Reply #5: It's not that hard to put a crimp into kids calling each other "gay" as a pejorative. [View All]

[1monster]

I recently had a class without a teacher for over a week where I was doing the lesson plans. I gave them an article on Justin Bieber, had them answer that came with the article, and had them do two short essay questions about Justin Bieber. One girl came up to me with her essay in which she said she couldn't stand Justin Bieber because "he sings like a girl" and some nasty things about him being gay (he's not).

I gave the paper back to her and told her to rewrite without the perjoratives. She protested that she felt that way about him and didn't want to change it. I said, "Fine. I'll just send your paper down to the principal and see what she thinks about it." She snatched the paper back and rewrote it.

I announced to the rest of the class (and subsequent classes) that kind of thing would not be toleratred in any classroom where I presided.

When the new teacher came, I mentioned the incident to her. She answered that she would not, under any circumstance tolerate that kind of behavior.

Funny side note on the Justin Bieber assignment. Most of the boys really disliked Bieber. Some of those boys who disliked him grudgingly admitted that they were impressed by what they had learned about him from the article. The emotion coming from the boys was that they were jealous of Bieber because the girls liked him so much. Conversely, the girls who disliked Bieber couldn't find anything nice to say about him.

Most of the girls had the teenybopper to rock star attitude for Bieber and it drove the boys nuts. :evilgrin: