Safe Spaces by Annemarie Vaccaro, Gerri August and Megan S. Kenedy; Quotes

Quote 1:

“Heterosexism is one of those unexamined avenues of privilege.  Assumptions that everyone is (or should be) heterosexism shape most classroom interactions, whether academic or social.  Assumptions about gender binaries and appropriate gender roles also pervade our classrooms” (84). 

     This quote was a very powerful quote that stuck with me throughout this whole reading. Even though this is such a great quote sadly it is very true about society.  Think back to when we were little kids and our parent would read books to us or even when we would watch television, no one had a mom and a mom or a dad and a dad, it was also the mom/dad.  Even still to this day if you watch a children program on television or read children’s book they still have a mom and dad, no same sex parents.  Now think of those same situations but having a child, a LGBT youth for example, that has a mom and mom or a dad and a dad for parents.  They are going to get confused and think that there is something wrong with their family.  It is the “norm” to think that everyone is going to have a mom and a dad, but times have changed and not everyone is going to follow the society “norm”.  These situations are also brought into the classroom as well.  “They teach their students the status quo”(85).  This statement is true.  Being in school I don’t ever remember learning about these situations.  Times are changing and the future generation needs to learn about what is going on in the real world.   

Quote 2:

“The oft-stated objective is for children to learn that families come in different shapes and sizes, live in different dwelling, observe different traditions and celebrate different holidays.  Teach around our nations narrate stories about single-parent families, adoptive families, divorced families and foster families”(85).

In some way this quote reminded me of the Rodrigues reading from last week.  Rodrigues had to let his history go because at school it was not expectable to speak his native language because it was not the social “norm”.  But in fact children should be learning about other classmate’s cultures because not everyone comes from the same background.  I feel that teachers should be opening to having the children learn about how not all families have a mom and a dad, and that not all boy like girls.  It should be taught maybe not from young age but like middle school age they should start learning about these topics.

Quote 3:

“Nevertheless, students from privileged groups were not challenged to think critically about their perceptions, and students from marginalized groups were, well, marginalized.   In these instances, teachers missed opportunities to invite discussion, challenge stereotypes, and raise awareness of privilege and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity”(96)

When I was reading this article I noticed that I got mad as I read some points that were in the text.  I could not believe what some people say to such a national issue.  There was one teacher that stood out to me that set a great example for this discussion and raising awareness.   Patrick is a fifth grade teacher that taught his students how to use the words “gay” and “bisexual”.  Instead of ignoring the problem he took it into his own hand to not only explain it to the student that was saying these words but to the class themselves.  He was just doing what a teacher does and teaching his students that saying those types of words can not only hurt someone’s feeling but also offend people around him.  Teacher should take the times to explain topics like this to their classroom because they will need to understand these things in the real world.     

Questions/Comments:

I would like to bring up in class that fact that a lot of states will not allow these topics to be put into their curriculum.  If they are trying to teach their student about real life experiences then this is the time to do it.  Also I would like to learn more about this topic even read the rest of this book because it sounds do interesting!!!!

This is just a video of people telling their coming out stories in a production that was at RIC. These stories are true.  The names that they read off the beginning are kids who committed suicide because of being bullied from being LGBT.