Joe Quigley, teacher

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Part Two
Written by Joe Quigley
(Posted 12-5-00)
Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four / Part Five

In the spring,
while the second diversity committee was meeting, the dean of students who worked at the middle school where I taught, as well as the high school across the street, asked if I would be interested in transferring there. This was a compliment of my teaching, and it was something I wanted to do. He had been working in the school for two years and was not only aware of my teaching, but my other interests as well. I looked forward to high school because, in my experience in other high schools, they were usually more mature, forward thinking, and open to new things. It seemed a good atmosphere in which to continue my committee work because the built-in feature of age would help eliminate any charges of "recruiting" or trying to influence the younger, less secure students at the middle school. I thought it would also give me the opportunity to do some good with Gay and Lesbian students who were more accepting of themselves.

I was assigned, among other classes, four in Multi-Cultural Literature, which would make the introduction of diversity a natural thing. I knew there might be an initial negative, if not uncomfortable, reaction from some students, but I had enough faith in them that education would open minds.

As I was to find out, it was not the students who would be a problem.

October being National Gay and Lesbian History Month, I prepared a poster to hang on my bulletin board that consisted of the same four-hundred and fifty names I had on a very large, oversized poster that had hung in my middle school classroom for two years. Those listed consisted of various groups of people, from politicians, artists, and religious folk to sports and historical figures. It also embodied people from many ethnic and racial groups. It was a very inclusive list. I simply hung it on the first Monday in October, making no reference to it whatsoever.

Knowing that for many of the students, if not all, this would in all probability be a new experience, actually seeing such a list publicly displayed with no shame or embarassment, I was prepared for whatever reaction they might have, hoping, of course, that it would not be too negative. I was quite pleased and proud of their reaction as it went from the first day of shock and a little laughter, progressing the following day to calling friends in between classes to see "The Poster", and finally by the third day involving their reading it as if it were any other piece of information that a teacher might hang in a classroom.

They were mature about it.

There was one senior in my third hour class that I referred to as the "Rebel Without A Clue". Somewhere along the line he had dropped out of school, moved to another state, held a job and for whatever reason chose to return to school to finish his senior year. He only needed one final semester of credits to graduate and felt that because he had been in the real world, he was beyond the other seniors and my equal as an adult. He rebelled against anything and everything presented to the class without taking the time to assess it, so in reality he never took the time to see if he actually would have liked some of the things we did in class. He promoted his rebel image without restraint.

He was absolutely adored by another student in the class who was having some personal problems both at home and in school who apparently saw in his rebelliousness something to admire, with her adoration so intense he could do no wrong. She looked on him with puppy eyes, and if we watched a video she would make sure her hand fell close enough to him in order to lightly caress the back of his neck when the lights were low.

The day came when he thought that my treatment of the class was demeaning. In reality, because he was often absent and constantly indiscriminately rebellious, he was unaware of those times I was joking with the class, and that the class was joking along with me. He stood up in class on the third day of the poster's appearance giving a rather incoherent and totally out of touch speech condemning my negative attitude toward the members of his class and my obvious ignoring of his equal standing with me. As he stormed out of the room announcing he was going to report me to the assistant principal, his most adoring fan rose to join him in his walk out. Once he was gone, and the laughter of the other students subsided, we returned to what we had been doing.

On the way to the office they were met by another student who had been in my class for two weeks, but who had only attended twice, and the three continued on to find the right assistant principal to report to.

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