Submitted by Peter Greene
I have personal knowledge of only some of what that poster referred to, and, of course, cannot comment directly on any of it. Certainly one of the challenges of dealing with these issues between school and community is that, as a teaching professional, I have to observe both matters of confidentiality and contractual requirements regarding comments on the behavior of my bosses. (Particularly frustrating when someone slams you in the paper for being one more Big Fat Oppressor and you cannot speak in your own defense.)
So, in generalities.
The vagaries of the high school social scene can be complicated. Students can be unbelievably kind and unbelievably cruel.
Cause and effect can be hard to track-- students might not care that student x is whatever, but once they decide they don't like student x, they'll use whateverness as a club to beat on him/her with.
There are many frustrating barriers to break. Some students may draw a line that they're simply unwilling to talk about or examine; like adults, they can decide that some groups don't deserve to be treated with human decency because Those People are just Wrong. At the same time, there are students who are in love with their social isolation and are unwilling to give up that little rush they get from being Noble Oppressed Outcasts.
I'm also pretty certain that the percentages of bullies, jerks, and insensitive jackasses are pretty constant through all groups and sub-groups of the population. You would think that being a member of a picked on group would make people more sensitive to picking on others, but ime you'd be wrong.
None of this is meant to assess blame. Blaming is a waste of time-- worse than a waste of time because it's almost always part of the process of saying, "Since X is at fault, I should get a free pass to do the following bad behavior..."
If I could wave my magic wand and make any piece of human thought disappear, it would be this: "Since this person is a member of Group X, I don't need to listen to him/her or try to understand him/her, or treat him/her as I would if s/he was anyone else."
As for where kids in school can go-- it remains in part a crap shoot because in this, as in all things, certain students relate well to certain teachers, and that usually boils down to the intangibles of personality, timing, style, etc. And it's a hard thing to track because when a student comes to me for help or a talk about anything, it's nobody's business but that student's and I can't give you an accounting of how many students I'm working with.
I know that's all kind of vague and nonspecific, but anything less so would be inappropriate. I'm sure we could do better-- I expect that will always be true. But I'm sure we do better than back in the seventies, when we all thought that Paul Lynde was just a funny guy and the Village People were just a funny-looking vocal group.
2 comments:
Peter,
Having known you for many, many years, I can attest that you are Not a big fat oppressor and try hard to understand all sides of an issue. The fact that you are participating in this forum shows that you are trying to learn more and willing to help the rest of us see another perspective. It's important! And I appreciate it.
What I would like to see more of in this blog is how attitudes and feelings of biogtry have affected gay people in this area. For the most part, we have been the nameless and faceless group out to distroy family life in America. Unless our stories become real, it's difficult for the general population to work past what they have always thought was true.
I think hearing people's stories is a useful path to understanding. And I think understanding better is one of the fundamental purposes of human existence. So I agree that such stories would be good content for this blog.
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