Today in my history class... there is hope after all!

[blankpaper]

Okay today we took my whole history class to discuss prejudice against gay people. It was actually pretty cool!

A little backstory: This class is actually called Genocide in the modern world. We just started in it so we were just talking about what leads to genocide. Our teacher had us play "would you rather?" which started out fun but then got into more serious questions such as: would you rather be gay or black? Half the kids went in the middle, most of the rest on the black side and me and one other girl on the gay side. :P Then we had a writing assignment on any of the serious questions (there were three or four) and today we actually had a full on discussion about being gay which was the most written about question.

As a class we talked about the steps of prejudice starting with speech and my teacher basically laid down that law about gay jokes and comments. It was awesome to hear a teacher actually get up in front of a class and say that gay jokes or using the word gay incorrectly was NOT TOLERATED!!!! We talked about gay marriage and all the stuff that happened in the sixties and eventually got onto the topic of hate crimes. I think my whole class was absolutely shocked when my teacher told them about Matthew Shepard; I've never heard them so quiet. Even the kids who I honestly thought were really insensitive and didn't care about the discussion paid attention. We finally got on the topic of genocide (and I honestly didn't even know about this) and talked about Uganda.....

All I can say is that I have huge respect for this teacher now and I wish that more teachers had the guts to bring up this topic and discuss it openly. I just wanted to share this happy story of progress with all of you

[Pepsi]

Awesome! I love when teachers or a school in general do something so pro-gay! It is really needed more!

[beckyg]

Good for her! I bet this is one class that those kids will remember long into their adulthood.

[Miss Bubbles]

we had a discussion in my government class bout gay marriage and this girl was saying it aint right and thats not what our bodies are for but she screws a hot dog and thats fine? Seriousl;y lol she screwed an actual hot dog and took a video of it lol

[booby]

now if only we could talk about this in my school in ksa ..i can totally see how it could go :

''mr. , could we talk about homosexuality''
''no , that's a disgusting topic''
''but , you never do anything in this period but write the names of the absent kids''
''okay , homosexuality is wrong and disgusting and is the cause of AIDS''
''oh really ?''
''yes , it's also a big sin and illegal''
*teacher gets poisoned two hours later*

and that's the end of that

[Revan]

Hmm I'm very happy your teacher is so accepting and educated to do something like this. I truly applaud him or her (you never once told us their gender...)

[blankpaper]

Lol sorry SHE is a great teacher

[otc877]

At what grade level is this class?

[Owen91]

Originally Posted by Miss Bubbles

we had a discussion in my government class bout gay marriage and this girl was saying it aint right and thats not what our bodies are for but she screws a hot dog and thats fine? Seriousl;y lol she screwed an actual hot dog and took a video of it lol

"Made out with a hot dog? Oh my god, that was one time!"
Not surprisingly, this reminded me of Mean Girls. It's not surprising because most of life reminds me of that movie. I'm not proud. ; )

Anyways, I'm so glad you had such a good experience in-class. In my Contemporary Issues class senior year, the topic of gay marriage came up and the teacher just kind of put the idea/topic out there and let the whole class debate it. Unfortunately, it wasn't so much of a debate because the loudest people basically got to say whatever they wanted. The teacher was pretty conservative so he let them say some pretty bigoted things. It was really frustrated but I was really relieved to hear after class that most people who were quiet were pretty for gay marriage and only a small portion of the class (which, unfortunately was the loudest) was against it. : )

[blankpaper]

This is a senior level class

[peaceandlies]

i expect its something that comes back to haunt them as their lying in bed at night. its just one of those things that does, whether they like it or not.

[British Lad]

Matthew Shepard <--- who is this?

[Revan]

Originally Posted by Owen91

"Made out with a hot dog? Oh my god, that was one time!"
Not surprisingly, this reminded me of Mean Girls. It's not surprising because most of life reminds me of that movie. I'm not proud. ; )

Anyways, I'm so glad you had such a good experience in-class. In my Contemporary Issues class senior year, the topic of gay marriage came up and the teacher just kind of put the idea/topic out there and let the whole class debate it. Unfortunately, it wasn't so much of a debate because the loudest people basically got to say whatever they wanted. The teacher was pretty conservative so he let them say some pretty bigoted things. It was really frustrated but I was really relieved to hear after class that most people who were quiet were pretty for gay marriage and only a small portion of the class (which, unfortunately was the loudest) was against it. : )

That's good an all but the problem with what you're describing is prejudice at its best. The fact is the louder you are the better you will be heard. The sad thing is that prejudice is going to be tossed around in that class because the most bigoted are the loudest. The people for gay marriage need to speak up or nothing in this world will change.

[blankpaper]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard

It's really sad

[Revan]

Originally Posted by blankpaper

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard

It's really sad

Don't worry, I already messaged BL about it

[Flyers2011]

My writing teacher came out to us our first day in class. Pretty awesome.