August, "Safe Spaces"

Extended Comments:

I found the "Safe Spaces" article by Dr. August, a Rhode Island College professor to be very interesting. I enjoyed the story telling aspect of the article, and how it shifted between different stories and each story entailed different lessons and things to learn, and also liked how there were "reflection" points that connected to what you would do as a teacher. I've chosen to do an extended comment for my blog and am connecting it to Kaileen ,who did an amazing job in her reflection of this article.
I loved Kaileen's personal connections including that some of her family members are drag queens and how open and accepting she is and it is sad that not everybody is this way. I have an aunt who is a lesbian, and growing up, I never knew; I was just used to her and her "friend" (what I knew her as at the time and how I always used to think of her). One day I heard from my dad that my aunt was getting married in Massachusetts (right after it became legal) and it was at that point that I realized that she was a lesbian. Another point Kaileen made was about people who are transgender. I also never knew anybody who was transgender, until I started my service learning. There is a student in one of the classes that i'm teaching/tutoring in who is transgender (male to female) and it is interesting to see how the other students in the class, and even the teachers and other faculty members interact (I apologize if that comes across in the wrong way).
The next part of Kaileen's post focused on LGBT issues as a teacher, and that you shouldn't tiptoe around the issue, but also you shouldn't dismiss it without talking about it. This point in particular can be referenced to the Johnson article, because the whole point of the Johnson article was to say the words, and not be afraid about them: "Our collective house is burning down and we're tiptoeing around afraid to say 'fire'".  A teacher's job is to educate their students, and to avoid this subject and to not discuss it, what exactly are we educating them about, besides ignorance?