kinda OT :: Gay HS in NYC/ Queer Eye mention of Regis and Kelly — Page 2

I did BBYD (the play) twice. I was Josh in a production then I student directed another. The movie is SO MUCH better than the play.

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How are they going to staff the new and expanded Harvey Milk School? I work for the NYC Dep't of Education and there was nothing on my job application about my sexual orientation. There haven't been any memos sent to us about job availability there, either. How will they know a teacher is gay?

Personally, I would love to teach at the Harvey Milk School. Sequins and glitter would be a happy alternative to the doo-rags and bling bling chains that populate my classroom at the Mecca of Education!!!!

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The homophobia I have experienced in the NYC classrooms is unbelievable. Please know that we are dealing with street kids with ghetto mentalities. Any young man with feminine characteristics is in great danger. Oddly enough, lesbians have a much better time of it in our school at least. The entire girl's basketball team consists of dykes and they openly walk down the halls with their arms around each other. With that in mind, I think the gay high school is needed in New York City. I hear of suburban schools where the students have inaugurated gay and lesbian alliances and great progress is being made in the area of tolerance. That's not the case in the school where I work.

I do not talk about my sexual orientation to my students. I am there to teach English, not sex ed. However, my students have picked up on my orientation and frequently harass me by shouting "homo" when they pass my classroom and writing threatening comments on the desks in my classroom. Please remember, these kids hold Mike Tyson and Eminem in great esteem. The only movies they see are slasher films and the only literature they read is NATIVE SON (if they read at all!) Their earphones blast that hateful rap music into their skulls and poison their minds about anything with an ounce of beauty. It is no place for a sensitive gay youth to grow up in. One boy had his collar bone broken when he was tossed into a mountain of shoveled snow by the football team who did it because he was gay. Is this the way "nerds" or overweight students are treated elsewhere?

Sex is extremely obvious where I work. The boys line the hallways between classes, eyeing the girls. When they see one they like they grab their crotches in a gesture of "manhood". They also brag about the number of babies they've made, but I doubt that any one of them contributes any child support. This is NOT the minority in my school. This is the way the MAJORITY of students behave. I find it deplorable.

Gay students need special attention. It is a great goal to put them in an environment where they can talk openly about their sexuality and have teachers who are role models for them. How I would love to work in that school and face my classes as an openly gay teacher!

The situation may be different outside New York City, but working in the NYC Public Schools is like working in the Blackboard Jungle. I can't wait to retire!

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There is almost no difference between NY schools and where I taught, which is Jersey City. And yes- I still maintain what I said about obese students, and others as well.

I have to admit that when I was in elementary school, there was one very heavy girl in our class. She probably was the heaviest kid in school. When I think back to the torture she endured due to the constant teasing, laughing, songs made up about her, being left out of everything, whispering behind her back, and laughing in front of her- and I was part of it! I wish I hadn't teased her-kids are cruel- her childhood must have been the ruination of her life.

I'd also like to add that there were plenty of openly gay students in my schools. Many of them were very popular with the general school population due to their winning personalities. I think that the kids I taught were much too street wise to be phased by a gay person. Some of my eighth graders were already parents themselves, some were on drugs, saw murders, had police records, etc. They had tough lives. Making fun of gays was not on their short lists.

I respect anyone's opinions, and this is only mine, but I still say that I thought the whole idea of educating the public about homosexuality was to underline that there is no difference. I'm not so sure that segregating groups of people is a good thing.

It isn't segregation. It's for kids who are tired of being shoved into toilets and lockers for being gay. It's support for kids who are a large portion of the teen suicide rate. It's for kids who can't get a principal or teacher to protect them--whereas the obese kids and nerds aren't facing the condemnation of the religious/conservative right and can usually get help. It's just an alternative. The media has blown it way out of proportion--and are insane for thinking that it is a new school when it has been around for years. And anyone who thinks that those kids are getting a "gay education" are ridiculous.

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You did the hailing in the first post on this thread, no?

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I think you are referring to the Harvey Milk school here in the Village as the one that's been around for so long. I was under the impression we were talking about an additional school.

Segregate means to set apart from the general population so I guess it is segregation.

Regardless of the religious right, or any other group you want to mention, obese and otherwise 'different' children are made to feel just as miserable as you say some gays are by people in general. It doesn't matter who is making them miserable, they're still getting the abuse. In fact, obese people of all ages are still discriminated against. It's the last group of people whom it seems 'safe' to ridicule. There are no laws against it. Anyway, my stand is that lots of students are teased and made miserable in school for a variety of reasons. No one's creating safe havens for them-they just have to deal.

Really, broadwayguy, your almost-rabbinical "technically no" is enough to make a person LOL, as the young people claim to do on the web with alarming regularity, LOL. You started the thread, you hailed The Harvey Milk School as new, but you're acting like you are a web-based news portal that just collects the reportage of other people or organizations. In a sense, I guess, you are, since your posts are just paraphrased bits and pieces of info that you get from a wide variety of sources, reputable, irreputable, accurate and not. Why not start your own service like Excite?

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And like I said, if you are just going to rehash what other sources publish or air without doing any digging to check up on their claims, why not start your own internet portal?

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When Joyce Hunter (an aquaintance and personal hero of mine) and the Hetrick-Martin Institute established the Harvey Milk School in the mid-'80s, it was a sanctuary for young people who had already or were seriously at-risk of dropping out because of the torment they endured from other students and teachers all because of who they were.

In general, these were not young people who could "pass" or blend in with the majority culture of the schools, as many of us were able to do when we were in school. These were very often runaways (or throwaways kicked out of their homes because they were gay or lesbian) who were seriously at risk of a number of social ills all because of the reactions of the dominant culture to who they were. These risks included and were not limited to: suicide, rape, drug addiction, violence, prostitution.

If you have an idea that young people chose the Harvey Milk School because they wanted to be in a homogenous culture, you are wrong. In most instances, the Harvey Milk School was their only hope for completing school and become productive adults.

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Namo's right. The Harvey Milk School is basically a "last chance" place for these kids.
And Lulu...there is a difference between what happens with gay kids getting picked on compated to the obese kids etc. When's the last time an overweight kid got rejected by his own family and kicked out of his house because he was overweight. Many of these kids don't only have their life made into a living hell at school, but there family has also completely rejected them. I went on a job interview at Harvey Milk once and was told that a large number of students there were homeless or no longer living with their family. They were kicked out for being gay...

Rob...the school in NYC that people are talking about is not just a "school for gay people" it's a litte more complicated then that. Read the previos posts to get more of an idea. It's not like any kid that's gay can say I wanna go to the "gay school". It's more of a place where if the kids don't go here they're not going to go anywhere because they have been unable to make it in a "traditional" school.