Hot Topic: Having a safe school environment for all students including Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, and Transgenders.
Why am I interested?: I'm interested because one of my best friends from high school was gay. Like I have mentioned before in my blog, I went to a private Catholic school. This was a little bit controversial, I guess. A lot of the kids in my high school were awful; they were so judgemental and hurtful. I hate to say it, but before I really got to know my friend I too had been judging him. I think this is a really important issue because it's 2008 and we need to learn to accept people's lifestyle choices and make them comfortable, especially in a learning environment.
What have I found?: The National Education Association (The NEA) believes in making public schools a place that is comfortable and condusive for learning for all students. This, of course, includes gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgenders. The NEA knows that it is their responsibility along with that of the school administration and teachers to make their best effort for every single student to learn and thrive. Of course, the rate of success is higher if students feel safe and supported. The stratistics are scary. Because of the bullying and homophobic language and ignorance of other students, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender students are much more likely to drop out, abuse drugs and alcohol, suffer academically and socially, have low self-esteem, and even comit suicide.
I think...: I think this is terribly ALARMING! We need to educate our youth and do a hell of a lot better job than we are now at teaching them to be accepting of all their classmates, no matter what they look like or how they choose to live their life. If a kid has grown up learning to be racist or homophobic or thinking the sky is purple, until somebody tells them otherwise that kid is still going to think the sky is PURPLE! We are the ones at fault because we are the educated ones. We can't let this continue, we need more people like the NEA to be proactive in making our schools to be comfortable, supportive learning environments for ALL students!
