Talking Point #3

Gayness, Multicultural Education, and Community

by Dennis Carlson

1. "Much as communist teachers were to be drummed out of the teaching corps because communism was "contagious," so gay teachers were to be fired because they too were understood as contagious"

I can not believe that people thought that "gayness" was contagious. The fact that they actually would fire a qualified teacher just because they are gay, really upsets me. Thankfully today this is not an issue anymore, but the actuality that it once was an issue is shocking and really makes me realize that I am lucky to live in the time frame I do.

2. "Normalizing texts systematically exclude and neglect the culture of those outside the norm for the purpose of ratifying or legitimating the dominant as the only significant culture worth studying."

Carlson makes a very good point here. I never thought about it before now, but he is really right. There is really a heavy impact on all students that the culture that they use in all the texts books is the only culture worth studying.

3. "Yet the intimidation continues, much as it does in the military."

Thought there is very little discrimination with gays, there is still intimidation. This means that people still have worries about being around gays, and are almost scared to be around them as well. This should not be the case but I have even found myself feeling this in some sort of way.

This article really gave me a lot of information about what gays had to go through in the past. I never knew that people were fired because they were gay. I always thought that the gays were going through rough and hard times today but now I know that there were many more things that they had to go through as well. The education system really doesn't include gayness in any of the curriculum's except when teaching about HIV/AIDS. I really enjoyed reading this article and learning a lot more than I knew before.