Wednesday, May 10, 2006

stop homophobia

Liberal Democrats launch campaign against homophobic bullying

This is a very necessary campaign - there is no tolerance, understanding or acceptance of gays and lesbians among many pupils. Whilst it might be argued that all bullying should be tackled, previous anti-bullying campaigns have apparently ignored the issue of homophobia, so I think that a specific focus on this issue is a good idea. When I was teaching, pupils would often say things like "this computer is gay". When I told them off, they said they said it because they weren't allowed to say it was shit. So I told them I'd rather they said the computer was shit than that it was gay. They thought it was pretty cool to be allowed to say "shit" in my classroom, and lo and behold, the incidence of using the word gay as an insult dropped right off. They were also forbidden to use the words "pikey" and "witch" as insults; but "f**k" and "shit" were permitted. Body parts were out though.

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