Let’s Insist on Proper Citizenship and Behavior
A school in Chicago is being formed as a place where gay and lesbian teens can go and be accepted. They are setting the school up because the task of teaching other children civility and citizenship has failed. As we look at our political landscape, where McCain can’t even look Obama in the eye, we aren’t surprised.
The Republicans and their followers are not showing good examples to our children, not with their disgusting campaigning lately that is provoking calls from their audiences of “traitor” and “Terrorist.” Of course, we shouldn’t trust Republicans on the subject of proper citizenship and good behavior. But let’s at least trust our schools.
In Chicago they are thinking of building a school for gay and lesbian students who are often bullied in their present schools. I suppose in a society coarsened by the ugliest of politics we can’t possibly hope for civility and citizenship to be taught in schools, but shouldn’t we try? Here’s the report from the Telegraph:
The Pride Campus of Social Justice High School would be open to all students in the city, and would probably end up being “majority straight”, said Arne Duncan, the head of Chicago Public Schools.
But it would provide a supportive atmosphere for gay pupils, using prominent gays and lesbians - including James Baldwin and Gertrude Stein - in its curriculum.
Bill Greaves, the city’s liason officer on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues, said the school would “make sure these people are not invisible in history”.
He said it was important that gay and lesbian historical figures were highlighted to give young gay people positive, successful role models.
Look, I have no problem teaching James Baldwin. I am teaching his Sonny’s Blues on Monday. I’ve no problems with gay pride days and I have nothing against finding a place where gay and lesbian students can feel safe. But can’t we just demand, more forcefully, students treating each other with dignity and respect? Isn’t that the real solution for our kids, for our society as a whole?
Yeah, this might actually save the lives of a few gay and lesbian students in Chicago. That’s a great thing. Still, the story makes me sad. Heck, I do blame the Republicans, who use any issue about gay and lesbian citizens as a divisive attack on our national civility. I suppose if you can’t teach Republicans to be civil, if their own Presidential candidate can’t even man up and look his opponent in the eye, then maybe any project of teaching kids civility would be a difficult thing. There’s the shame.
You can demand it. You can even criminalize not doing it. Hell I support making school hazing equivalent to assault charges. But then where are we going to put all the bullies? In prison? 2 million prisoners aren’t enough?
We need to face facts here and the facts are that human beings suck. We have always sucked and likely we will continue to suck for the new few thousand years. If we’re not mistreating each other because we’re gay, then we’re doing it because we’re fat, or we’re Irish, or we play D&D, or we’re wearing the wrong shoes or because we’re wearing the right shoes and we secretly covet them.
I’m not trying to excuse the behavior in the slightest either. Students who bully deserve a serious slap down. But I think you’re expecting a bit much from grade/high school students. As faculty, you have a RESPONSIBILITY to provide a safe educational environment for all students beyond any other consideration. But if you think for a moment that merely telling the kids “You’re not allowed to look down X person” you’re going to be sadly disappointed.
I wasn’t gay. I wasn’t fat. I wasn’t black. I didn’t smell and I wasn’t ‘ugly’. I wasn’t any of the classical stereotypes that get picked on these days. I was just quiet and studious and disinterested in sports. The big jock assholes didn’t like that and as a consequence I spent most of 4 grade to 8th grade getting the crap beat out of me on a regular basis by five or six of them at once. Know when it stopped? In 9th grade, when I started carrying a switchblade to school and was fully prepared to open up some asshole like a trout and hang his entrails on the fire extinguisher. The moment you start fighting back, the teasing and tormenting stops.
I’m not advocating violence. But I can attest from personal experience that ( especially in high school but in other areas of life as well ) human beings will pick on those they perceive as weaker than themselves. it sucks, yes. But its just a fact of life. We can see it in the school lunch room. You can see it on the blog-o-sphere. You can see it in business and we can see it in the foreign policy of nations. Until we evolve past this state of permanent barbarism we’re in we aren’t going to move away from it.
The best any of us can do to remedy the situation is to teach the people being picked on that they too are deserving of respect and that they have an inherent right to be free from those sort of attacks and teach them how to defend themselves when they are attacked. We also need to consider circumstances in dealing with situations that arise. From personal experience, I never once started a fight in my life even though I finished quite a few of them. These days though, because of nonsense zero tolerance policies, I would be expelled for not laying on the ground like a sheep and letting the assholes beat the crap out of me. That sort of thing is ridiculous.