yeah 100th post!!

For this week I read Alex Sanchez's ground breaking work Rainbow Boys. I Say groundbreaking because while I was dozing off reading it, I accidentally fell out of my chair and landed hard on the ground. Based on the butterfly effect, chances are there was an earthquake in Taiwan. I'm just kidding, it wasn't that bad, but pretty typical of what I would expect from a YA novel about boys coming out in high school. Primarily the book focused on just that: coming out and the issues that go along with such an action. The book presented coming out as an issue relevent only insofar as it relates to parents, peers, and teammates (why there always seems to be an athletic side to this I don't know. I knew and am still friends with plenty of gay men who, pardon the cliche, throw like girls). Anyway, I found that the book pretty much confirmed the expectations associated with homosexuality and in doing so didn't particularly offer young readers a safe haven for reading within the classroom. How this book is to be taught is beyond me. The story (which I gather has been made into a series) centers around three high school students. On one hand, you have Jason, the star athlete who's dissatisfied with himself despite dating the most popular and beautiful girl in the school. Then we have Kyle, also an athlete yet coming to grips with the fact that he is gay. Kyle's best friend, Nelson, epitomizes homosexuality in his socially defiant nature, rebellious attitude toward conventional assumptions and wild hairdos. When Jason begins to question his own sexuality, his math tutor, Kyle, begins to develop a crush on the confused youth, much to the dismay of lovestruck Nelson. The three soon become involved in a love triangle where the stakes aren't just a broken heart, but also disease, alienation, and pure social suicide! A must read for no one, this book serves as yet a further example of why certain books are meant for pleasure while others have no business whatsoever within the classroom.
Don't get me wrong by any means. At times, I enjoyed reading it. Certain instances made me remember when I was in high school surrounded by homosexuals in plays and choir contests in which I religiously took part. My orientation was constantly up for re-examination as I was the cute yet naive kid dating the college girl that no one ever saw and since I appeared to have no interest in dating any of the (several) willing girls with whom I was associated, questions about my own sexuality emerged as I walked (or rather, stumbled) through the ominous halls of the biggest high school in the state of Indiana. To that, I could certainly relate with Jason. Where I got hazy though was in the contrived binaries that the author threw together to create tension. There are athletes and there are nerds. The are the popular and the socially destitute. There are the gays and then the homophobes. Athletes don't like gays and no one cared what the nerds thought. I fail to see how such a myopic perspective of an otherwise complicated and troubling time in life can be conducive to pedagogical purposes. All teleological perceptions aside, read this book if you wish in your own time, but bringing it into the classroom with only bring with it the all the more scathing assumptions and expectations of the school system which holds the students captive. More later...like in three weeks...at least, I think...