This is, of course, more than you’re being paid to do, but you’ll likely find it rewarding and enlightening, and possibly build longstanding relationships with really great people.

Or you know, teachers could have expectations that students will do their own learning. Both of the students that I’ve read on this thread have talked about what the teachers are missing. And? You’re not missing it, so what are you doing to set an example with your peers? School isn’t about spoon-feeding. If you’re in high school you need to step to the plate.

If we treat the speakers of offensive speech as people worth our engagement, we are modeling the behavior we want to see from them. I think shutting down the comments is far preferable to letting them stand, and in some ways safer – engaging requires a lot of skill, especially if you’re engaging in a group setting, to make sure it’s a safe space.

Another resource: The National Coalition-Building Institute, which will also come into schools and also sponsors training workshops to help build those skills.

On the other hand, teaching is emotionally demanding work, and you will not be able to change a homophobe’s behavior in one easy application of any technique in the known universe. If you’re at the end of your rope and find yourself with the choice of saying nothing in response to a casual slur and exploding at the student who used it outside your classroom, choose to say nothing. There will be other chances to reach those students, and you have olleagues who (hopefully) will help pick up where you can’t. You’ll help a lot more young people if you’re imperfect for 20 years than if you’re perfect for one.:-)

(Obviously, if it happens in your classroom or if it looks like a student could be in danger, you need to do something.)

As Stacy said up in #7, and a few others confirmed,

Your best work occurs in small group or one-on-one conversation outside the classroom.

This reminded me of another teaching incident. This other class, all high school students, mostly boys, liked to make homophobic cracks every now and then. I was pretty consistent about smacking them down–usually with sarcasm or by directing attention to the insecurity underlying homophobia.

After class was over one day, one of the students talked to me for a little while alone–and uncloseted himself.

I am so so so glad I’d let the class know I didn’t agree with the gaybashing talk. What a relief it must have been for that one student. But on the other hand I wished I’d been more direct instead of volleying back at the offending students.

Huh. Stuff to think about.

That’s not a political agenda –that’s getting your facts right. If someone says girls are bad at science, you don’t just have to point to yourself (although you’re a great example), you have a great chance to demonstrate how you look for evidence about that stuff in a serious, scientific way.

Languagelog had a great article debunking the pop science “men and women are hardwired” articles. Unfortunately they just switched servers and the search function is wonky. I hope it comes back.

Most overt examples of sexism and homophobia are going to happen outside your classroom. You might encounter a kid saying “that’s so gay,” but the real nasty stuff is going to go on when you’re not around. I don’t know about your area, but in my city, there are all sorts of organizations that will come into schools and give workshops, and that’s one way of addressing the problem proactively instead of just responding to individual incidents.

After my first week of practice teaching, I gave up on being called anything other than “Miss.” It’s easier for the kids to call out and someone seems to be training them to call all female teachers that. It’s a small thing for me, but at least they aren’t calling me “Mrs.” or, even worse, “Ma’am.” I don’t concede to other issues of language, though—kids don’t get away with saying “fag” or “bitch” in my classroom.

Be prepared for a ridiculous amount of crap from your fellow teachers. Despite the fearsome reputation of the teachers’ unions, teachers themselves statistically hold the same political opinions as the general public. They can be as sexist, racist, homophobic, and classist as any of the students—maybe even more so. Expect offensive comments, and also expect a fair amount of individualist worldviews and an assertion that “anyone can make it, and if you don’t make it, you’re just not trying hard enough” in response to any sort of systemic critique you make. Many male teachers will not look favourably on a female teacher they perceive as feminist or “PC.” That was one of the most disappointing discoveries I made this year.

Good luck!

I also think it is very important to establish norms ahead of time, before someone says something. It can be very helpful to have students play a major role is setting the norms themselves. Then the rules are “their” rules, rather that the rules imposed by the teacher. My experience is that most students support the sort of norms I would hope for and it can be very helpful for the racist/homophobe/sexist to see that they are actually in the minority.

Finally, I did not see anyone mention GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network, but they are a great resource for creating safe schools and responding to homophobia. http://www.glsen.org Poetry mentioned stickers to identify you or your classroom as a safe space. GLSEN has a safe space kit, including stickers, available at http://www.glsen.org/cgi-bin/iowa/all/library/record/1641.html. I used to have their sticker on my office door at the college and this thread has reminded me to order another set so I can put one on my new office.

In tenth grade English Lit. my class read 1984. A large part of the class was literary analysis, during which someone would read a portion of the text out loud and then begin a discussion about it/pick out literary devices/give their preliminary reactions/etc. We weren’t allowed to censor the book; we had to read everything in our section, including racial slurs.

I went to a school with a large percentage of black students, so racial slurs were generally not tolerated by either the teachers or the students. I remember during those classes sitting in a classroom full of students (myself included) with their mouths open, looking absolutely disgusted. To hear one of your classmates say n***** out loud, seriously, and in front of a large group of people, was horrifying. Afterwards our teacher told us that she was proud that we were so disgusted with it, that we should always be so shocked and horrified by language that aims to dehumanize.

My point is this: sometimes high school and middle school students don’t realize that people do use slurs seriously to completely demean others. Especially with things like “that’s so gay” where they intend it as just a negative description of something rather than as an expression they would ever use on an actual gay person. Sometimes, making them acknowledge that it is a violently hateful thing to say, and giving them some context as to why, can do a world of good.