Safe Spaces

This weeks reading focused on creating a safe and conducive learning environment for LGBT youth. Safe Spaces: Making Schools and Communities Welcoming for LGBT youth brought up many things that I have not thought about when it comes to the challenges that  LGBT youth face in the classroom and in their environments. In order to understand the challenges I thought it was pertinent to find facts about LGBT youth in America. I have attached
them on the margins of this blog post.

He

 The info-graphics just represent what is very clear about american culture, America has a hetero-sexist problem. I believe that most of our education on acceptance of others comes from human interaction. As unfortunate as it is people tend to only care about something until it becomes personal. We can read about the marginalized communities, discuss their plights and even sympathize for their struggles but for a lot of people until they know someone in that marginalized community and have interacted with that person, broken bread with them learned with them that is when a deeper level of understanding occurs. Our education system is at a crossroads in educating students about LGBT issues, and although it seems as though things are getting better, The suicide rate and homelessness rates for LGBT youth are too high. This brings me back to
this week's reading. The authors argue that "children encounter cultural and ethnic norms different from those of their family. If our homes are incubators, keeping our children safe as they grow into patterns of family life, schools are outcubators places that introduce new ways of thinking and behaving". With this statement the author begin to introduce the biggest problem plaguing the LGBT youth in America. The place were students learn things different than the way

that they are brought up is failing to introduce the LGBT community and thus creating an othering of their community. The "word curriculum derives from a word in Latin that means "to run a race" the authors argue that in a race there are winners and losers and that "We contend that the winners are those who see themselves in textbooks, art, films, and other educational materials. Youth who see themselves as wise or powerful main characters or heroes

worthy of celebration and emulation will feel validated included and safe inside their classrooms."  If students that represent them are not represented in their curriculum than there is an alienation and a lack of ownership in their education. I have felt like that before with no authors of colors in my English classes in high school, however, ( and this is where my heterosexual privilege lies) if a teacher were to advocate for her class to read more students of color, there would be very little red tape to climb as opposed to reading about characters of different sexual orientation/ gender identity.