Blog Post #4: Speaking the unspeakable in forbidden places: addressing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality in the primary school

Reading “Speaking the unspeakable in forbidden places: addressing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality in the primary school” gives you a unique perspective on how sexuality and sexual orientation are talked about in a school setting. I thought it was interesting how they talked about different places in a school for instance the classroom, the staffroom and a school-based after-school art club and how these topics were brought up and discussed differently in each setting. They talked about how schools were separated into “private” and “public” spaces and how the talks about sexual orientation are different in each scenario.

One of the quotes that I found noteworthy was “the division of space into the public and the private is never helpful, as it enables wider problems” This quote explains how if we divide the school into sections and places that are “private” and “public’ it can cause even more destruction and harm to the school atmosphere and learning environment. I thought it was unique how the teachers felt as though they were more comfortable talking about sexual orientation and other related topics in the “staffroom” but, when they left that “private” space and went into classrooms it was kept more “private” and not as openly discussed. I feel like teachers should become more comfortable and figure out ways to talk about sexual orientation in the classrooms or in “public spaces” of the school, because they might come across a student who is gay or transgender and they need to be able to communicate properly and respectfully with that student and others.

When reading about Laura and how she incorporated a book that included characters of different sexual orientations, I thought it played into the article we read last week by Meier and the importance of storybook reading. I thought these two articles related because a point in Meier’s article was that we need to read books to children that they can relate to. I thought it was good that Laura subjected these kids to and took the time to read a book with the characters having different sexual orientations because someone in her class could possibly relate to the same situation or know of someone in the same situation as “Cinderella” in the story Laura told.

Question: How do we make sexual orientation easier to talk about or discuss in these primary schools?

hyperlink: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/AmericanFamily/story?id=2972531&page=1 This article is from ABC news and it talks about if sexual orientation should be taught in schools. I found it very interesting to see how parents and people thought about the topic.