Just prior to the last Day of Silence, two teachers at Port Washington High School (Wisconsin) distributed a questionnaire meant to give students an inkling of what a gay person might go through in life. The questionnaire, developed by the late Martin Rochlin was distributed to some 400 students (out of 930) and was used in a class discussion period. The 10 questions were some common things a gay person might be asked, but with the roles reversed, such as “What do you think caused your heterosexuality” and “Could it be that your heterosexuality is just a phase”. They weren’t meant to be literally answered as in a survey, but to spur discussion within the assembled classes.
Predictably, some of the parents were not amused and are pushing for disciplinary action against the two teachers involved. The principal of the school claimed he had no knowledge of the questionnaire and therefore had not given his approval (though the assistant principal was reportedly aware of the content). One teacher has been put on paid administrative leave while the other is still teaching classes.
When I first heard about this on the news this morning, it was presented much differently (print example). The most often quoted question was “If you have never slept with someone of you own gender, then how do you know you wouldn’t prefer it?” Nothing was said about the pretense of the exercise and so of course one was left thinking this was some twisted version of “don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it”. While if anything I am conservative about presenting sexual content to young children via curricula, when put in context this seemed to me a reasonable, clever way to open up the discussion to high school age youth. The Day of Silence and Day of Truth are already bringing the subject to the forefront, why not use the opportunity wisely?
No matter what one’s opinion of the wisdom of all this may be, the distorted way it is being represented is not a good lesson to be teaching.
So…Questions that we get asked every other day are NOT appropriate when turned on (insecure) heterosexuals?That alone says a great deal.
Good post, David. I’d heard about the controversy in passing, but not the context. It is good to hear the truth about this one.
As a parody of heterosexism among adults who know what heterosexism is, the questionnaire is humorous.
But as an educational tool, this questionnaire and others like it are counterproductive — they mislead audiences that aren’t in on the joke. Among certain audiences, the questionnaire reinforces the very stereotypes that it strives to dispel. I’m not sure whether the teachers were just being sloppy and hasty in gathering materials for lesson preparation, or whether they were doing as Classical Values suggests — bashing innocent students with an anti-heterosexual guilt trip.
Often, throughout modern education, teachers committed to helping their students understand those different from them have tried all sorts of experiements, or at least informed their students of previous experiments.
I’ve brought up the “doll test” by Kenneth Bancroft Clark, that revealed that black children, confronted with and conditioned to believe in negative aspects of their identity preferred white dolls over black ones and considered them ‘good’, ‘better’ or ‘prettier’ than the black dolls.
A lesson that ex gays and their supporters would be well to learn.
Or the ‘paper clips’ drive to help students learn what the loss of six million Jews might look like if they collected 6 million paper clips and had to count them all.
Or, I forget the specific teacher who separated her blue eyed students from the brown eyed, had the blue eyed children be harassed, derided and segregated for negative reasons from the brown eyed children.
It was a way for the blue eyed children to feel something of what people of color do.
Instead of a questionnaire, a more powerful statement (since there is no physical mark to identify gay kids) would be to randomly assign gay identity and have the other kids treat them typically as either they or their classmate feel free to treat gay people.
Heterosexuals have NO idea about the privilege their orientation gives them.
They don’t have to think about what their conversations, family integration or free access and protections mean.
People are suspicious of difference, not how they are actually treated by someone they think is gay.
I wonder if the kids who were tagged as gay, if they could appreciate how difficult it is not not reveal your background.
I brought up as much, the ‘straight privilege’ up to David Limbaugh. He doesn’t seem to get the import of straight imposition on GAY people.
He’s answered me before. I’m waiting.
The fact remains that most straight people haven’t been so bothered to experiment on what would make a straight person try to be gay. What would it do to their lives, physical and mental well being, family relationships?
The questionnaire was too simplistic for a complex issue.
I think some real risks to feeling, just FEELING, inadequate, threatened, alone and angry-should be done.
Straight people are conceited precisely because there are NO risks to their lives whatsoever.
And dont really care about the risks to gay kids because in the back of their minds, it’s ‘deserved’.
This is the message ex gays loudly send out.
Which is dangerous on it’s face-it’s a tacit way of saying, conform to our Biblical standards, or proceed at risks we’ll set up for you or support if it comes your way.
Who among us could develop an experiment that would really put straight people on the ropes.
The objections to this tepid questionnaire just shows the basic Machiavellian way that straight people want to maintain the fiction that they are fairly and squarely the most competent custodians to dictate the terms of sexual orientations, no matter whose it is.
Who could we work with to develop a REAL experiment that would work, especially up against the inherent illogic in religious dogma over reality and cooperative diversity?
The “guilt” thing seems a stretch. My class got this questionaire handed out when I was in high school, and I don’t recall anyone seeming to feel guilty about it. Our teacher may have just done a better job of explaining the point of it, but it seems to me most reasonable people who see the actual questionaire will get the point and the humor. If people happen to experience guilt, well, it’s generally because somewhere inside they have something they feel guilty about. You can’t just manufacture guilt out of thin air.
“Or, I forget the specific teacher who separated her blue eyed students from the brown eyed, had the blue eyed children be harassed, derided and segregated for negative reasons from the brown eyed children.
It was a way for the blue eyed children to feel something of what people of color do.
Instead of a questionnaire, a more powerful statement (since there is no physical mark to identify gay kids) would be to randomly assign gay identity and have the other kids treat them typically as either they or their classmate feel free to treat gay people.”
Having students actually take part in simulated harrassment would be going waaaay too far. Google sociology prison experiment. We don’t need to be inflicting actual emotional distress to make the point. The point of educating about this stuff is so that people DON’T experience it, because it’s harmful.
I think the questionnaire could be a good learning tool if used correctly – and I’m not sure why we think that it has to be perceived as humorous.
I think that if you told the students that these are the type of questions that gay people get asked all the time and to read through them and see how these questions make them feel, that could be eye-opening to those students who are not anti-gay but are simply ignorant that they are being offensive. This could easily lead to a discussion about heterosexism.
Perhaps there are better tools but I think students would probably respond better to this than to a dry lecture.
Mike A. said;
But as an educational tool, this questionnaire and others like it are counterproductive — they mislead audiences that aren’t in on the joke.
I suppose by itself the questionnaire could be interpreted in many different ways by those who read it. The Port Washington version was derived from the one you referenced by using the less intense questions (10 instead of 20). The determining factor would be how the teachers guided the discussion. Perhaps it would have been better if the questions were discussed in class only without giving out the questionnaire at all, but I still see this as at least having the potential to spur a useful and enlightening discussion, especially on a day set aside by many for understanding gay issues.
David Roberts
“While if anything I am conservative about presenting sexual content to young children via curricula, when put in context this seemed to me a reasonable, clever way to open up the discussion to high school age youth.”
Well, bully for you. Let’s keep our kids in the dark about the second strongest drive in Human Nature after self-preservation. When those raging hormones are released around the age of 12, an age at which many use to marry, let’s just pretend that all that turbulence ought to be suppressed until our kids come of age. Oh, that’s what puberty is! Coming of age.
Nevermind the female teen who fellates a boy with no reciprocity. Nevermind the teens who get each other pregnant. Nevermind STDs. Yes, let’s keep them in the dark, that way Satan won’t expose them to the Big Sin: sex. Oh, and when they marry (assuming of course that they’re hetero), let’s make sure the woman knows her subordination to her husband. She’s ahead of the cattle (or BMW, now), but still fundamentally chattel. Assuming that men marry women to avoid hell (per Paul). And as far as the queer goes, well let’s not talk about it either, less we plant ideas into kids’ heads and they act on it.
The Enlightenment occurred two centuries ago. If you don’t know, blame the same authorities who won’t let you know about s-e-x.