“Middle school students are not only ready to examine complex and sophisticated issues of identity but are already forced to tackle the on their own, if nowhere but in the hallways of our school. Racial typing and stereotyping, sexual harassment, and queer-bashing can be witnessed outside my classrooms every day (and this phenomenon is absolutely not specific to under-resources schools.)” (Loren Krywanczyk, 2009)

I was shocked by the fact that middle school students have to deal with this very sophisticated identity issue which I, as a teacher, never thought about addressing to my students. This queer pedagogy the author proposed and employed in his classroom is actually a whole new content for me because of the huge cultural differences related to this kind of issues. To be honest, I’ve never heard the words like “queer”, “dyke” and “fag” until I came to the U.S., and although I did talk about gay when I was in china, I have had some deeper thinking about it since I were here.

I’m not saying that my home country is conservative in every aspect, but at least in regard of gay issues, it definitely is. While with an increasing number of people admitting that they are gay or lesbian, others start to notice and discuss about this phenomenon, it is still impossible for the society to accept gay people. Maybe only from my generation, gay people are gradually accepted and respected, but only in a few developed cities like Beijing where gay clubs are available. One of my best friends is actually gay, and it took him four years to finally determined to tell me even though I knew the truth at the very beginning. When he talked to me about his suffering and struggling, I felt so bad. I always support him, but it’s just so hard for him because the society, the big environment doesn’t allow him to be himself. His parents will never, ever believe the fact, not to mention accept it so he has been trying to persuade his parents that he’s not that kind of guy who needs marriage. What’s worse, he can’t go back to his hometown which is a pretty small city falling behind because only if he stays in Beijing, can he have places to release himself.

Admittedly, I only have a little background knowledge about this kind of issue, which gives me a huge challenge to deal with this with my students, and I really hope to learn more. I feel I’m not qualified to “teach” my students with respect to this area so I really need to do more research and listen to more opinions and suggestions.