Boy Trouble

This is the title of a thought provoking post at tigerish waters. It describes (anonymously) an instance of homophobic bullying in a school some years ago.

It is a very useful post, I think, for the following reasons:

1. My own experience indicates that, though the vast majority of colleagues in schools are professional and lawful in the way they behave, there are nevertheless still one or two whose behaviour does need to be challenged. This is probably true of other professional environments, too. I sometimes wonder if people like this, and like the colleagues described in the post, become so used to their way of behaving that they do not recognise just how outrageous it is.

2. I think the post indicates a pastoral strategy - "Tell them that they were precious, tell them that promiscuity was wrong and to be wary of flattery. At the same time I’d make it perfectly clear that I personally disapproved of what they were doing but that that didn't stop me supporting them as a teacher" - that can be readily adapted to a number of different situations a teacher might encounter.

3. Teachers, and others with a pastoral care for young people, need to think ahead about how they will respond to difficult situations, and this post gives a positive help to doing that. You cannot predict exactly what you will meet ... but at least if you have thought about some possible scenarios you will have a much better chance of taking the right, supportive yet honest approach with a pupil. This is not just a question for individual teachers, but for Head Teachers and senior managers in schools too.

4. The remarks made in the post about the situation in which a gay person might find themselves, and the implications of the LGBT agenda for their situation, seem very prescient to me.

And I agree entirely with Rita about the importance of Catholics taking an approach like the one that she suggests, and that it is an approach that is not contrary to Catholic teaching. We need to contribute to a change in the way in which the response of Catholicism in siutations like this is seen by those outside the Church.