My students always complain that I am too strict, but I do it for them. I try to pay atten-
tion to everything that is going on in the room so I can help students when they need it and
stop problems before they begin. I was always able to do better in school when I had a strict
teacher. I needed a well-structured classroom, and I try to provide one for my students.
I also try to show students that I care about them. I have a special relationship with my
homeroom class so that students know they always have a place to go. I make sure that my
room really is their home.
I Needed to Be Accepted; I Needed to Feel Safe
By J. B. Barton
J. B. Barton is a pseudonym. The author of this essay is a young European American woman who
“grew up in a suburban community where it was very important to fit in and not be different from
everyone else.” She discusses grappling with her sexual identity, her realization that she is gay,
and the impact of her experience and understanding on her teaching. When she wrote this, she
was 23 years old and had just completed her first year teaching English in a suburban middle
school. She decided to use a pseudonym because of homophobia in our society and concern that it
would prevent her from earning tenure.—Alan Singer
I grew up in a suburban community where it was very important to fit in and not be different
from everyone else. My family moved there when I was a little girl, just before I started
school. I had a tight-knit group of about 10 friends who stayed together until we finished high
school. I am now 23 years old and just completed my first year of teaching English. I work in
a community not far from where I lived and went to school.
In high school, I was a cheerleader and played on the girl’s softball team. I began to feel
different from other people when my friends became deeply involved in emotional and phys-
ical relationships with a group of boys from the football team. I did not want to be different
and experimented with dating, but nothing seemed to happen.
I always felt close to women and emulated female teachers and friends. While in high
school, I developed “idols” such as Ellen DeGeneres, Martina Navratilova, and Melissa
Etheridge, who appealed to me and I looked up to them. I am not sure why this happened,
because I did not consciously know they were gay. My friends would tease me and dismiss
them as lesbians, but I refused to believe it. In my personal journal, I wrote about how I felt
different from everyone in my crowd, and the debate over whether these women were gay,
but I never addressed my own sexuality.
I often think about what it would have been like if I was aware of my “otherness” and
came out about my sexuality in high school. I do not think my friends could have handled it
and there would have been no place in our school for me to go and talk with anyone. The
cheerleading team was very close and in our routines we had to have physical contact dur-
ing the lifts. I am sure it would have made my teammates uncomfortable.
It is very hard and lonely to be different in a small, closed community where everybody
knows everyone else. Students used “gay,” “dyke,” and “fag” to put people down. There were
rumors that one of the coaches of the softball team was a lesbian and students gossiped
about her. I needed to be accepted, I needed to feel safe. I did not want to be labeled or the
subject of gossip.
Homosexuality was and is a taboo subject, rarely discussed in school. During my senior
year, I remember that a gay man spoke to our government class about discrimination and in-
tolerance. My mother found a response journal I wrote about the lesson where my com-
SUPPORT 239