Thinking Piece #3: Carlson Reading

Dennis Carlson: Gayness, Multicultural Education, and Community

Premise:

• Gay
• Straight
• Homosexual
• Education
• “Normal”
• Lesbian
• Techniques
• Structure
• Right vs. Wrong
• Teaching

Author’s Argument:

Carlson argues, “… that these practices are increasingly hard to sustain” (233). Carlson states that educators need to begin to teach that teaching about gays or anything even involving gays for that matter. It is becoming harder and harder for teachers to go against the grain and begin teaching history and knowledge of gayness. Carlson is basically saying the educators should not be afraid to mention the word gay in a lecture, together each educator need to be responsible for “normalizing” gayness in any lesson.

Evidence:

1. “Yet what got ignored in all celebrating was a provision in the bill that prohibits teaching about homosexuality in the public schools”(236). Carlson recognizes that while this so call bill was still pending citizens did not seem to care they were all celebrating what was already in affect and not what was still pending. Citizens did not stand up for teaching homosexuality in the public schools therefore it was never determined wither or not it is right or wrong.

2. “Three techniques of normalization and (hence) marginalization have been of primary importance in this regard: (1) the erasure of gayness in the curriculum, (2) the “closeting” and “witch hunting” of gay teachers, and (3) verbal and physical intimidation for gay teachers and students”(236). There are techniques teachers can use to help support gayness in their lessons. Carlson points out that it is not impossible to incorporate.

3. “… I just don’t know if students are mature enough or whether that’s a subject that in this environment we can deal with” (238). It got to a point where teacher’s/educators are actually leaving out an author/poets past or experiences just because they feel it is “inappropriate”.

Questions/Comments/Point to Share:
Even though this article pointed out some huge issues with teachers and educators avoidance of gayness activities, this article was a very hard read. I continued on and read beyond the required reading and it just complicated it more. I just feel like Carlson used far too many words I rarely hear and he combined too much into this one article. This definitely was a challenging read, so challenging in fact I’m not even sure if my evidence quotes are correctly stated in my responses.