Respond to: There are transsexuals in our middle schools!

“To queer is to venture into controversial, intellectually complicated, nuanced terrain with students. It requires faith that middle school students in a public school such as mine not only can, but must, learn to grapple with complexity if their education is going to provide opportunities, rather than impose insurmountable limitations.”

Queer pedagogy, what a strange and unfamiliar term! Knowing it more, the more you may agree with the writer that queer pedagogy could be the one the under-performed, under-privileged, and marginalized adolescents needed to break through their own boundaries as well as the boundaries formed by others’ perspectives. It may sound unreasonable and unpractical in a sense that these adolescents are extremely lacking in literary abilities. Without meeting this crucial and basic goal of schooling, how could this pedagogy benefit these adolescents, and how could they qualified to venture into studies requiring even higher thinking skills? I think the answer lies in the core value of queer pedagogy, which some educators may refer to as involving students in discussing and understanding issues, such as gender, sex, and identity. But looking it in a macroscopic way, actually the core value manifests what all educators want to instill in their students, critical thinking skills. Selecting what kinds of issues to promote critical thinking skills greatly depends on the nature of the class and yourself as an educator. Critical literacy is surely another aspect to achieve the goal. Nurturing critical thinking skills unavoidably requires students to listen with purpose, to articulate fluently and clearly, to read with deep understanding, and to write to precisely convey their intentions. Literacy abilities will be advanced noticeably and in a meaningful and engaging way for these struggling adolescents.