Sunday, October 6, 2013

Safe Spaces: Making Schools and Communities Welcoming to LGBT Youth

For my Talking Points this week I chose three quotes from Annemarie Vaccaro, Geri August, and Megan S. Kennedy's, Safe Spaces: Making Schools and Communities Welcoming to LGBT Youth. Seeing this was a fairly long article, it was difficult finding only three quotes to reflect upon within my blog. However, I chose the three quotes that I felt the most strongly about and those that raised a concern to me while reading them.




Quote Number One:

"The walls are permeable, students (and teachers) bring their personal experiences into the classroom and carry their classroom experiences with them when they leave. Parents, coaches and religious leaders are present in our classrooms in the knowledge, attitudes and beliefs that students have learned from them. In return, classroom experiences spill over into family, extra curricular, and religious life. In this way, classroom walls though they mark off a space distinctive in purpose and language patterns, are something of a fiction." (Chapter 5, Inside the Classroom Walls, Pg. 83).

This quote can be found within the second page of this reading and impacted me the most while reading this article. I would like to start by making the comment that this quote is a very impacting as well as a wonderful way to start a chapter. When reading this quote I paused for a moment and read it again for the simple fact that I realized something and greatly agreed with it. Knowledge and learning can not be contained within the small areas of a classroom. Learning is a continuous process and can occur no matter where we are. As teachers we must remember that we strongly impact the young minds of those we teach. Within our small areas of the classroom our lessons and teaching can be carried out and applied within the big world.  We as teachers may be the reasons children come to school instead of dropping out, say no to drugs instead of being on the streets, and make positive choices instead of negative decisions. We do not realize the impact that not only our teaching style effects students but our attitudes as well. Students learn to apply what they learn in the classroom and use it within their everyday lives.

Quote Number Two:

"Students understand that classrooms are not neutral spaces---they are charged with emotion" (Chapter 5, Inside the Classroom Walls, Pg. 83).

This quote took me several times of re-reading to fully understand. I wasn't sure if the author was referring to the classroom not being a neutral space in the sense that students are scared to speak their own opinion in fear for whatever reason, or not neutral space in the meaning that emotions and opinions shape one's mind. After reading this quote over and over I formulated the opinion that this indeed was fear of being judged do to one's opinions and ideas. Unfortunately this is a problem that many students face which cause them to not participate in school. The classroom is a room that is filled with multiple people that all have different opinions ad view points. Many times students will not participate in class discussions for the fear of someone not accepting their opinion. This causes students to lose out on their chance to use their voice as well as speak their mind because they do not feel comfortable within the walls of the classroom.

Quote Number Three:

"One reason educators take the path of least resistance is their fear of negative repercussions from parents  or administrators." (Chapter 5, Inside the Classroom Walls, Pg. 91).

This quote is one that as a "teacher in training" I am fearful of also. We often shelter children from real world and disturbing content within lesson plans do to the fact that it will cause concerns and uproars among parents and administrators. Therefore we create a more "sheltered" curriculum which deprived students from the knowledge they need to understand the world around us. By doing so I believe we are in a sense "cheating" students out of the knowledge that is rightfully theirs to gain by censoring the content.


4 comments:

  1. Hey Lauren love the quotes you picked! I can agree that there were a lot of quotes to pick from. I agree, a lot of people do not see or realize that teachers do have an impact on children. For your third quote I understand why your afraid. While reading this whole article I was thinking to myself how would I try to incorporate a lesson about LGBT.

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  2. Hi Lauren ,

    Great writing! I agree with you and Sayavong on the fact it can be nerve racking thinking of ways to talk about this topic. I feel like we owe it to children to give them an accurate description of the world around them.

    Shanelle

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  3. I hope we will talk a lot about HOW to actually take a path of greater resistance in our discussions this week. Good points.

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  4. Hi Lauren,

    I also used the last quote you did and I completely agree with you. I believe that teachers should stop being so fearful on teaching children about these issues. Instead they should find ways of communicating with parents and faculty to explain the importance of these issues, reassure them that the way you will be teaching the topic will not be in any way inappropriate and that it is the best way to go!

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