[why.gay.issues.belong.in.school] Provided by: GLSTN 122 West 26th Street, Suite 1100 New York, NY 10001 USA Tel: (212) 727-0135 Email: glstn@glstn.org Web: http://www.glstn.org/respect/ WHAT DOES HOMOSEXUALITY HAVE TO DO WITH EDUCATION? AN ANSWER by Kevin Jennings, GLSTN Executive Director The Radical Right is increasingly targeting gays in general, and gay issues in education in particular, as part of an overall strategy to impose their vision of America on the rest of the country. They have been able to play on the fears of many well-meaning people to advance this agenda. The basic worry of every parent is, "Is my kid safe?" By playing on the myth that homosexuals recruit children, reactionary attacks on inclusive education direct a positive impulse -- the desire to have the best for one's children -- toward a destructive end -- intolerance for others. This became poignantly clear to me when I traveled to Merrimack, New Hampshire in August. Townspeople in Merrimack were fighting an anti-gay policy being put forth by some reactionary board members, a policy that would ban any representation of gay issues in a positive or even a neutral light. At the request of local organizers, I came to Merrimack to speak at a rally being held the night the school board was set to vote on the policy. I arrived early so I could observe the school board debate. Perhaps because I was wearing a tie, a mother in her mid-thirties standing near me decided I must be on her side of an argument that had divided the large audience in attendance, the bulk of whom seemed to be against the policy's passage. She sidled over to me and began to unload her frustration with what she saw as a foreign issue that had no place in her town's schools. Saying all she wanted was "pure education" for her children, she finally exploded. "What does homosexuality have to do with education?" she demanded. The setting didn't allow me to fully answer her provocative and important question, so it has stayed with me. What does homosexuality have to do with education, after all? To answer her question, we have to first answer another: What is a good education? For me, education is about learning to think. A good teacher is one that takes a subject that matters to his or her students and helps them to think about it in a thoughtful, critical manner. In America, we have also traditionally seen the opportunity to get an education as the first step on the road to success, and created the world's first free public school system to make sure that all people got an equal chance to develop the critical faculties that are the product of a good education. Good public education is an essential part of a democracy where the citizens rule and are free to advance themselves as far as their abilities, ambitions and hard work will take them. Homosexuality itself has nothing to do with education, any more than biology, chemistry, algebra or any other subject does. What is important is what one can learn from the study of a given subject. A discussion of how we understand homosexuality in our culture and how this reflects our values, beliefs and world view has tremendous educational value. It is clearly a subject that matters to kids: they talk about it, they ask about it, they use phrases like "That's so gay" routinely, so few can argue that it isn't a subject that needs addressing (although some will, believe me!). The question is, can we use it to help students think and learn? The answer is manifestly yes. But this is not the agenda of folks who put forth policies like that passed in Merrimack on August 14. They see education serving a different purpose. For them, schools are there to inculcate values: developing independent thought is not the overriding goal. And they call upon a strong historic tradition in this belief. The vast growth of public education in late nineteenth century America was fueled, at least in part, by the fears of native whites who saw the influx of southern and eastern European immigrants as a threat to their way of life. They saw the public schools as means to "Americanize" these foreign elements and to indoctrinate them with "American values." Today, many families feel bewildered by the rapid cultural change sweeping our nation, and some have been led to believe that a "gay agenda" is, at least in part, responsible for what they see a breakdown of our society and a seemingly-bleak future for their children. They feel that if they can regain some sense of control over what goes on in their community's schools, maybe the whole society will become a little more coherent. They often just want to feel as if things are not completely out of control. So they come out to public meetings and demand to know what homosexuality has to do with education, and demand that it be banished so that the schools can return to the basics of reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic. Sadly these people are pawns in a game, a game wherein unscrupulous politicos manipulate their very real and legitimate concerns for short-term political gain. Those doing the manipulating cleverly fly the banner of "parental control." They protest that they have nothing against gays -- Merrimack school board members who voted for the policy in question repeatedly said they were not prejudiced and would not tolerate verbal gay-bashing in their schools -- but that they only wish to make sure that parents have the final say over what their children learn. Who could be against that? It will do no good to point out the illogic of this position. Parents have little say over the day-to-day teachings of a school, and any school where they did would quickly become an unmanageable bureaucratic nightmare. Imagine if every lesson plan had to be approved by parents before implemented -- nothing would get taught at all while we attended interminable board hearings. Parental control is only invoked when a particular subset of parents wants to impose their own values on a school. Pointing this out, however, would have had little effect on the mother with whom I spoke in Merrimack. She had real fears about her children, and wanted them addressed. Knowing this, we must start thinking now about how to speak to her fears. We must help her understand that an education that teaches her children to think for themselves, rather than one that turns them into automatons, is her best hope for securing their future in the global marketplace. We must help her understand that bigotry and name-calling represent a greater threat to her child's welfare than an open discussion of touchy issues. We must help her understand that silencing people will never make an issue go away, but will simply cause it to fester. In short, we must help her understand that homosexuality is not a threat to her children: homophobia is. That is what homosexuality has do to with education. It's about freedom of thought, it's about the ability to use one's mind, it's about the right to be educated rather than trained. And we have to help people who don't understand that to get it. .................................................................. This document is one of the many practical resources available online from GLSTN's web site at http://www.glstn.org/respect/. The Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Teachers Network (GLSTN) is the largest organization of parents, educators, students and other concerned citizens working to end homophobia in K-12 schools and to ensure that all students are valued and respected, regardless of sexual orientation. To fulfill its mission and to raise awareness of these issues, GLSTN produces audio, visual and text-based educational materials, provides training, produces community programming and conferences, and organizes a growing national network of over 40 regional chapters. Membership in GLSTN is open to anyone -- regardless of their occupation or sexual orientation -- who is committed to seeing that the current generation is the last to suffer from homophobia. More than 70% of our budget is funded by individual donations and we need your support to continue to make resources such as this available. GLSTN is a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation and all donations are fully tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. 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