In our August issue, we reported a workshop at Fistgate where a teacher in the middle school in Acushnet used the holocaust to introduce homosexuality into the tolerance unit at her school. As a result of that story, the subject of homosexuality has been removed from the tolerance unit at her school. However, this story comes from the City of Cambridge, probably the most radical city in the state, and no changes are expected to take place there.

By Ed Oliver
October 2000

At a Fistgate workshop named "Teachers Coming Out," a Cambridge teacher in a middle school told how she used a holocaust class to set the stage for an announcement to her 12- to 14-year-old students that she was a lesbian.

But she has upset at least one Jewish person with her announcement. Brian Camenker, who is president of the Parents Rights Coalition, tells Massachusetts News: 

"As a Jew who had extensive family in Eastern Europe before WWII, I find the use of the Holocaust to promote homosexuality themes to children to be extremely offensive and outrageous.

"Moreover, the teacher's use of sophisticated propaganda techniques on middle school children is offensive to all parents. She is using fear and emotion to turn their minds against the values they are taught at home. Unfortunately, it has become routine that parents are not told of this. These horrible tactics of deceit are used by schools to promote homosexuality across Massachusetts."

The teacher, Susan McCray from Somerville, teaches a humanities class at Graham and Parks School in Cambridge. 

Shocking the Students
In a 14-page handout given to workshop participants titled, "Looking Inside the Desks: One Teacher's Coming Out Story," McCray demonstrated that she put a lot of thought into preparing for her big "coming out" day. She detailed the methodical steps she used to steer discussion of the horror of the holocaust into a discussion of her personal sexual proclivities. 

She began by shocking her students.

"I showed the students a very disturbing film of the Nazi death camps," she wrote. "I had shown the film because I wanted the tone of the discussion to be serious and I wanted the lesson around taking action to be real." 

McCray said they discussed the images they saw in the film on the following day and read accounts about those who resisted or were brave enough to help others. 

The teacher then steered the conversation by asking students to write about a time in their own lives when they had taken a stand on something. They sat on a rug in a circle and read their stories to one another. Then McCray, steering the conversation further, passed out a short article about "a young gay boy's speech advocating the inclusion of homosexuality in our state's anti-discrimination law." She told her students that the boy took the brave political step even though he risked rejection. 

McCray then asked the children, "When do you take a stand on something?" The easily led children obligingly answered, "When it feels right" and "When it is in your heart."

McCray wrote: "I knew this was my cue. Little did the students know that they had been led down a nicely laid out path. Of course, I had built it not knowing what would happen along the way. I said, 'Well, there is something in my heart right now. It is something about myself that I want to tell you. And, to be honest, having this conversation feels like an act of courage. I have been thinking long and hard about this, and have decided this is important.' Then I told them I am gay."

McCray Responds
Massachusetts News asked McCray what she meant when she said she led her students down a "nicely laid out path" in her holocaust class. McCray's frank response confirms that she deliberately manipulated a lesson about the suffering of Jews into a personal "coming out" platform. 

"I'm referring to that particular lesson plan," she answered. "I think that teachers often do that. I designed a lesson plan that I hoped would lead to being able to really have a good conversation about who I am and about my coming out. So it was really about that very particular lesson that day. What I was trying to do was create an atmosphere in the room where kids would be open to this conversation and ready to learn from it, rather than just making an announcement out of nowhere which could potentially upset them."

McCray wrote about the discussion she had afterward with the students. "Next came an eager question from Daniel: 'Have you told our parents?' I explained that I had not, that this had been about my relationship with them." 

Massachusetts News asked McCray if she said anything to the principal first before she "came out" to the children. She said she had and her principal was very supportive. But her assistant principal, who is no longer there, was opposed. McCray said it was important to get backing ahead of time from the administration so they didn't hear it first from kids and parents.

Massachusetts News asked McCray if she also went to the parents first before discussing her homosexual tendencies with their children. "No, no. I felt as though it was really important for me to be up front, open and honest with the people I work with. Then after that, I suppose I didn't want to feel as though I had to get people's permission. I wanted people to understand me but I didn't want to ask their permission and going to parents first felt like that."

Afterwards, there were teachers who questioned why she did not go to the whole staff, McCray said, but that would have also felt like she was asking permission.

McCray told Massachusetts News that there was a predominately positive response from parents, even though she doesn't think all the parents know because she did not make a formal announcement. She admitted there was some negative reaction from parents. "The parents questioned the appropriateness of my coming out. They are respectful of who I am, but do not want their child exposed to it," she said, adding that she is fortunate to be working in a very supportive environment. 

"It was definitely liberating," McCray said.

Principal Responds
Massachusetts News asked the principal of Graham and Parks School, Leonard Solo, if he supported McCray's coming out to her students. He said he did and even helped her beforehand to think of ways to appropriately get to the point where she could tell her students she was gay. He said he did not help her with the particular lesson she designed, however.

Solo said McCray's coming out was put on the agenda at their regular parents' meeting. Asked if that was before or after McCray came out, he said he believes it was prior. When informed that McCray told Massachusetts News parents were not consulted beforehand, he said he had trouble remembering. If she said that, then it is the way it happened. Solo said there was not much objection voiced at the meeting about her coming out.

Asked if parents should have been notified beforehand, Solo, after a pause, said, "Possibly. It sort of depends." Solo then defended McCray's coming out as relevant to the curriculum since middle schoolers also study themes such as civil rights during their two years. "It fit perfectly into the framework," he said.

Massachusetts News read to Solo the passage where McCray said she led her students down a nicely laid out path and asked him if that did not seem manipulative. Solo said he does not think she meant it that way. He said if he were teaching a character in a novel, he would try to have a series of questions that led to some insight or some point. "That is what she is talking about there," said Solo, adding that he and her colleagues helped her understand beforehand she had to "carefully plan" how she would get to the point of coming out rather than springing it on the kids.

Massachusetts News asked where there is a connection between Nazi death camps and telling students about her personal sex life. Solo said she was bringing her own life and perspective into the classroom to make sense out of the lesson, which contradicted his earlier statement that she was using the lessons, on his advice, to come out to her students. 

Asked if there is a policy on what can be discussed in the classroom if children ask questions that arise from the knowledge that McCray is a homosexual, Solo said there are policies governing some things and no policies for other things in the district.

"We are an inclusive school system," said Principal Solo. "We try to include and support a whole variety of people. That means, in some instances we support various kinds of families and orientations." Apparently trying to equate homosexuality with ethnicity, Solo said there are parent liaisons to the Portuguese and Haitian community, "and we have a system-wide parent coordinator to the gay and lesbian community."

"The directive from the central office is we need to make sure we are inclusive of every individual kind of person and/or group within the system, and we need to be pro-active in that inclusiveness," Solo emphasized.

Massachusetts News asked Solo to clarify if there are any limits on what can be discussed about sex in the classroom. "Not that I'm aware of in any explicit kind of way. No," he answered.

So McCray is free to discuss her lifestyle? "Yes, she is," Solo answered. "From my perspective and my understanding of the rules, yes. That's why I okayed that."

McCray presented the Fistgate workshop along with Patricia Nicolari, who is a Health and Phys.Ed teacher at Ansonia High School in Connecticut.