Inspired by teacher?

[TheRoof]

today, in our morality class, we briefly talked about homosexuality.
my teacher, who is also my english teacher, is really great at teaching.
i always liked her but today, she gave me more reasons to like her.

she said that she felt truely sorry for homosexuals, because they have to grow up in a very hostile environment.
and then she talked about her formal students, who came out to her after highschool, and how they felt so frieghtened in the school.
she said that hearing "fags" and "homos" in the hallways broke her heart, because it's very insulting and degrading. she said that she was opposed to church's current stands on homosexuality and truely wished that it changed someday.

i was so inspired by that, and it really just made me feel so much better.
anyone had similiar experience?

[Kenko]

My grade 8 English teacher tolerated no "fag" type insults. He was a teacher that commanded respect, so when he started going off about the use of the word, you sat up and listened. I think he may have had a gay friend that committed suicide, which is why he was so touchy on the subject. I didn't appreciate the value of his words till many years later. Plus he was a kickass, very involved teacher.

My high school chemistry teacher was gay, but he was a kick-ass chem teacher and people respected him.

[Derek the Wolf]

Wow, that's awesome. I'm glad to hear she's on your side. ^^
Honestly I'd talk to her alone about it. I'm sure she'd have nothing but support for you.
I have a story which is the polar opposite of this actually.
My military teacher was explaining why we don't have an example for an exception to the warrant requirement 'inventory search.' He said the example was too funny cause it was about "some faggot" who got arrested and had drugs in his purse. Someone asked what he was arrested for and he said "Maybe the cops were curious. What exactly does a faggot keep in his purse?"
I lost a lot of respect for him that day, although honestly I still think he's a great man. It's unfortunate we don't see eye to eye.

[Miles D]

Well, there are several openly gay teachers/staff at my school. My seminar teacher is gay (and married/partnered) and also our provost is gay, and her wife is my math teacher. My friend and I take calculus with her twice a week, and we always talk about gay issues and Ellen and such. She was telling us how she doesn't have to go to faculty meeting, and we were telling her how lucky she was, when she said,"Well, I sort of have immunity..." and we laughed, because she's sorta like God's wife on campus

[Greggers]

My one teacher was fired from my Christian school because of his beliefs on homosexuality, drinking, and other things that are not exactly "fundamental" in the Christian belief system, but none the less he was fired for just having them. They did use a loop-hole to fire him though, so he cant fight it. The real reason was what he believed in though. Makes me sick thinking about that...

In one of my many bible classes, he was teaching it along side another one of the more conservative teachers (Thats saying alot, since all but he were quite conservative in thinking) and the topic of homosexuality came up. Note that every teacher LOVES talking about this. They all called it a sin, some a diesese, and said it was not possible to be gay and christian. One teacher said if you were celebite and prayed forgiveness for homosexual thoughts, you could still be christian (Wow, thanks, that helps...NOT) Anyways, so this one teacher actually handed us an article by a woman saying that it is ok to be gay and a christian. Then he handed us an article from her husband saying the exact opposite. We then had a discussion. The class was split, not as bad as i thought the outcome would be but i was still sad it was not more for gays that it was

Well, anyways the teacher sided with the gays being able to be christian. It was the first time i had ever heard someone tell me "Its ok to be gay" in my entire life, LITERALLY. I didnt think about suicide for like an entire two months then. That was about the longest i ever went in highschool without thinking of suicide I definitely credit this teacher with saving my life. No one else but he reached out to comfort me about being gay, and he didnt even know he was doing it thats the best part.

I think he knew i was gay the whole time, him being the only one, but i never told him. I regret that because now that he got fired from my old school i dont think ill ever get to tell him how much i appreciated what he did for me And yes, i cried alot when i heard he got fierd for his views on homosexuality, because without him whats another version of me to do who attends that school now?

[waitingsucks]

Sometimes it just takes one positive comment by a teacher to make you forget about all the negative, even for awhile.

My Yr 9 Religion teacher brought up the topic of homosexuality one day in a Personal Development class. She asked the class on their opinions etc. and said her own. She said that she truly believed that gay people were born that way and the wouldn't have had a choice, she talked about her friends who had gay children and she told us a very sad story about one of her past students.

The story went something like this:
"I had a student a couple of years back who came out at about Yr 9, he told 3 of his best friends, the first accepted him for who he was and said that they'd still be friends, the second and third stopped being his friends and said that 'they'd lost respect for him'. Over time the Second person came around and talked to the gay guy again but the Thirds never did..."

She got quite emotional and was talking about how people react differently when they find out someone's sexuality and that they really shouldn't and words like "faggot" and "homo" did so much damage to someone who is already having to deal with their sexuality. She also said a few things about how she disagreed with the standing of the Church.

After all that she went back to asking kids how they'd react if a friend told them, one boy in the class said "But if he was gay, wouldn't he try and hit me!"
To this she replied "Well I don't know, but I don't think all gay men are that desperate"
and the class burst out laughing and he went red with embarrassment.


This truly inspired me not to give up hope at a time when I think I was at one of my lowest.

Thanks for starting this great thread (and thanks to all those who took the time to read my post)

I think I never had one single teacher that, despite having a liberal facade, didn't joke about gays .

[MusicIsLife]

My grade 10 histry teacher.

See, 99% of the time she was a raving bitch who we all hated. Then someone said fag or thats so gay or something in class, and she got really mad at the kid who said it and all but gave him detention. It was pretty awesome.

[Wander]

Hmmm...

8th grade History teacher, I kinda suspected she was a lesbian. I changed school systems during the summer between 8th and 9th, and even though she was a terrible teacher, she was a great person. She came over to me one day and told me that her high school life was awful because of how much teasing she got, but encouraged me to stick with it and ignore them if I needed to. She was also the teacher who shut down anyone who used gay slurs in class, which gave me a little shot of pride every time it happened.

8th grade pre-Chemistry teacher, very slightly feminine but also a little pedo-ish. Good teacher, but creepy to be alone in the room with.

8th grade English teacher seemed pretty open to the idea of homosexuality, but she also joked about it once or twice. Lightly, sarcastically, and not in a hateful way, but...she was cool, though. I think I was the only person in that class who liked her.

9th and current Latin teacher...ugh. The easiest comparison I can think of is a super-fundie youth pastor who also acts goofy and perverted to make kids laugh. He's about thirty and a serious douchebag, and he's always making subtle gay jokes and insults. He also forgets that I'm there sometimes, like when he only hands out enough tests for the other people in my row and not me, or when he doesn't notice I'm not there and forgets to mark me absent, or whatever.

[Bunny]

Ooh. One of the secondary French teachers at our school has signs up in her classroom that say 'Homophobia-free zone' or something like that. :3

Our counselor's really cool about that stuff too, when I came out to her and explained that I still liked guys, she said something along the lines of, "Well you of all people should know that it's okay for a boy to like other boys."
I love her. <3

Other than that...it's pretty much redneck-central around here.

[dragon]

Not particularly by my teacher, but it is my debating friends. Well, as they're my seniors who teach me how to debate i think it's fair enough to take them as teacher as well.

They said the biggest mistake ever about orientation is when we fool ourselves by dating someone to fool others about the REAL us.
We deal with consequences in life and we can't fool ourselves because the consequences of fooling others are bigger than the consequences of telling the truth.

NEVER give false hope/expectation.

It's always nice to be near such people.

[Jack2009]

Nope... nobody particular in my life that's aspiring except a few celebrities (if they count).

But I am having an inspiring psychology teacher, well not to gayness, but to people in general and how to get things out of life (well I see different points of views and relate it to my future). So it's not really her but the curriculum she's teaching.

[mack83]

It's strange, I'm a secondary school teacher and gay (which is not known at school) but reading this thread makes me realise the very small comments made can mean so much to pupils. I always pick up on kids when pupils use the whole "this piece of work is so gay" but maybe there is more I could do.