This past week I attended a Multicultural and Diversity
Conference at the University of North Texas.
I was fortunate enough to be able to escort twenty students from my
leadership class. The keynote speaker
talked about something very similar to the article we read this week by
Penelope Eckert from her ethnographic study, Jocks and Burnouts: Social
Categories and Identity in the High School (1989). The keynote speaker’s name was Dan Savage. Mr. Savage is an American author who started
a project for LGBT youth suicide prevention.
He is extremely humorous and a little edgy. I was a little nervous about letting my
younger students listen, and even more nervous when most of them choose to
attend his “students only” break-out session.
During the opening session he spoke about things like bullying, choosing
your friends, and navigating a high school.
He addressed some of the issues I have begun to realize my students have
become more accustomed to, like the labeling addressed in the Eckert (1989)
chapter, and other issues like the role parents and teachers play with more diverse
students.
In class the other night, I honestly can’t remember which
class; someone said that sometimes students that are different are alienated by
parents and teachers. I guess it had occurred
to me that this happened, but I never really thought about how often until the
conference and reading this article. What
Savage told us that morning is that it is typically the parents of LGBT that
make them feel most outside and separate.
School is where they feel they have a community, and all the students
who feel a lack of community are able to form something like a family. He went on to point out that today’s students
are more accepting of differences and it’s often the parents and teachers that
have a harder time accepting someone they perceive as different.
Sometimes these students need to form a community in order
to be more successful. If they don’t
have that opportunity, they won’t have an opportunity to succeed in
school. I think some of this shows up in
the chart on page 35 of the Eckert article if you make some pretty serious
leaps. I think you have to assume that
these students are missing something and sometimes they are attempting to fill this
void with social interaction. Eckert
takes a great deal of time to discuss the daily routines of these “Jocks” and “Burnouts,”
but I’m not sure if these names and labels are necessary. Sure, kids have cliques at school- always
have, always will. They have a
purpose. But do they have a greater
purpose?
Here’s where I’m wondering if there is a correlation: When I read the article by Eckert I couldn’t
help but think these were simply names placed on any group of students she
describes as those groups of students she feels are “accepting of the school
and its institutions” versus those who are “this generations most frightening
form of rebellion, and as such they are taken as a symbol by and for the school’s
alienated category” (Eckert, 1989). I can’t help but wonder if the names she gave
the two groups are arbitrary and the comments Savage made are more relevant
today than ever. There will always be
students that rebel against school. This
article seems to be more about that than the actual students. I’m more concerned with a way to address the
needs of these students that are left out, and I want to know who is best
suited for this task. As I teacher I should
always be aware of my students needs and I want to continue to work on helping
them do this to the best of my ability.
I know the students I took to the conference felt everything
they heard was true and they do not feel isolated by their peers. They do not feel like they are called names
or stereotyped by the students they are surrounded by. They do however feel different and they are
very comfortable with this. Some of the
language used to express how different they were and to point this out made me
feel very uncomfortable.
Eckert, P. (1989). Jocks and burnouts:
social categories and identity in the high school. In J. Noel (Ed.),Multicultural Education (pp. 34-38). Sacramento:
McGraw-Hill/Dushkin.
