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Posts posted by Paul Patrick
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We know that LGBT people attend our schools. We know that LGBT students have a particularly difficult time - with attempted and successful suicides at five times the national avarage according to the Samaritans. Yet we continue to collude with the censorship of LGBT people and their lives from the Curriculum. English is ideally placed to restore a proper balance. Besides the great playwrights, novelists and poets who have been LGBT and/or have written about LGBT people and issues. English, with Drama, is the one area where to discuss and debate, to dramatise and empathise is a requirement of that curriculum. Some topics are easy and obvious - gender and sexuality in a study of a group of Shakespeare's sonnets- see http://www.lgbthistorymonth.org.uk/schools...suggestions.htm - is an excellent Pre 1914 Poetry option at KS 4 - others may take a little thought. However it is vital that the English curriculum recognises that in each class there will be some students who are LGBT, some who have LGBT friends and family, some who are considered by others to be LGBT and some who are questioning. Any relevant curriculum must reflect their realities and take into account their needs. English, with Drama, is ideally placed to do that.
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I'm Paul Patrick, an openly gay teacher since 1974 when I became the first teacher in Britain to come out to students and retain their job. Also in 1974 I co-founded the Gay Teachers' Group, now Schools OUT - www.schools-out.org.uk - of which I am currently Co-Chair. I am also Co-Chair of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Trans History Month UK Steering Group - www.lgbthistorymonth.org.uk. I teach English & Theatre Studies. I also work in PHSE, particularly sexuality education. I have been published by the Open University, Tretham Books and Multilingual Matters and interviewed in the Guardian, Times Ed, The Teacher, Gay news, The Observer and many others. I am an active Trades Unionist - currently being President of Rossendale NUT, Equal Opportunities Officer for Lancashire NUT & a member of NUT LGBT Working Party. As well as teaching, I am a writer, trainer, speaker and broadcaster. I have been a foster parent and I remain a socialist in difficult times!
Lesbian, Gay Bisexual & Transgender Issues in the English Curriculum
in English:Curriculum Issues
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