Queering the Classroom

• In Event: 44.051 - Paths to Gender Justice in Education: Theories and Practices

Abstract

In reading through narratives of instructors of gender and sexuality studies, it becomes apparent that the lived reality of a “queer” classroom is often fraught with sadness, frustration, pain, and fear. This is surprisingly less about teaching queer issues than it is about being the queer issue; in the process of trying to disrupt heteronormativity and heterosexism, the philosophical and political becomes the personal. In the effort to educate and broaden horizons, students often desperately cling to their myopic understandings of human experience, in stark resistance to any alternate view of the world. This includes resistance to the real or presumed queer instructor.

In thinking about teaching gender and sexuality, often instructors are left asking, how queer is too queer? How “loud and proud” can they be when working within a framework of binaries that might put us at risk personally and/or professionally (straight/lesbian, respected/suspected, credible/doubtful)? What type of curriculum can be developed and implemented that is both effective and groundbreaking?

For this discussion, I will briefly touch on the key issues in the literature on queer pedagogy and being queer (or presumed) in the classroom, exploring how it affects teaching efficacy. In doing so, I will outline the main suggestions given by other instructors on how to minimize the effects of this queerness (for instance, “coping mechanisms” for personal attacks and neutrality when mediating discussions). But, mainly, I will ask participants and audience members to think critically about whether or not minimizing effects is a worthwhile goal, when pedagogy demands social justice. I’ll end by highlighting some of my own queer pedagogical experiments, exploring how I came to embrace true intersectionality in the classroom (e.g. how I came to terms with being “out” immediately and not just when the topic of sexuality arose); the importance of treating topics of queer inequality as I would any other form of oppression (I would not tolerate racist comments from a student, so neither will I stand for homophobic ones); and how a social justice framework necessitates that I demand my students challenge themselves, despite personal discomfort.

This last point is critical, because students’ ignorance is often an avoidance (subconscious or not) of contradictory perspectives to the ones they have become most comfortable with. Social justice in the classroom demands breaking this cycle of socialization. The suggestion here is not necessarily to resolve the contradiction for the student, nor convince them of your perspective, but to explore both the nature and implications of the competing worldviews. Certainly, whether my students agree or disagree with the topics at hand, they have a clear understanding of the politics at play; they know which institutions regulate their knowledge and how, and they know the effects of this regulation. For better or worse, I plant tiny seeds of queer liberation in all my students’ minds every semester, and I don’t let my queer identity stop me.

Author

• Bethany Coston