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. 

Case Study #3

Case Study #3:

You are a high school teacher in your first year of teaching. You  have noticed that one of your students appears to have developed a crush on you. Until today, you viewed the student’s crush as endearing and your student as harmless. You are sitting at your desk in your classroom after school, and no one else is in the room. Your student comes into your classroom and begins acting evocative towards you and makes suggestive comments. 

It is very important in this situation to record and report the incident immediately. This way your supervisor is notified of what has happened and you cover your ass if any rumors begin to circulate. The next step in this situation is to make it clear with your student that any sort of relationship between the two of you outside of the student/teacher relationship is not only inappropriate and unprofessional, but also illegal. This point needs to be adamantly made, but without embarrassing or insulting the student. The teacher should follow school protocol for this situation and if necessary refer the student to the guidance counselor to discuss why this kind of attachment is unhealthy and not realistic. The teacher should not do anything to alienate the student after the situation has occurred. 

This absolutely goes with out saying but under no circumstances should the teacher engage in any sort of evocative activities suggested by the student. At NO point should a teacher engage in a sexual or romantic relationship with a student. It is illegal, unethical, and can be viewed as an abuse of power by the teacher. 

10.1 and 10.2

10.1) Define peer mediation and identify the steps and uses that are associated with it.

10.2) As a teacher how can you use reciprocal causation to your advantage with students in your classroom?

9.1 and 9.2

9.1) What are the differences between Classical and Involuntary Conditioning?

9.2) As a teacher what strategies can you use to maintain a positive classroom environment that doesn't elicit negative emotional responses? How can you counteract situations where negative emotional responses have already occurred?

8.1 and 8.2

8.1) Identify convergent and divergent thinking and provide examples of how each work in the context of creativity.

8.2) In your subject area, what are some ways that you as a teacher would promote positive transfer in your classroom while minimizing instances of negative transfer?

7.1 & 7.2

7.1: The chapter talked about different things that affected student's knowledge bases. Briefly summarize concepts, schemas, scripts, theories and worldviews. 

7.2: Using what you learned in the reading, what are some ways you would incorporate authentic activities into your lessons? How would these activities place classroom learning into real-world contexts?

C. 6 QTC

6.1 Lower Order: Identify and describe the differences between rote and meaningful learning (found on pages 191-193 in the text).


6.2 Higher Order: What are two of the factors identified in the text that affect retrieval and how can you as a teacher effectively promote these factors in the classroom to improve student's memory retrieval?

15.1

Using this computer printout I would tell Ingrid's grandmother that Ingrid performed well on this test. She did not test well below average in any of the subjects being tested and scored well above average in several. According to the test her strongest achievements came in reading comprehension, social studies and science, but it appears she struggled with spelling and math computation. All in all Ingrid performed well, and it is to be remembered that while these standardized achievement tests garner a lot of media focus, they are just indicators and in no way perfect. In regards to strengthening Ingrid's skills I would tell the grandmother that attention needs to be paid to spelling and that should come along with practice and repetition. Also it is clear that she has an average to above-average understanding of math concepts so the discrepancy between that and math computation could just be an outcome of test anxiety or some other kind of fluke. However it wouldn't hurt to do some of the practice math problems provided in class and in the textbook for better comprehension. Most importantly, just because she did well on this standardized achievement test in certain areas does not mean that Ingrid should focus any less attention to them. Ideally, she did well because they are subjects that interest here and this won't be a problem, however it is crucial not to start slacking with them just because of one test.

Kendall 14.1 and 14.2

14.1
My usual go to for a lesson plan example is World War II so I'll work with it. One of the most useful assessment strategies that my teachers used, especially when starting a new topic or unit, was using the beginning of the class to briefly ask students about what they knew, or thought they knew, on the topic. This was useful for the students because it got us talking and involved early in the lesson and it was useful for the teacher because it showed who had an understanding of some of the subject matter and who didn't. With a topic as complex as WWII it would be easy during the lesson to consistently question the students on the information as it is related. For example after establishing an understanding of Fascism ask the class why they think Hitler and Mussolini formed an alliance together.

During this lesson plan it would be helpful to the students to consistently scan the room to make sure that nobody in the class appears lost or confused. If it looks like students are struggling with comprehending the information then slowing down and repeating information or putting more emphasis on how one event relates to another might be helpful. When I was in high school many of my history teachers often gave us short quizzes composed of multiple choice and short answer questions after each section of a unit. They were not worth enough to break your grade if you performed poorly, but alerted you and the teacher that you didn't know the content very well. This made it an easy identifier for the teacher to speak with you one on one over the material and an easy identifier for you to study the topic more.

14.2
I would argue that there are advantages and disadvantages to both norm-referenced and criterion referenced assessments. Criterion referenced assessments are excellent for making sure that students are understanding the material within the curriculum which is important during this age of standardized testing. If they are scoring well on what they will need to know for an end-of-year or end-of-course test then they are in good shape and may not need as much extra attention as a student who is scoring poorly. Criterion referenced assessments also allows for teachers to tailor lesson plans that can be more individually focused. However this type of assessment can run into the trouble of students just knowing the material they're being taught for the test but doesn't measure if they are fully comprehending it. It becomes an issue of whether the information is just being repeated.

Norm-referenced assessment is good because it is an easy way to track a student's progress compared to other students in their grade or age bracket. It is also bad because it is a very easy way to track students into an academic curriculum that may not be a reflection of their actual intelligence or ability but is the result of an outside factor such as test anxiety or illness. It also may show that one student is not performing as well as his or her classmates, but neglect to show that as a whole the group is struggling with a certain concept or subject.