Creating Safe Schools for Queer Youth

• Who is the author? To whom was the author speaking and why?
• What do the author’s assumptions seem to be? 
• What sorts of evidence and methods are used? 
• What specific passages support your interpretation of the author’s argument?
• Where are you agreeing, disagreeing? 
• Where does the author echo your own discourses and/or challenge them? 
• Where are you surprised? (adapted from Allison Ander’s CSE 545 syllabus)
• How does this reading compare to how the issue was portrayed in the text? 

The author of this piece was Kimberly Cosier. The text is based on her research and experiences from her time as a queer student, teacher and researcher. Cosier is speaking to anyone who is a student, a teacher, or an administrator because she sees a multitude of flaws with how schools address the problems that have arisen in the LGBTQ community. She believes that a school can make a difference in a child's life, both positive and negative. 

Cosier's assumptions are that many schools do not always treat gender discrimination the same way they do other discriminations. She at one point makes the statement "If I had a nickel for every time I heard the word 'faggot' I could have retired early. She sees the major problems being that teachers and administrators let slurs like "faggot" and "dyke" slip and do not always enforce or come to the aid of queer students who are the victims of this discrimination. She assumes that more often than not students within the LGBTQ community feel threatened at school leading to lower grades and/or low attendance rates. 

Cosier uses her own experiences from time spent working in public schools as well as research conducted at two alternative schools: Alliance High School in Milwaukee and New Dawn Alternative High School. She also uses information from the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and the Harris Interactive group. The statistics she uses from these two organizations and her own personal interviews show that a staggering number of students don't feel safe at their school and that a majority of those don't feel like the administration has their best interests in mind. 

There are several stories and vignettes throughout Cosier's article that support this interpretation. Numerous accounts of students being bullied and not receiving any aid from teachers or administrators. At the alternative school many students told Cosier that were it not for the ability to transfer to the accepting community environment they would have likely killed themselves because of bullying. One passage that really stands out is when Cosier gave a student detention for repeatedly using the word "faggot" after she asked him to stop. The student's parents were very involved and well-known in the community, and the mother came to the school explaining that she was very upset that her son had received detention. The mother told Cosier that she felt her "feelings were getting in the way and clouding her judgement." The principal of the school gave the student a "perfunctory talk about respecting others" and then let him go detention free. He then explained to Cosier that she should pick her battles. 

I agree with the author on all of her points. I don't really have any experiences of my own to counter hers, but the belief that schools should be a safe place for all students, well I just don't see an actual argument against that. Her method or arguing her point is well written in my opinion. She organizes the discussion well, breaking it up into different topics and uses plenty of sources to support her. I agree with her beliefs on principled run schools, mainly because the examples she gives back up that claim and I don't personally have any information that disagrees. 

I was most surprised at her story involving the student, the student's mother and the principal. It seems baffling to me to think of a principal undermining a teacher's decision instead of supporting it. I feel had the student said some sort of profanity or used a racial slur there would be no question about his detention. But getting punished for calling someone a "faggot" is too controversial an issue to punish the son of a prominent family. I would like to think that over time more schools will alter their policies and train faculty to address LGBTQ issues and not just let kids be bullied. Few things are sadder than an adolescent giving up on their education or, worse, their life because they didn't feel accepted. 

The book talks about a number of diversity issues including students who are homeless, impoverished, come from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, and even the differences between boys and girls. However it does a very poor job of addressing the LGBTQ student population.