Talking Points #3

Dennis Carlson: "Gayness, Multicultural Education, and Community"

Premise:

~ privilege
~ gayness
~ education
~ normal
~ community
~ disease
~ modern
~ America
~ life
~ suicide
~ harrassment
~ identity
~ voice
~ individuality

Argument:

Carlson argues that public schools do not educate children enough on personal identity, whether it is race, social class or sexuality, and because of this, homosexuals and other "abnormal" identities are kept hidden.

Evidence:

1. "While public schools have long been viewed by progressive educators as embryonic communities that should engage young people in building a democratic community of mutual support and respect, gay people have for the most part been made absent, invisible, and silent within this community and at the same time represented as the deciant and pathological 'Other.'" (233)

2. "One of the effects of this closeting of gay teachers may be an overzealous effirt by gay teachers themselves to avoid any class discussion in which gayness may come up, since they presume that to be publicly 'out' at school would cost them their jobs." (238)

3. "To some degree, all traditions of culture and knowledge must be selective, even multicultural traditions, for the production of a text always involves a selection process in which something must be left out. Nevertheless, normalizing texts systematically exclude and neflect the culture of those outside the norm for the purpose of ratifying or ligitimating the dominant culture as the only significant culture worth studying. This exclusionary aspect of the construction of a selective tradition is particularly important in understanding how texts have worked with regard to gayness." (236)

Other Stuff:

To me, this article was a huge eye-opener. When I first started reading it, I am going to admit, I wanted to quit. But, as I kept reading, I became more and more interested. I never realized to this extent that it was so out of the "norm" to be even the slightest bit different. I mean, I knew being different in most aspects was abnormal, but reading this article showed me how. I never really noticed how gayness is never brought up in our textbooks unless it is in health class talking about AIDS. I always heard about it in health class but it never crossed my mind in any of my other classes because it was not right in front of me in my book. I think it is absolutley ridiculous that it isn't included in any of the public schools' textbooks. Now that i see this fact, I notice that we never really ever learned about any famous gay people. How American children are so blind about many major issues right in front of them is beyond me. We try to act so smart, but in all honesty, we probably don't know much about anything. All in all, I really liked reading this article, but I am unsure if my argument and evidence is on point.