Perhaps it is just me, but somehow I think those tasked with the responsibility of education should be better informed, educated if you will, about various events and ideas.

I know teachers are just people like everyone else, subject to the same foibles as all of us. However, I find it disturbing when teachers, whose mandate is to instruct youth in how to utilize critical thought processes - to think about issues - get it wrong.

Take, for instance, the recent actions of students at Chestermere Lake Middle School. A few aware students learned about the May 17th National Day Against Homophobia (NDAH), organized each year by the Montreal-based Fondation Émergence, and decided to get involved in the campaign. The students did up some t-shirts with “Homophobia Is So Gay” with “gay” stroked out and “Lame” written above it.

In the lexicon of youth, “gay” is often used as a synonym for “lame” or something that is weird, nerdy, or unacceptable; it really has nothing to do anymore with sexuality or sexual orientation, although of course that is exactly where it originated.

I think the students’ picking up on that was quite clever. They clearly had managed to do some analytical thinking, synthesized the evolution of the term, and created a catchy slogan which reinforced the message NDAH is attempting to disseminate.

However, the administration and staff at Chestermere Lake Middle School felt the t-shirts were “inappropriate” and “offensive” and ordered students wearing them to go home and change or cover up the offending items of clothing. It would appear they were reacting to having the word “gay” emblazoned on t-shirts, or perhaps to having “gay” stroked out and “lame” written above it. Surely they couldn’t have been reacting to the actual message, that homophobia - like sexism, racism and bullying - is a social evil that needs to be addressed?

Despite recent legal and social advances made by the gay, lesbian and bisexual communities, homophobia, along with its nasty cousin, heterosexism, is still a reality.

Walk by a schoolyard and it’s not unusual to hear even elementary students and certainly high school students, toss around “gay,” “homo,” “lezzie,” “fag” and other epithets freely. Kids perceived as being gay or lesbian, to say nothing of any number of gender-nonconforming kids who may or may not be trans, are still routinely bullied and harassed, sometimes to the point of suicide.

While teachers will often step in when racial epithets are tossed out, too many remain silent when sexual orientation-targeted epithets are uttered.

I suspect it is not so much the individual teacher’s antipathy towards homosexuals that is the issue, although that could be part of it. I suspect there is a fear that if a teacher is seen as being queer-supportive in any way there will be repercussions from “concerned parents.” The term is often code for conservative/rightwing elements, which is a shame as it is important that parents are concerned about their kids, the curriculum, and what is going on at school.

At any rate, the powers that be at Chestermere Lake Middle School totally did NOT get what the message was or what NDAH is all about, which of course reinforces the need for campaigns like NDAH.

Not only did they not “get it,” but by not getting it they missed out on a golden opportunity to have what is known as a “teaching moment.”

One teacher was quoted in a recent Calgary Herald article that one of the concerns was over having an elementary student ask what homophobia meant. This is a concern? How, exactly? Seems to me if a six-year old or seven-year old asks what homophobia means, it’s an opportunity to tell them. Yes, yes, of course in age-specific terms....

The real concern here, I would venture to suggest, was not so much having to explain what homophobia means but what homosexuality means. The social conservative types get their knickers in a real twist when that particular subject comes up. Oh, you can’t tell a six- or seven-year old about that! “You know, those people and...well...what they do with each other...oh no....” It is just plain silly. Of course, you don’t need to go into detail about sexual behaviours when talking to a Grade One or Grade Two child. Good grief, the thought of a man putting his weenie into a woman’s hooey grosses them out, heaven knows what hearing about oral and anal sex is going to do.

Mind you, if it’s approached in a sensible, non-inflammatory and calm manner during the usual birds-and-the-bees talk, I personally see nothing wrong with it, but most parents are ill-equipped to do so. And so prejudicial attitudes about homosexuals and homosexuality persist because nobody is talking about it in a matter-of-fact, for-some-folks-this-is-perfectly-normal manner. Instead people goes into paroxysms about how some sort of Gay Agenda is being foisted on innocent children, and how treating homosexual acts as normal will encourage kids to try them (or actually turn them gay), or how talking about homosexuality to kids normalizes it and that’s a bad thing, apparently.

What can be explained to this supposedly potentially traumatized elementary school kid is that homophobia is not very nice. It’s like when Billy bullies you, or calls you names, but it is a very special type of bullying, used against gay people. But what’s gay mean, Mommy/Daddy? Oh lord....

This is the question parents and teachers dread. I have no idea why. Well, actually, I do. Again, they have it in their heads for some strange reason that in order to explain to a young child what “gay,” “lesbian,” or “homosexual” (or “bisexual” for that matter) means, it is somehow necessary to go into detail about the sex. It isn’t necessary to go into detail about the sex until the child is old enough to understand what sex is and means. Until then, something along the lines of “Well...you know how Mommy and Daddy love each other? Some people feel that way about another boy or another girl...”. Most kids will get it, absorb it, and move on.

The kids at Chestermere Lake Middle School certainly did, and more power to them. Too bad the adults charged with guiding them to a greater understanding of the world didn’t. What the kids at the school did learn, however, was that homophobia is a real presence, even in their own lives and even at Chestermere Lake Middle School.

Make no mistake, the reaction of the administration, teachers and parents upset with the message on the t-shirts was a textbook homophobic reaction and one the students will not likely forget.