Homophobia in the Classroom: One Teacher’s Response*

“If one of my kids turned out to be gay, I would kill him,” said one of my adult ESOL students.

“But you might not want to kill him,” replied another, “because that would be murder, and they could put you in jail for that.”

There was nodding all around.

I sat down, stunned. What had I prepared for class that day? A game for learning fractions? Reviewing the past tense? I could not remember. None of it seemed to matter. I did not feel like a teacher at that moment. I felt angry, shocked, sad, and personally vulnerable even though my own life partner is of the opposite sex and so for that reason, according to my students, I should be allowed to live.

I did not try to mask my feelings. I felt too much respect for the members of my class. We were friendly and affectionate with each other.

I cared a great deal for each of them. They had consistently impressed me with their finely tuned sense of justice and fairness, and their understanding of how power reveals itself in U.S. institutions—in the workplace, in the school system, in the home, in how U.S. foreign policy impacts their countries of origin.

But here they were advocating killing their own children in the event they should be gay, and the only argument against doing so was a practical one (“you’ll go to jail”), not a moral one.

“My sister is a lesbian,” I told them. The classroom was silent. “It hurts me to hear what you are saying.” I know I showed what I was feeling—my face had probably gone pale and my hands may have been shaking—and it affected them. Because of the trust and affection we had built up over many hours in the classroom, they had no desire to cause me pain. And their faces showed what they were feeling—conflict between their hatred of homosexuality and their curiosity about what it could mean that someone they thought they knew and respected could be close to a gay person. I felt that the students were looking at me completely differently.

“My sister is a wonderful person. I love her. My parents love her. If they had rejected her because she is a lesbian, we all would have lost so much. Our family would have been divided. I am so thankful that they loved their daughter even though it was hard for them to understand her.”

When issues arise in the classroom, most teachers respond as teachers. We look for what can be learned from the moment; we see it as an opportunity for critical thinking, debate, and English language practice. In a flexible classroom, such moments might lead to a writing project or some research. Maybe we mine the conversation for vocabulary and create a lesson plan around related themes for the next class. I have done that kind of thing many times. But in this case, I reacted not as a teacher, but as an individual who was clearly affected by what the students were saying. The students experienced an immediate consequence to their words and sentiments. I did not absorb what they said in a neutral way. Instead, I let it bounce back to them, and thus they got a second look at it in a different light.

Not that they changed their minds. “It’s against the Bible,” they argued. “It’s against nature, and a crime against God.”

“The Bible also says not to have children out of wedlock,” I replied. There was no need to point out that most of the people in the class had gone against the Bible on that score.

We all looked at each other, feeling unnerved, and I did not rescue the situation from uneasiness in the way I usually might in difficult situations. We sat in this strange stillness. The charged feeling hung in the air. I had no particular strategy about where to take the class, but I had a strong sense that I did not want to be less than honest...