"Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us"

Linda Christensen
"Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us
Reflection

I teach a Sunday School class at my church called Rite-13 (my students range in age from 12-14). It's part of a larger program called Journey to Adulthood. It's really a great formation piece for young people. This morning we had an open discussion day - a time when the young people can talk about anything and everything that's on their minds. I don't remember how it came up, but one of the students (14 year-old male) made a comment about a "really gay kid" at his school. He continued to go on and talk about how all gay kids (mean young gay men) wear skinny jeans. He concluded he comments by saying, "I'm ok with gay people as long as they don't hit on me." As you can imagine, some of the other students in class were not too happy with his comments. After settling them down, I asked the young man to say more about what he was feeling - explain it a bit. The can of worms that I opened! While things got a little crazy, some really great conversation started to happen. The students started to talk about stereotypes (at first without realizing it). When one student asked the young man who started the conversation where he got that idea about gay people he said, "I don't know." When pressed further he responded, "I see that stuff in movies and TV." He paused for a moment and thought about what he had just said. It was a really powerful moment to watch him work out what that means in his head. Wonderfully enough the sermon helped tie a lot of what we had talked about in class together. After the service, the young man came up to me. He looked really upset. He told me he couldn't believe what he had thought, "I never thought about what I thought before" he told me.

As I read the Christensen piece, I couldn't help but think of him when reading a sections of Justine's dialogue journal: "It's painful to deal with. The idea of not being completely responsible for how I feel about things today." Justine came to the same conclusion as my student did today, just with different words.

My class decided that their homework would be to look for stereotypes at school this week, and think about how they think about their classmates. I had no idea what I was going to do with that for next Sunday. I think I might try some of Christensen's ideas of turning writing into action. Part of the program these young people are in is about becoming adults and taking active roles in society. After reading this article, I couldn't think of better way for them to start taking action.