Sunday, May 3, 2009

LGBT Curriculum in the Classrom

Well today I found an article about LGBT and the classroom setting.  The article was very interesting and talked about how little information this is out there for students about sexuality and sexual identity.  At most students will have one class a year about sexual development and many of these types of classes focus on the "scientific terms" rather than placing any emphesis on the emotional variences sexuality and sexual identity.  The article talked about how because of how little this is talked about it is creating great anxiety and stress for children and young adults who end up trying to figure things out on their own and with their peers.  In addtion to this they end up becoming more sexually active, but are not smart about their sexual health and well being.
The article goes on further to discuss the possiblity of "queering curriculum".  Queering in this sense is not meant in a offenseive nature to mean "homosexual", but in a way that means diversifying curriculum so that it does not normalize heterosexulaity and brings about a sense of multiculturalism.
The last part of the article was a study done on 38 pre-teaching interns.  The study focused on their experiences growing up and learning about sexuality both bad and good.  At the end of the study the candidates were asked if they, as teachers, would "queer" their curriculum in order to normalize homosexulaity and give all students a chance to learn about sexual health in a safe manner.  All of the students in this study thought that it was a good idea, but could not see themselves being able to go through with it and through "queering" the curriculum within science in math to be too difficult.  Others thought it would be difficult because of flake from society.
To me it is so difficult because I believe it is true that students do not learn enough about sexuality growing up because it is such an uncomfortable topic for people to talk about.  It seems like a good idea to "queer" curruiculum so that students are getting the sense that there is no "norm" when it comes to sexuality and through this a level of tolerance comes about which in turn will decrease peer pressure and teasing.  However, there are many people out their with certain religous beliefs and political view that I see making this impossible.

1 comment:

  1. When I look back on my k-12 education I don't ever remember even discussing sexuality. As Britt said, we mainly focused on sexuality in terms of reproduction. I never thought about it this way, but regardless of what I learned in school, I have been surrounded by heterosexuality and in a way, it has supported my being who I am. Really until focusing on homosexuality in this class did I realize how much of an impact our envirnment has on who we become and how we deal with discovering and identifying ourselves within our societies. I overlooked the fact that my studies of reproduction focused solely on sex in a scientific way rather than an emotional way because I didn't have to rely on my education programs from school to support my sexuality. Instead, it has constantly been reinforced through my environment. It is so important that people have some form of support throughout their life. It is difficult enough trying to determine your identity when you are considered to fit into what is typical. Imagine being outside of that group... I think that this idea for altering the curriculum is a great idea because it can provide support for those students who may not be recieving it in any other way.

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