IP Report #5

So, I was doing some research and checking out google news and my reader to find out if there have been any recent incidences of racial/homophic problems in schools around the country.

I found one article about a Port Huron school where the "n-word" was used at a basketball game after school. Here's the opinion article, which was a letter sent to the Times Herald about the incident.

--So now we bring in the question about what teachers can do to prevent hate crimes after school but on school grounds.
-- Is it our responsbility?
-- And if we're not around, how can we address this later in class? The teacher that helped write the opinion letter to the Times Herald I think had a good idea -- getting her students together to help her write a letter about their emotions and reactions to the after-school incident. I think just bringing it up in class and having a discussion about it so that the students (most) affected know that they have peers who care (including their teacher).


I found another article from the Hertfordshire Mercury -- apparently 8 students made anti-semitic remarks towards a teacher at his going-away gathering.

This brings up another question -- what happens when students make prejudiced,racial, homophobic slurs towards their teacher? How does the school take action? How does the teacher react? etc.

As I was reading through Melissa's blog, she posted an interesting article about the phrase "that's so gay," from CNN.com

The term "that's so gay," is always a heated topic in public schools I've noticed. When I was a junior and senior in high school (2001-2003) , our newspaper covered different stories about the phrase and I remember, personally, covering a story about the newly formed gay-straight alliance at our high school and writing a lead that talked about a student who walks into the classroom and hates the assignment on the board and goes: 'aw man, that's so gay!' ... and then went into the reaction and how this affects students at our school, etc.

I think it's interesting that the student in the article on CNN, Rebekah Rice, was sent to the principal's office after using the phrase and given a warning and a notation in her file. That's the most I've ever heard of any school taking action against a homophobic remark. I also find it even more interesting that the parents are sueing the school -- not even taking into account the fact that their daughter is homophobic (which may have offended other students in the classroom at the time that she said 'that's go gay').

This article is really frustrating because I see both sides of the story... I mean I do believe that putting a notification in the students' portfolio is a little excessive, but I also thinking sueing is just as excessive.

Maybe schools should look into ways of educating both the students and parents at the same time about homophobia and even race concerns. In episode 7, of the latest season of the L Word, two of the characters on the show addressed their childrens' classroom because of a fight that broke out because some of the kids found out that the other students' parents were lesbians. Here's what happened at the school on YOUTUBE.


.... Now that we're on the last post and the final presentation is due next Tuesday, I'm nervous because I don't fully know how I'm going to put this together. I've come up with a lot of questions and maybe not enough answers. Maybe I should create a guideline or packet to present of ways to help prevent race and sexual identity issues in the classroom?