Homosexuality in a Church School

I need to read more on the subject, but apparently the law that Maggie Thatcher-back in the days that the Tories were in power -put in place prohibiting the promotion of homosexuality in schools has been scrapped. As usual, it's all about the wording. Notice it doesn't necessary say anything about the necessity of the promotion of homosexuality in schools. Rather, it forbids anything that could be perceived to be against the promotion of homosexuality in schools. You may have heard of the famous (or infamous?) children's book "Heather has two mommies". An instance of the scrapping of this law coming into play is best demonstrated in the fact that this book cannot be banned in primary schools.

The world is changing, and even though Einstein's wonderful statement about the only constant being change, is absolutely true, I wonder if it is changing too much. I am beginning not to recognise it. Maybe the world is ending? One can only hope....

I work in a church school and it was one afternoon that a group of pupils came in whispering about an 'incident'. Without going into too much detail about it, and certainly protecting the identity of the pupils in question, I can tell you that the incident was regarding a 'lesbian' relationship gone sour. What was odd, odd to me at least, is that students were talking about the 'slap' (someone had cheated on someone - I'm still hazy on the details) but the actual gay relationship itself didn't appear to be a matter of interest. I questioned the girls in questions, and they openly admitted to being gay. Their friends openly supported them. I didn't say a word.

Now, I know homosexuality is a controversial topic, even within the church, but going by the word of God -the Bible -it remains a sin, and that is that. Seeing homosexuality in a school -amongst young children -was a different scenario altogether. We love children and want the best for them. I certainly wouldn't want any child -gay or not -to feel discriminated against or bullied because of a choice. Yet, does this mean I am not allowed to express the christian view -in a christian school -that their choice, according to christian doctrine -is wrong? More on this later...

What makes a good speaker?

School teachers, every so often, have the distinct pleasure of being the participants in what we call INSET days. Children have the day off and teachers get to come in wearing their jeans –bearing some resemblance to normality. INSET days are usually led (or facilitated) by members of the SLT (Senior Leadership Team). If however, the school is particularly lucky (and sufficiently up on funds for that particular academic year) it is graced by the presence of a guest speaker. In one such INSET (one that was entirely irrelevant and useful only for private contemplation) I got to thinking about what makes a good speaker. What engages an audience? What is that we want to hear?

I decided that there were two things to consider. One, people wanted to hear things that they hadn’t heard before or they wanted to hear what they knew, but didn’t know they knew –if you get what I mean. Let me explain, by listing the sort of responses (mental or out loud) that an audience (that was engaged) might say.

“Ah…that’s interesting. I never knew that!”

Or

“Ah, I totally relate to what he/she just said, and just didn’t know, that I knew that!”

When the response is simply: “I knew that”, you know that the speaker is being patronising or irrelevant or both.

In exactly the same way, I thing the same goes for pupils and their reactions (mental responses or perhaps more verbal ones!) to us. If we bleat on about something they know and they know they know, what on earth is the point of that? The response, and understandably, would be utter boredom, defiance, or bad behaviour as a result of a growing lack of respect. Instead, the key is to package the things they know they know, in a way that they relate to, but didn’t quite see in that context.

The key to controlling behaviour

It begins with the realization that it is impossible to control an individual’s behaviour! The only thing we can do is influence behaviour and it is this that we should set out to do. Another thing that came to me was derived from the simple analogy of a peripheral device connected to a computer. Perhaps I am stating the blatantly obvious, but it is impossible to ‘influence’ or ‘talk to’ something that you are not connected to. The computer would not be able to communicate with the peripheral device (like a printer, or scanner) unless it was physically connected via cables (coaxial, or even better –fibre optic –yes I’m an ICT teacher!). In much the same way, it is impossible to communicate (in a way that would be beneficial) with someone who you are disconnected from. Or, to put it another way, you have to be connected to something or someone in order to control it in anyway.

The relationship between teachers and children is comparable. We try to influence or control the behaviour of X without knowing a thing about X or indeed even being sure of his name! The sort of positive communication that we desire as teachers is often only achieved as the result of a well established connection. How, you may ask, do we make a connection with a pupil? (Particularly with one we want to make anything but a connection with!). The key is finding some common ground, something to laugh about, something personal and human, something real, something unconnected to how well they are (or are not, as the case may be) achieving.

Communication is never neutral

Communication –with a pupil –is never neutral. It is only ever either positive or negative. If you aren’t being positive, you are probably being negative, and an understanding of this rather obvious, but unconsidered fact, is crucial to become a more effective communicator. You might be simply telling Joe Bloggs to do something pretty standard, like “Log off, and tuck your chair in”. Even something as mundane and routine as that however, isn’t neutral. Tone of voice, body language and other factors come into it. Communication is never neutral.

Should we never say “Do not”?

My first thought was, but God did! If it was good enough for God, it should be good enough for us! (I was referring to the Old Testament and the Ten Commandments –the famous (or perhaps infamous) “Thou Shalt Nots”). If God thought it perfectly fine to tell his children, his people, to NOT do things, shouldn’t we as teachers, find it equally effective (or at the very least reasonable) to use the same sort of terminology with our beloved (or not so beloved) pupils!

The speaker went on about how surveys had shown that people respond better to positive instructions. He used the age-old (and may I say clichéd) example of how are brains are unable to not think of the colour yellow, when asked not to think of it. (I hope this wasn’t too convoluted a sentence!) Okay, but that was totally out of context, I thought. When do we ask a child not to think of a colour. We use ‘nots’ purely to establish boundaries, and emphasise rules in an absolute and unambiguous manner. How, for instance, did you tell (using the politically correct jargon) a child to stop chewing their gum? “Do chew gum, but not on school premises?”. I mean, come on.

Anyway, it was about half way through the session that the penny dropped and I found that you could indeed find all the answers to life, and learning, and good practice, in the Bible. It occurred to me that the old Testament (with its “Thou shalt nots” was about rules and laws and establishing the fact that human beings were incapable of following rules and therefore incapable of saving themselves. In stark contrast, as if to first make us conscious of sin, and then –only then –give us the solution, the new testament does the opposite. It does away with the rules (the negative language and the ‘Do not’s and changes to the language which tells us what do do, rather than what not to!

Jesus encapsulates all the rules in the old testament (so does not do away with them, but repackages them, if you like) in two simple ‘new’ rules, which involve a ‘Do’, with no hint of the word ‘Not’.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and your mind, and your soul” and “Love your neighbour as yourself”

So there you go. If God knew positive instructions were the way to go, who are we to argue?