Questioning to enable attitudes to shift
Here is an example of a workshop on the fly done by Torshie Torto.
I want my students to learn how to think rather than be told what to think. For this reason, I invite them to be skeptical about everything. Yes, that includes the so-called immorality of homosexuality. Admittedly though, I have never explicitly told them there was nothing wrong with being gay. I mean, I would like to. But I don’t think that’s a smart move.
I prefer a more subtle but efficient method
Last year while I was teaching my junior high students, I once again encountered homophobia in our lessons. We were learning about irresponsible adolescent behaviors (it’s a topic in social studies) and I asked them to list some of them.
“No,” I said, pausing for several minutes while gazing intensely at the student. I wasn’t angry or anything. They were children living in a country that viewed homosexuality as a sin. So of course, they genuinely believed it was the truth. I wasn’t going to berate them for it. If anything, the best course of action was to encourage dialogue
I paused because I was thinking about how best to approach this. After all, they would need one hell of an explanation about why homosexuality was not an ‘irresponsible behavior’.
“Rape. Stealing. Murder. What do these three have in common?” I asked them.
“They’re wrong,” one said.
“They’re against the law,” said another.
“They’re all sins.”
I smiled. “Sure. But why?”
Silence. I could tell they were confused by the question, so I rephrased it. “How would you feel if someone stole your money or tried to kill you?”
And there, I got all kinds of answers about how sad, afraid, or angry that would make them.
“Exactly,” I said. “This causes you physical and psychological pain. See, all these acts are wrong because they’re done at the expense of someone else. They’re physically and psychologically harmful to the victim.”
Once I could see they understood this premise, I asked them, “So now tell me, how exactly does the relationship of two men or two women cause harm to anyone?”
After a long silence, someone answered, “But it’s against the Bible.”
“Not everyone believes in the Bible.” I chuckle. “If I told you not to eat certain foods because it’s against my religious beliefs, you’ll tell me to mind my own business, and rightfully so.”
Some of them laughed. But it was also clear that many of them were having a hard time accepting it. My goal wasn’t to make them accept anything. I wanted them to question the hatred of gay people, not their existence.
So, I tried to make it a lot more relatable.
“Did you know that black people were once not considered fully human?” I asked.
“WHAT?” That immediately got their attention.
“Yeah. I believe the specific wording as used by the US government was ‘3/5th of a person.’” I paused for effect before dropping the ball. “Do you believe you’re less than human because you’re black?”
They rejected it vehemently. Hmm… now we were getting somewhere.
“Only a few decades ago,” I continued, “women were not allowed to vote in many societies. Why? Because society didn’t think they were capable of making decisions. Now girls, do you believe boys are smarter than you simply because you’re a girl?”
Again, the answer was a big NO. Even the boys disagreed with this logic.
“How about disabled people? Do you think they’re useless to society and should be eradicated?”
By now, my students were looking at me like I had lost my damn mind. Good. They were thinking.
“Well,” I said, “this was exactly the mindset of one Adolf Hitler. Not only did he kill millions of Jewish people, but he also killed people with disabilities…” After a pause, I added, “…and gay people too.”
You could hear a pin drop in the room.
“Throughout history, people have been treated as inferior because they’re different. The sad thing is that these things are still happening today.”
I didn’t go any further. But from the look on their faces, it was obvious I had gotten my point across.