Judy is a new student of mine. She was born in the U.S. but her parents are from Mexico. Judy loves her parents and gets along with them well because they know how to communicate. This is especially great because Judy is a lesbian. She says she's known this since she was 7 years old.
Judy and her mom have such a great relationship and she says it's because her mother has shunned the typical family religious beliefs regarding homosexuality. In fact, Judy has been an agent for change with her entire family just by being herself.
If more families had this amount of acceptance and support for their children, the world would be a much better place.
On the first day that I had Judy in class, a boy from another class was spending time in my class and when he heard she was gay, he said, "Man, if I ever have a kid who's gay I'll whip him with an extension cord - I'll beat it out of him." I have NO patience for ignorance, but knowing that he was probably raised this way, I decided to call him on it. "God hates gays; it's in the Bible", he said matter-of-factly. This is where I got snarky. "Sooo, God supports you drinking alcohol, smoking, having sex, and doing drugs at age 17?" "That's different", he replied.
I knew I was going to blow it and possibly lose my job, so I kindly sent the boy out of my room and went about teaching my class.
The difference between these two students is family acceptance of differences. Uniquenesses. Things that make our children special. Who wouldn't want to celebrate that?
I sure wish I could have teachers like you when I was in school! These kids are fortunate to have you in their lives and if they don't realize it now, they will in the future.
ReplyDelete