“Speaking the Unspeakable in Forbidden Places” Extended Comment

This weeks article was different in context and in formatting too. “Speaking the Unspeakable in Forbidden Places” is more of an academic article written by many authors (Alexandra Allan, Elizabeth Atkinson, Elizabeth Brace, Rene DePalma and Judy Hemingway). It focused on addressing the LGBTQ community in primary school. This article was harder for me to understand, but I think I was still able to understand the themes.

When writing her blog, Alyssa wrote about sexuality in schools, and the biggest hindrances to discussion: misunderstandings and fear. In response to the article Alyssa says, “Fearing what others may think is exactly what is causing younger generations to misunderstand the sexuality of others and is aiding in continuing discrimination. Overall, if students are taught of different lifestyles early on, their acceptance and understanding will grow and they will not see others as much different. This will help communities grow as a whole, rather than cause division among them.”

I agree with her views on this topic. Instead of focusing on the ideology of public/private spaces to defend LGBTQ, I think it would be more helpful to discuss the practical ways to end division. While what the scholars are defending may or not be true about ideology, the power of mainstream culture discussed in S.C.W.A.M.P. and in “The Silence Dialogue” will not be able to be changed overnight. That’s why I appreciated Alyssa’s approach to the article. I personally think that while kids need to learn about diversity in order to respect others, teaching them sexuality at such a young age shouldn’t be up to the teachers alone. I also think the article wasn’t necessarily fair in knocking teachers who are fearful, because this is an important topic that heterosexual teachers aren’t used to talking about. I don’t think the fear would only be of others’ opinions, but making sure to teach the material in an effective and appropriate way. I think an order to prevent as much fear and miscommunication between children and society, it could be helpful to inform the parents of the curriculum before it is taught. This could help the parent’s who would feel uncomfortable by explaining the topic to their children beforehand, and it could also help the teacher to know that he/she isn’t introducing the subject for the first time ever to her students (if the parents chose to explain it to them). The article mentions the difference between public space (school classrooms) and private space (staff rooms/homes). The issue presented in the article involves the merging of these two spaces through the discussion of sexuality in school. At the end of the article, they provide little ways to begin introducing the acceptance of all sexualities. For example,

 

“We might consider letting lesbian and gay identities, usually reserved for the staffroom (if anywhere), leak into classrooms. We might discuss our own or friends’ Civil Partnerships when we discuss marriage or civil rights, we might all refer to our partners as partners (rather than husbands, wives or ‘friends’) and engage in discussions with children about why.”

I think the first steps to changing the heterosexual power in classrooms would be inviting discussion and letting parents know of the desire to teach these things.

Below is a link to a video that Alyssa shared in her article that we can incorporate in schools,  another I found, as well as another link to her article.

https://alyssadblog.wordpress.com/2017/10/04/speaking-the-unspeakable/comment-page-1/#comment-14

https://youtu.be/OkAyo8KBeFw