As many have pointed out before me, using ideology in the classroom does not come easy.
While I was most excited to begin teaching this sequence of readings, my experience has been turbulent at best. I have had no issues with students not contributing to the discussion but rather the content of the contributions has left me disturbed and frankly, afraid. One of my classes, on reading the Epstein essay, came up with a solution to the HIV/AIDS crisis: tattoo people who have HIV so when someone has sex with them, they can see that they have the disease and not have sex with the infected person. The idea came from one person and was readily accepted by the class as a whole and quite enthusiastically, I might add. They are convinced that people with the disease will ALWAYS lie about it and NOT use protection. I found myself in an extremely tricky position; I wanted to scream and shout and yell at my students but I wanted them to listen to the problems that surround this ‘solution’. Four students emailed me later that week that they don’t agree with that solution but that is is still 18/22 students who think that tattooing is a viable option to ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
The same set of students, on reading Savage and Vaid, said that bullying is grossly exaggerated and they have never seen anything like the sort so it probably doesn’t exist anymore.
I can identify this as a lack of empathy in my students perhaps, but this battle of different ideologies is something I have not been able to fight. I have, to the best of my abilities, tried to get my students to see the gaping holes in their perspective; videos, and discussions about certain tattooing events of the past have not scratched the surface at all. Just earlier today, I had a student who said he/she supports LGBTQA people but if their child identified as LGBTQA, he/she would try their best to get them therapy as it is not ‘right’.
With this set of readings I am finding it extremely difficult to be detached from the reading material and the discussions that follow. The students don’t raise their voices or get angry; they just say things simply and that freaks me out.
I cannot figure out how to manage this set of opposing ideologies in the class; me versus them.