4/16/08 Class

In class last week, Boy Meets Boy brought up a large spark of discussion between classmates. Many students felt that this book should not be used in the schools. Others felt that the book brought up many good points which need to be addressed in order for a change to happen in our society. I agree with both of these points of view. Before reading Levithan’s interview online (which I talked about in my previous blog) I was confused on his intentions with the book. If younger children were to read this, they might have a misconception about how judgmental their peers are. In Boy Meets Boy, all the students are extremely accepting. Sadly this only takes place within an ideal world. Many younger children who are debating coming out and then read this novel, might believe that his life will be just like Paul’s. However, after reading Leviathan’s intention (which was also used as a quote in class) I understand that this is how he hopes the world will be in the future. If I was to use this book in the classroom, I would explain this when I introduced the classroom to the novel.
My group chose to read the book And Tango Makes Three. I read this book previously in TE 348 and loved it. I thought that this was a great story… especially after I found out it was true! This story deals with many of the diversity issues in GLBTQ. The whole questionable debate on nature vs. nurture plays a large role when dealing with this text. If I was teaching elementary students and was to introduce GLBTQ this would be a great book to use.