If you are one of those who is convinced by the idea of teaching novels about (LGBTQ) in your classroom, Hard love is a safe novel to a certain extent to share with your high school students. This book has no explicate description of sex except for the words “shit” and “fuck”. It is a very sophisticated, multilayered book, it discusses many issues about teen identity and how they cross the line from friendship to more…I liked the poems that match with what was going on in the novel, it expresses the feelings of the characters in a deep sense.
Hard Love by Wittlinger, Ellen, a winner of the Lambda Literary Award, is about a relationship between a boy (John/Gai )who is “immune to emotion”, he has interest neither to men nor to women. He met a lesbian girl(Marisol) who used to have a girl fried(Kati) but they just broke out. Both John and Marisol got to know each other through their writings to a journal called “Zine”, through these essays, they reflect on their personal conflicts and how their irresponsible parents affected their lives, they felt either controlled or ignored by their careless parents. Any ways, they discovered many common things between each other; they started to trust each other to the degree that John fell in love with the lisbiean “Marisol”. She was emotionally struggling because she was not sure if she is a lesbian or a straight girl, at the end of the story, she decided to go and live with two girl friends in New York to discover her identity and sexual orientation.
Sexual orientation is not a bad idea to be part of our curricula, but what type of sexual orientation is safe and what is not and at what age we should start introducing students to sexual orientation? These are debated issues nowadays not be ignored. From my personal view I would first say that “God” who created us know what is good and what is harmful to us physically and emotionally that’s why certain kinds of sex are forbidden not only in the Bible but in the Qur’an as well. What is called today (LGBTQ) is to my knowledge not a safe topic to be taught specially to young children. Some developmental theorists argue that homosexuality would negatively affect the human reproduction, how would the life cycle continue when a man has a sex with a man and a woman with a woman? May be we would try to have sex with “Witches” in order to have a baby to be named a “Witch Baby”. Is not that against human nature? Then why do we want to teach our children these things that may lead to anarchy in our “developed” society?
Finally, if introducing students to (LGBTQ) is an inevitable issue then we should as teachers give background knowledge about this issue from physicians, religious, and social, point of views, and then we would leave the student or the person to choose which path he feels comfortable with.
I apologize for my frankness but this is my view!
2 comments:
I find this post alarming; the tone used here is hurtful, intolerant, and judgmental.
Sound pedagogy--not religious beliefs--should guide our decisions as educators.
Homosexuality has existed since the dawn of humanity, and it has never had a detrimental effect on the perpetuation of the human species.
Comparing GLBTQ people to witches is ignorant and misguided. Asserting that homosexuality is "against human nature" presumes that we have a thorough understanding of human nature and that there is one "correct" way to enact human nature--if we are to celebrate diversity, we must celebrate human nature in all its healthy forms.
I'm not quite sure I understand the connection between homosexuality and anarchy that's being implied here.
Perhaps you will consider my response here to be inflammatory and inappropriate. I consider it necessary.
Jim
(Gay but not a witch)
I agree that we need to be careful when we think about religion guiding pedagogical or curricular choices. Children or teens in our classes will come from a variety of religious, cultural, racial, ethnic, etc. backgrounds and none should be privileged above others or used as the primary reason for choosing (or not choosing) certain texts. I also agree that arguments equating homosexuality to practices such as witchcraft or even bestiality (an argument I've heard in other places) are alarmist, offensive, and exemplify faulty logic (i.e., if we allow gay people to marry, who will people want to marry next? This is a leap in logic I never understood.). The most important thing here for me to remember is that there are and will continue to be GLBTQ teens in our classes both at the high school and college levels. I propose that we create inclusive, critically responsive ELA curricula that acknowledge and honor their presence as well as foster understanding, empathy, and communication among all students. I think these are valuable curricular goals no matter what the text under study may be!
Janet
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