the one in Queensland may be unpopular, and they may be token. But if they can take one small step towards ending bigotry and homophobia, I think they should be given a chance.

I still remember the day when i was put on detention for a week for standing up in class and saying that my personal opinion was that i did not like or advocate homosexuals, therefore i was not going to sit there and listen to her advocate and encourage people to be different.

I must admit i am more tolerant and a little less hard nosed now but in a society where the choice of being homosexual and the respective sensitivity overrides the equally important choice of not being homosexual, our society has become more than a little ludicrous.

And to boot, our government institutions should stop advocating it, merely accept it. At university i dont want to see a queer week, i dont want to see shocking advertising & imagery to bring attention to queer peoples sexual choices, conversely we dont have a straight week and therefore if they want to pidgeon hole themselves as a minority group with minority group disadvantages, dont follow this line.

Sexual preference should have NO BEARING, i repeat NO BEARING on the teachings of any institution, it is not thier responsibility and they are overstepping the mark by doing so

Peter JH, thanks for the congratulations, but as I hinted in my post, I'm fairly certain I had nothing directly to do with it - it seems to be endemic among kids these days, you don't have to "teach" them much except the ability to detect hypocrisy and blind dogma.

For some reason I found your statement "I agree that the assignment question would have been difficult to answer for someone who is not in a minority group" a little patronising, although I'm sure you didn't mean it that way.

One avenue I did not explore before, but is perhaps worth introducing into the discussion, is: what would have happened to the boy if having failed even to understand the question, he put in a poor performance in answering it? After all, if you can't see the "differences" you are supposed to build into the storyline, how exciting and dramatic could your essay possibly be?

Would he have been taken to one side, and told that whether he liked it or not, discrimination against minorities exists, and he had better get used to it? Would his inability to comprehend the mindset that creates this bigotry count against him in evaluating his academic performance? Under what heading would he have "failed"?

Quite often, it is the industry that creates these bogeymen that concerns me most. The vast majority of us sail through the playground insults without incident, and by accepting them as nothing more than childish byplay, manage to keep them in perspective. It is only when the thought police creep up and chastise us for something that offends nobody except the thought police, that it can get ugly.

Pericles said, “Quite often, it is the industry that creates these bogeymen that concerns me most. The vast majority of us sail through the playground insults without incident, and by accepting them as nothing more than childish byplay, manage to keep them in perspective.”

Maybe so, and I agree that it’s sensible to try to keep out briefly fashionable theories out of basic education. And you have to be careful not to make mountains out of molehills. But the truth is, kids can behave like little s**ts, especially once they get into mobs. A key task of education, in the broadest sense, should be to inculcate a sense of respect for the different and the vulnerable, and to challenge the nasty tendency of humans toward mob rule and violence.

The horrible Werribee incident, which seems to have captured the media’s attention at least in Melbourne recently, indicates that schools, and all of us, have our work cut out teaching kids to treat others with decency. Bullying might be common, but it is not a trivial matter. The Queensland school’s essay question seems to me like an attempt to get kids to start thinking about such matters. This is a good thing. It’s called developing empathy. More, please. Anti-homosexual bigots, and others who get off on attacking minorities, kindly get a life.