Exploring Parrotfish And Luna

By Author: Arsenalo
Total Articles: 116

Our book group met each Wednesday for three consecutive weeks in a small conference room on our campus. Before each meeting, participants were asked to read and reflect on that week's reading and encouraged to write down their impressions of the week's text(s). We acted as facilitators and participant observers in each session. In an effort to avoid pointing out what we thought was important from the text, we began each session by asking participants, "So, what did you think about the reading?" We would eventually lead into a series of discussion questions Cartier Pasha Replica that we wrote or derived from online discussion guides. These questions were distributed to the group members at the beginning of each session. They were not meant to limit discussion but to provide a way to continue the conversation. We ended each session with a brief preview of the next reading.

During our first session, to "create a safe environment and embrace a culture of trust" (Dunne and Goode 6) we all introduced ourselves and then collaboratively set ground rules for our discussion. These included being respectful of others' opinions and views; feeling comfortable to challenge each others' and one's own assumptions; and referring to the text to ground our discussion. We all agreed that these rules were open to modification as the group saw fit.

After discussing several selections in the packet, the conversation turned to self-examination, an important educational objective when reading LBLNs (Phillion and He). Participants engaged in this process by sharing individual experiences related to the information found in the packet. Four of us have had students who came out to us as gay or lesbian several years after they left our classrooms. While none of us knew of any students we had taught who transgender were, one participant shared a prior experience dealing with gender variance. She told a story about her niece who encountered family resistance to her masculine gender presentation and her eventual coming out as a lesbian. Her niece's experience of lacking familial and Tag Heuer Replica Watches social support contributed to her decision to drop out of high school. When we learned that two of our members were aware of transgender students at their schools, we all expressed that at some point we felt unsure about how to handle these issues when they emerged in our classrooms. Finally, participants expressed enthusiasm and appreciation for having a space to share their professional and personal experiences.