Teacher Ethics and Issues of Sexuality

“I fear those big words that make us so unhappy.”—Ulysses, episode 2

The canon and school curriculum are usually considered critical issues when discussing teaching practice. The topic of how we decide what is taught often harkens back to how and what we were taught as students of literature. We use big, scary words when we discuss the literary canon in academia. As those debates trickle-down to the secondary schools the impact transforms into the phantom rules of the literature curriculum. I find the issue of teacher ethics relates to issues of curriculum, canon debates, and critical pedagogy. More and more students are investigating cultural and social nuances. We notice students are developing a sensitivity for issues of culture, socio-economic status, race, religion, and sexuality, or if they are not sensitive to those issues education needs to provide a space for critical reflection to occur.

Maxine Greene discusses issues of the canon. Greene’s pluralistic views of the literary canon are relevant in setting up a critical pedagogy for issues of sexuality in our classrooms. Greene desires an inclusive canon and curriculum, one that can provide a critical lens for students to view several cultures, lifestyles, and orientations (religious and sexual) “without highlighting their marginality in such a way as to further marginalize them” (Schultz, 2000). I would argue that Greene’s brand of pluralism—in part—provides a space for a continuum of sexuality within a literary cannon and an English Literature curriculum. Greene would agree that literature, or a text is an appropriate space for deconstructing oppressive language and phobias.

Issues of sexuality as they relate to teaching English to adolescence
Students in my Bronx classroom confronted me with issues of sexuality more readily than I was prepared to handle. Initially, I stammered over how to answer their questions regarding sex and sexuality. I was not trained for this aspect of my job. Several questions arose when pondering the potential of ethics in teaching: How does this issue of introducing LGBT issues fit into the larger spectrum of canon issues? How these issues of sexuality are introduced into foundations of education textbooks? Why do we avoid discussing these issues within teacher education programs, yet expect that students will be sensitive to these issues either socially or when discussing literature? How can I tackle adolescent homophobia? Is it my job to do so? At the risk of exuding liberalistic rhetoric, I would argue that it is our job as literature teachers to expose students of literature to subversive texts that exploit different oppressions, particularly the language of oppression that silences people of the LGBT community. The very nature of my calling it a community places me in a paradigm that categorizes this particular group.

Homosexuality, LGBT presence in practice and a brief history of the issue
In my school three out of five male teachers are homosexual, which is interesting for students because they do not understand it at all, and they are homophobic in their language toward each other. We all are fairly liberal at my school, so we attempt to teach our kids how language can be harmful whether they mean to be or not. However, it is a fine line for teachers to begin discussing these issues because personal politics, ethics, and beliefs enter the picture. We risk branding our students to be like us. Sadly, being open to sexuality issues is not a part of most of America's cultural zeitgeist. As teachers in alternative education programs, we may or may not enter the classroom with sensitivity or particular knowledge about LGBT issues, and thus we are sensitive to these issues similar to issues of race, gender, and/or class. Yet, most teacher education programs at the undergraduate level fail to train teachers in any way on issues of sexuality (Macgillivray & Jennings, 2008). Teachers must be self-reflective about how they react, respond, and address issues of sexuality whether in passing or within the context of the classroom. The brand of students—whether in a Bronx classroom or in rural Wisconsin—is impressionable because they are at an age when cognitive and biological development is underway. Macgillivray and Jennings call attention to teacher impact on students: “The way issues get presented to students has an effect subconsciously and consciously, so if teachers aren't educated in how to be sensitive to issues” (Macgillivrary & Jennings, 2008). The years of adolescence are replete with quandaries that relate to friendship, family life, relationships and sexuality. Thus, we must be aware of the ways in which as role models in our teacher position we relate these issues to students.

It is interesting to think about this issue in light of reading Paolo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed because I think discourses surrounding sexuality could be regarded as other types of systems or ways of thinking that oppress and silence students (Freire, 1997; Jardine, 2005). Sadly, the language of heterosexual and homosexual automatically sets up a dichotomy. When we speak in terms of sexuality we are linguistically forced into this paradigm. The history of the issue of what and how a teacher addresses sexuality, reveals yet another community that has been marginalized both in literature and in life. Moreover, the only ways that sexuality, and sexual difference have been discussed in classrooms has been in a negative context. According to Macgillivray, sexuality is discussed “followed by a discussion of STDs teen pregnancy, and sexual abuse” (Macgillivray & Jennings, 2008). This highlights the topic of sexuality as something that is negative, and has negative, if not violent connotations of sexuality.

In addition, LGBT communities are portrayed as victims. Macgillivrary and Jennings, in their review of literature on the topic, did not cite a single educational textbook for teachers that empowered LGBT people; rather; they are often depicted as in need, or suffering. Yet, their study of content in teacher education programs revealed that students in over 3,000 middle schools and high schools are engaging in critical dialogue surrounding issues of sexuality through secondary school organizations that seek to unite homosexual, heterosexual, and multi-sexual groups under a common mission, harkening back to an offshoot of Maxine Greene’s pluralistic principle that mentions that we all share common ground (Macgillivray & Jennings, 2008; Schultz, 2000). What does that tell our students?

Looking ahead and Potential Conflicts
In 1998, a federal appeals court ruled that schools can be held liable for deliberately ignoring the harassment of homosexuals. The case is called Nabozny v. Podlesny. No longer can schools legally ignore issues of sexuality. The challenge becomes how to we train teachers to address these issues in the context of an English curriculum without crossing an ethical line. Literature provides the most appropriate space for students to explore issues of sexuality, gender, race, and class through a critical lens of perspective or point of view. We still have to be cautious of incorporating texts like Julie Anne Peter’s Luna, which offers adolescent transgender issues. If it is too explicit we might run the risk of crossing a sexual-ethical line, yet readers easily ignore the sexual confusion and “loss of innocence” of Holden Caufield or Stephen Dedalus (Kauer, 2008). The “conservative parents” or even teachers might gasp at the thought of a homosexual Catholic adolescence reading of Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man or The Catcher in the Rye, but if our reader’s allow the text to speak to them in such a way I cannot imagine myself censoring their readerly response to literature. Instead we must run the risk of pushing the envelope through dialogue and critical reflection on literary themes and characters’ emotions and actions in the hopes of guiding students to be “compassionate” about the world that they live in (Kauer, 2008). After all the goal of literature should be to relate to real life issues that students endure.

References

Freire, Paulo. (1997). Mentoring the mentor: A Critical dialogue with Paulo Freire. New York: Peter Lang.

Jardine, Gail McNicol. (2005). Foucault and education. New York: Peter Lang.

Kauer, Suzanne M. (2008). A Battle Reconsidered: Second Thoughts on Book Censorship and Conservative Parents. English Journal. 97(3).

Macgillivray, Ian & Jennings, Todd. (2008). A content analysis exploring LGBT topics in foundations of education textbooks. Journal of Teacher Education. 59(2).

Schultz, F. (2000). SOURCES: Notable selections in education. New York: McGraw-Hill

The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. Website for the History of Education: Selected Moments in the 20th Century. Retrieved July 2008. Nabozny v. Podlesny http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/research/edu20/moments/1996nabozny.html