Race Class Gender 1 Dialogue: Does a Teacher (Educational Researcher, Counselor or Other Professional)’s Race, Gender, Class, Ethnicity and Ideology Belong in the Classroom?

This dialogue was inspired by an articled published in the Winter 2001/2002 issue of the newspaper Rethinking Schools. In the article “She’s For Real, ” Tracy Wagner explained her decision to discuss that she was a lesbian with students in an eighth grade class while she was a student teacher. As part of a lesson on stereotyping, Wagner said to students, “Really? This is what gay and lesbian people look like? Because I’m gay, and I don’t look like this.” Later in the article, Wagner reflects that “(t)hinking back, I have to admit that I told the students about my sexual orientation for my own emotional well being, to live up to my beliefs of what it meant to be a teacher. ” She also argues “that this disclosure resonated profoundly in our classroom. I could feel it in small ways, each and every day- the way students more eagerly shared their poetry; the way they chose the more private of two journal entries to read. ” The full text of the article is available at www.rethinkingschools.org/Archives/16_02/real162.htm. Our dialogue uses Wagner’s decision to divulge her sexual orientation as a starting point to discuss whether teachers and other professionals should allow their personal lives, ideas and concerns to enter their classrooms, professional practice and research. In their book, We Make the Road by Walking (1990), Myles Horton and Paulo Freire discuss th