Identities in Transition

The Enkidu Summer Conference 2007

June 1 - 5, 2007

Mexico City

in:

Stepping out of the Closet and into the Classroom: Strategies for Building Relationships Between Gay Educators and Their Learning Communities

Christopher Palmi

Department of English

National-Louis University

(Estados Unidos)

“Learning to teach toward social justice involves constantly engaging with the things that make whatever we are doing uncomfortable and queer” (Kumashiro, 2004, p. 46). This presentation will explore the reasons why gay high school teachers should be open about their sexual orientation with their students. The benefits for the students and the teacher will be outlined, and resources for both gay teachers and students will be provided. In Kevin Kumashiro’s Against Common Sense: Teaching and Learning Toward Social Justice, William Pinar writes, “The conditions of public education today are oppressive. The hour is late and the sense of emergency is acute” (Kumashiro, 2004, p. 116). Kumashiro (2004) asserts that in “challenging oppression [we] must...address the many ways that we unintentionally teach; it requires illuminating and raising questions about the messages that are communicated by the virtue of the very ways we operate schools” (p. 33). Both straight and gay high school teachers will benefit from examining ways in which gay teachers are often oppressed. Straight educators will learn effective ways to communicate with their gay colleagues and gay students. Gay teachers will learn of the support systems that are in place when they share their sexual orientation with students and staff members.

Christopher Palmi is currently working on his EdD from National-Louis University in Wheeling, Illinois. He teaches English Methods at the university, and he has been a public school middle and high school English teacher for sixteen years. Currently he resides in Chicago.