(no subject)

[textualdeviance]

Oh fucking great

Welcome to the next year in Seattle: the gay community pitted against the black community.

FWIW, I'm on the teacher's side, and I think he made a very strong impact on the kids, which was the point. How fucking ridiculous is it that a teacher can be suspended for this? Every fucking day people use "gay" as a synonym for "lame" and it NEVER gets addressed. Finally someone does, and does so in a very pointed and effective manner, and now they're getting nailed for it. If the district is so concerned about discrimination that they'd suspend a teacher for doing this, why aren't they suspending students for their constant anti-gay epithets? Orientation IS covered in the district's anti-discrimination policy. So why is that policy not being enforced?

If the students there felt offended and maybe even attacked by that teacher's use of that word, then they SHOULD, because then maybe they'll get a clue of how it feels to gay students to hear epithets flung around about them every damned day.

Comments

[havdrake.livejournal.com]

yeah! What she said!

[machupicchu.livejournal.com]

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I simply must say, if what is written in the news story is true, I believe the teacher deserves to be suspended. It's one thing to ask a kid how he'd like to be called a nigger; it's quite another to walk back into the room saying, "I guess the nigger can come back in," which I find every bit as offensive as if he were talking about a gay kid and saying in front of students, "I guess the faggot can come back in."

I do agree, however, that the same disciplinary action should be taken in the latter scenario, and I do not believe it always would be.
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[textualdeviance.livejournal.com]

I have a feeling that the discussion with the kid didn't go well, so the teacher decided to try a more blunt tactic. I'd have done the same thing. It gives the kid an example to run off of about how that kind of language makes people feel.

And I'm offended that the kid isn't being punished for using epithets, but the teacher is.

Re:

[machupicchu.livejournal.com]

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I'll concede that the comment the teacher made as he re-entered the classroom is likely taken out of context, but I still have a hard time envisioning a scenario in which I would find that specific comment, made in front of other students, justifiable.

And I do also find it offensive that the student was not disciplined more severely.
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[meadowman.livejournal.com]

What the teacher did first was good - a perfectly good way to respond to the situation... Dealing with the whole "uh, that's gay" thing in the classroom is difficult because kids practically punctuate every sentence with it (at least they do here in the UK), but we do have to confront it if we're ever to change it's usage.

However, the teacher in this case did go too far with his second statement. Unfortunately, he has very little defence now - as (no matter what his motives) humiliation of a child in public is professional misconduct.

~Cherry.
[butting in via a friend's friends page]