Recently, I spent a weekend in Chicago. My husband's band was playing a couple of shows with some good bands, so we stayed out there all weekend.
Saturday night, he played with a punk band from Boston that I had seen another time when they were on tour through Chicago. I really liked them so I was looking forward to the show. They're a pretty political band that writes songs mostly about issues of gender equality and equal rights for LGBTQ. For the most part, I like hearing what they have to say and agree with their message. However, there were a couple of comments made during their set that I didn't feel comfortable about, that made me really think, and reflect on how that relates to teaching (more on that later).
They told a story about how just a couple of days ago, there was a comedian at a place where they were playing a show. He made a "joke" about Anderson Cooper being a faggot, and one of the band members threw something at him and then got up on stage and started a fight with him. Another song was about getting harassed on the street by people - a comment was made that we should kill those people. Another song of those is about how being transgender led to feelings of suicide for the band member, but then he realized that those feelings need to be directed at others instead of himself. Looking at their merch table later, I bought an album, and was looking at the shirts. One of the shirts showed a beautiful woman, standing on a pile of dead people, holding a gun in the air. She was lifting her skirt to reveal a penis and was peeing on the pile of people. The text on the shirt said: "US VS THEM / UNTIL THE VERY END." I couldn't help but feel like even though I was a supporter of LGBTQ equality, that shirt seemed to want to separate, rather than bring people together. Because I'm not transgender, I didn't feel like I was even welcome to buy a shirt for their band.
In contrast, the show that I was at the next night had a completely different vibe to it. There was a message of positivity in everything that they did. They talked about not letting anyone ever make you feel like you can't do something that you want to do. Don't let people make you feel like you're not punk enough, or trans enough, or anything else enough, because you're all beautiful, each and every one. I felt so much more a part of the scene, the music, and what was going on. I felt like I could support that band and that they valued me, whether or not I was heterosexual, homosexual, transexual, or anything else.
So, how does this relate to teaching?
Afterwards, I couldn't help but thinking about the different approaches to an issue, and how we get there. The first band I saw used violence, separation, isolation, and talked of killing people that had harassed them and made their lives miserable. I wondered how they got to that point, and what we, as teachers, can do to change this.
If you talk to most teachers (at least at the elementary level that I know of), they will probably tell you that they avoid talking about anything that has to do with issues relating to people that are gay or transgender. Kids just don't understand it. Or it's an awkward thing to talk about. Or they're too young to hear about that. Or it's just weird. Or teachers don't know how to explain it. But I think that we need to talk about it. We discuss these types of issues in my 5th grade classroom, and my students have always been more than able to handle it very maturely. I feel strongly that you can talk about these things with younger children, too.
You don't need to talk about sex to talk about sexuality; you can make the conversation appropriate for the age that you are dealing with. Kids understand that adults have relationships. They have parents and we talk about that. Many female teachers I know will talk about their husbands. If we're teaching about government, we have no problem talking about Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle. So why can't we talk about two women, or two men being together? Or about a girl that decided to become a man? You don't need to go into all of the details about what or how that happens. Handle it just like you would a question about how babies are made - give them an age- and developmentally-appropriate answer that gives them enough information for what they need to know. What we do need to do, though, is acknowledge it, and model respect for ALL people. If we pride ourselves on really teaching our students about diversity, and respecting and accepting people of all types, we can't only limit that to race and disabilities.
Guess what? Our students have gay parents, our students have transgender aunts or uncles, our students might even be realizing that they are questioning their own sexuality. I've talked to several adults that told me they had "known" since they were in elementary school. We have to acknowledge, accept, and affirm these views. If we continue to ignore it, pretend like it doesn't exist, or like it's something wrong and dirty, we are only encouraging students to grow up with the thinking that it's unfamiliar and wrong, and to do the types of things that cause people in the band that I saw to want to kill themselves and others for feeling like they'll never belong in this world. 2011 saw the highest number of anti-gay murders to date. Go do a Google search for hate crimes against LGBTQ; you'll probably want to throw up while reading it. I did. We need to let our students know that this is wrong. They may be hearing one message at home, but I feel that it's our duty as teachers to help these students become outstanding citizens, and that includes showing respect for all people, all of the time.
Even if you yourself don't understand it, or agree with it, you have to agree that it's wrong to bully, harass, attack, or kill someone for their sexual orientation, right? So help our students realize that, too. Make them see that we're all people. You can't keep LGBTQ out of our world (not that I'd want to), even if there are kids in our classrooms. So we might as well talk about it with our kids. And maybe we'll have kids that grow up that feel like they can work together, even if they're different, rather than having to be isolated on one side or the other.
I'd welcome comments and discussion!
ps. I know I haven't written in forever. This started as just a homework assignment, but I think I'll make it a goal to post weekly or biweekly from now on.
I love this -- and sometimes I say that I wish I taught the older grades so I can tackle issues like this, but I think we hold our own in second grade. One of our vocabulary words the second week of school was "family" and I made sure I had some same sex couples as examples for "family" in our powerpoint. And when we talked about it, that families sometimes have one mom, one dad or one mom, or two moms, etc. (we went through all the examples), they didn't even bat an eye. I think the kids need to be exposed to all types of families and lifestyles so that there is no question of something being different or odd because they see it often.
ReplyDeleteI had a professor who comes and teaches in our classrooms say that she doesn't feel that our district is open to books that have same sex couples or transgender characters -- I told her that in my classroom, we are. I want to open that discussion with my students if they have any questions and I want them to know that it is the norm -- that if they see a same sex couple or transgender people in our community, it is nothing more than natural. Love and be loved.
Rock on Mrs. Fausett, our kids are so lucky to have you!
Thanks for the comment, Bobbi (my first one!).
ReplyDeleteThat's totally my point, and I'm glad that you include that in your discussions of families. If the kiddos are being exposed to this from early on, and in a positive way, I think that they will have a much easier time being accepting of others. You won't necessarily get the automatic "eeeewwwww" if someone mentions two men being together that seems to be so reflexive for kids. Why is that gross? I also have books with gay characters in my library (although, I don't think I've got any with transgender characters; although that area of YA is just starting to develop, I think).
Some of those books prompted us to have some serious discussions about the words that we use, for example, the word "gay" as an adjective for anything that is uncool. I never told them it was wrong, but we just talked about what it means to say that and that word can make others feel, whether or not they are gay. My students totally got it, and I remember the day that my whole class came back from PE once, all up in arms, because a student teacher had said that something was gay. They were seriously offended and were shocked that he would use that kind of language. They talked about how that might make one student in our class feel, that has a gay uncle. They even said "what if one of us was gay and he didn't know that - how would that make us feel?" How many 5th graders get upset when others use that kind of language? Not many, but my class did and told me honestly that they used to use that word but after thinking about what it means, they didn't want to use it that way anymore. I felt really proud of them for making that decision without being forced to, or because it was a rule. They did it because they felt it was the right thing to do.