Blog response- week 14

Blog response- week 14

Sexual Identities in ESL: Queer Theory and Classroom Inquiry
 
At first I was kind of surprised that this controversial topic could be discussed in a book rather than in a closet. It’s an obscure subject in the Asian world but Cynthia Nelson points out that teachers should be aware if this issue in our classroom. As we know, more and more gays/lesbians are pretty outstanding in the society, such as Elton John and Ellen DeGeneres. And I admire these two artists. Nelson advocates that teachers should see their gay/lesbian students in an open-minded way.

This is a very interesting topic because it reminds me one of the most famous hosts in Taiwan and his name is Tsai Kang Yung. He came out while he was a junior in college and he knew very early that he loved male rather than female. Even though he came out to his closest friend, he still didn’t have the courage to tell his teacher because she was homophobic, and Tsai didn’t want to ruin the relationship with her. With year passing by, Tsai has become both fame and fortune host in Taiwan, and he came out to the public in the time when he was in the highest point of his life. Guess what, he didn’t lose his audience and that teacher in college even wrote an email to him as a support. A few months ago I saw this interview in the newspaper and I can’t stop thinking why did this teacher write at last? Maybe because Tsai has become a household name so that teacher was proud of teaching this student.

For myself, I have no difficulty to understand gays/lesbians. As the practice teacher in the junior high school few years ago I had seen girls kissing each other in the corner of the campus. There is one thing I still confused about, as a teacher, I haven't got one particle of sexual prejudice but how could I persuade other teachers who are homophobic or have deeply discriminated against homosexuals? I can’t see Cynthia Nelson addressed this issue in the book.

At last, I think that as a teacher, you won’t and shouldn’t judge your students by their orientation. Similarly, we should respect our students’ sexual orientation. Maybe next time you will cultivate a future star.