This post was submitted by Jean

When I did my student teaching in DePere WI in the spring of 2004, I remember very clearly one of my students, a spidery-small but aggressive 9th grader, bragging to the class that he couldn’t wait to turn 18.

“When I turn 18, I’m gonna join the Army, so I can shoot fags.”

As horrified as I was then, what scares me most is that, by simple math, that student of mine has turned 18. He’s becoming a voting member of our society and potentially a member of our military. There’s a good chance that his behavior was to gain attention, and that his desire to “shoot fags” came from a parent or other influence at the time, and never stuck. There’s a good chance that he’s a student at UW Green Bay, Majoring in Finance and smoking too much pot – and not shooting fags. But he said it, and as my flesh turned to stone and my jaw locked, my cooperating teacher swooped in and demanded he go to the principal’s office – and action that probably gained him even more classroom cred but at least allowed me to continue, albeit shakily, with my lesson. We didn’t talk about why saying that was wrong and we didn’t make a teaching moment out of his intolerance. We just moved on.

This was several years ago, but not before the use of the word “gay” as a pejorative adjective had fallen from favor among the PC. It suddenly wasn’t acceptable in the classroom, or in casual conversation by adults trash-talking a friend’s outfit or an uncool party they stopped by over the weekend. Like using the word “retarded” in the same fashion, people became aware that someone in the crowd might be gay, or have a gay brother or aunt and get offended. Most people were annoyed by this “oversensitive” logic, except maybe gay people who weren’t thrilled about their sexual orientation being compared with a shitty party or ugly sweater.

As adults, we feel more comfortable swearing, telling potentially inappropriate jokes, and risking offending our peers, but in a classroom, educators have to responsibility to provide a learning environment free from fear and hostility.

Schools should be safe spaces. And I believe that homosexuality should be discussed openly and honestly in schools. This doesn’t mean talking about “gay sex” or about young people engaging in sex at all. It means that should not stigmatize gay parents of students, students who feel they may be LGBT, or students who support the equal rights of gay people, by keeping the issue quiet, unspoken, shameful.

There is a misconception driven by fear that teaching young people that homosexuality is a part of the natural order of things is akin to teaching kids about sex. Parents are not up in arms when young people read stories that involve a mommy and a daddy, or even stories that involve a birth from that union — but slap two dads together and suddenly a story about family becomes a story about gay sex, about deviant behavior, about sin.

The objection that homosexual couples and parents are often depicted living and raising families out of wedlock is no longer a valid argument as those stories start to take place in legal marriage places like Iowa, Massachusetts and now even in the Nation’s Capital.

The untruth that same sex relationships are some how all about sex rather than the apparent sunshine and candy canes that form the makeup of heterosexual couples is absurd and offensive. This accusation still forms the basis of arguments against “teaching” or at least acknowledging homosexuality in schools.

To get it right, teaching that gay people exist, are normal, and can be parents, teachers and friends, is the primary method of breaking down homophobia and hate. Not stepping in when a student uses hateful language in a school is condoning hate. I don’t think every student who calls a homework assignment “gay” should be yanked from his or her seat whisked down to the principals ala my student, Shoots Fags, but acknowledging that language the alienates or discriminates won’t be tolerated in school is a good start.

I would love to hear from some educators how you create safe spaces in your classrooms and how you deal with offensive language from your students. Please leave your responses in comments!

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