Alright, no lies, life is hellish and hectic. So I have been seriously distracted and seriously bad at blogging in the past two weeks. For this I apologize. I'll try not to do it again, but in other news, on to the post.
Currently I am teaching 8th grade Language Arts. And honestly.... I love it. I actually love going in to work every morning and I love what I do and how I spend my days. At the same time it's incredibly frustrating at points simply because my kids aren't doing their work or their reading. It's frustrating, but that's not what this is about.
The majority of us know, or have an inkling of how cruel kids can be. Most of us have heard the derogatory comments and insults thrown at the LGBT community and especially the kids in our family. Every day I step into a classroom I know that it's possible I'm going to hear the word gay thrown around as an insult. I know how damaging that can be to students, to children, to anyone. I refuse to put up with it, I won't accept it in my classroom and I make sure my students know it.
Which brings me to the events of today. For starters, I can't really talk right now. I spent most of my weekend sick and in bed, so when I went back to school yesterday I couldn't talk at all. I had a good bit of my voice back this morning so I was able to teach, but by the time I got to sixth period my voice was fading rapidly and my kids were getting more and more disruptive and distracted. Midway through my sixth period class one student made a comment about Justin Bieber. Another followed that comment up with "He's so gay." While many of us might question Bieber's sexuality, that's a bit different than the context from the comment in class.
I pretty much lost my cool with the student and the class as a whole. I made it abundantly clear to my class that I won't tolerate gay being used as a derogatory term in my classroom.
I don't get how teachers can let their students get away with saying it. I don't, and know others that don't accept it. But there are plenty of teachers and administrators and parents who don't give a damn if students are calling each other gay or not. It infuriates me. But I know the statistics, and frankly, I am one of the statistics. I know how it feels to be on the other side of the word, and I know how much it can hurt, and I will do everything I can to protect my students like no one protected me. I will stand up for my students, because I know how it feels to have no one stand up for me.
I won't stand idly by while my students torment and bully each other. I won't stand by the side as more and more of my students become statistics. My students might think they have no voice, but they do, and more importantly they have someone who is going to stand up to protect that voice and allow it to be heard.
They have a voice and I will not ignore it.
End of tonights ramble fest of blog writing. I'm exhausted and can barely keep my eyes open. Hopefully I'll be more coherent tomorrow. Night folks.
AMEN! I applaud you for this and I'm so proud to call you my friend. :)
ReplyDeleteI think that in todays world people are forgetting that their words have meaning. That the words they say don't get stop when they are uttered. It's hard to learn but it's worth learning.
ReplyDelete