Jamie film

[dramanodrama]

I've name changed for this due to privacy concerns but HQ would be able to confirm I'm a regular on this board and am above board.
My Dd is watching this film as part of her drama GCSE. I've not personally heard of it. Dd says it's about a boy who is gay, something to do with drag and discrimination and Section 28. We have been discussing the misogyny of drag today and Dd told me they were watching this film. I think they've only recently started it and she doesn't know much about it but deems it boring.
I'm wondering if it's appropriate and thought here was the best place to ask for considered opinions. The teacher is gay and saying he and Jamie had things in common and that when he was in high school 15 years ago (2009) there was no gay people around, not in the media etc and he felt isolated. I left school in 1992 and there were gay lads at school, Freddie Mercury was big news, gay actors, other gay musicians etc. I don't remember many gay women though 🤔 but my point is that I left school in 1992 and there was plenty of gay people around so how was there less 17 years later?

Maybe Dd has misunderstood his explanation. Maybe it's standard drama GCSE material. Maybe I'm just a bit paranoid after two Dd have been through the school and had issues due to being GC.

The school is on the surface fully stonewalled with pride flags flying and printed on the walls but there are teachers who are GC from what I've seen in my contact with them.
Is this film an issue or a non-issue? I hate drag and its misogynistic woman face and am not sure if it has a place in GCSEs.

@FrancescaContini maybe you can answer too.

I don't have a problem with anyone's sexuality, not sure how you've drawn this conclusion.

I was wondering whether it is appropriate for a teacher to be discussing their relationship/sex life with their class. I think it's a fucking red flag for overstepping boundaries. Just like it's not appropriate for a teacher to discuss their own beliefs in RE, or their own politics in a politics class, or their heterosexual marriage/ relationship.

I can't think of a reason a female teacher should be mentioning her husband, it's just not relevant.

Teachers should maintain a professional distance and not treat kids like their friends. Using personal experiences like this is not professional.

Not sure why you've made that ridiculous comment about pregnant teachers, or whys that's got to do with anything. Apart from being a massive straw man of course.

He's not discussing his sex life.

He's opening himself up to questions about it though, which is dangerous and daft as a teacher.
Just the same as a straight teacher talking about the dates they've been on or their honeymoon.

So your worry is not that he's said something inappropriate, but that he might do so in future? Do you have this worry about all teachers, or just about gay teachers?

@LovelyBitOfHam Agree with what Aston said. In addition, to borrow the word used upthread, it’s very heteronormative of you to assume the sexuality of pregnant teachers or teachers wearing wedding rings.

Nobody has made any comments about this teacher discussing the ins and outs of his sex life; a couple of us have simply commented that it’s not appropriate for a teacher to tell his pupils about his sexuality. That’s all. It’s about keeping the boundaries between professional and private life.

Er, yes they have - the post before mine references him talking about his sex life. Which he hasn't done. His boundaries are absolutely fine.

But teachers and school staff DO talk about their lives to their kids. Especially in Primary, kids are interested. I know a teacher who has said that she is supporting a certain country in the football because her partner is from there although she isn’t, and he’s the football fan. Because the kids asked who she supported. My daughter also knows her teacher is a lesbian because her wife was having a baby, just like she knew a past male teacher was married to a woman because she was having a baby. The children like their teachers and want to sign congratulations cards for them. It’s ok for kids to know adults have their own lives, professional people usually know what’s acceptable (eg I have talked about going to the pictures with my daughter, I’ve also explained to kids not all families have a mum and dad living together because I was asked where my (non existent) husband was.) I would expect any school staff who crossed those lines to be dealt with by SLT.

I’ve also worked in alternative provision with some very dysfunctional teens alongside a teacher who was a lesbian, she spoke about that with the children as a direct challenge to their ideas about gay people. She was a very experienced teacher and knew how to keep things appropriate.

Secondary age pupils will take any and every opportunity to bring something the teacher says round to their sex life.
Of course, you can just not answer it but it's disruptive anyway.
And teachers are well advised not to set themselves up for it.
"Any questions class?"
Yes sir, have you got a girlfriend and is she a 10?

"I had a great time in that park at the weekend with my girlfriend"
Oooh sir give us details, is she hot?*
"This is very interesting to me because I'm gay and it was harder when I was young"
Oooh sir give us details, have you got a boyfriend? Is he hot?
"I will come back from half term with a tan because I'm going on my honeymoon"
Ooh miss give us details, does your boyfriend have a big dick?

*Apologies that I have no idea about the current slang. This is all from what my schoolmates would have said. I am willing to believe much worse.

@ApocalipstickNow Primary is rather different. And, having a child who has been in a PRU, that is also rather different.

Yes, i worked in one for 10 years.

edit- over 10 years.

Did you used to be a scriptwriter for Grange Hill??

Grange Hill had a gay teacher, Mr Brisley, from 1992-99.

There's nothing wrong with a teacher saying that he identifies with a character in a film. These comments about his sex life and keeping his sexuality to himself, are reminiscent of stereotypes of gay men as deviants and predators.

Clearly the scriptwriters for Grange Hill went to my secondary school.

It's such a bizarre message to kids as well - the only way to avoid inappropriate sexualised comments or questions is to have absolutely zero mention of your personal life.

As someone else mentioned, what about a visibly pregnant teacher. Is she inviting questions or comments about the events that led her to become pregnant?

I remember a huge number of my teachers making some references to their lives outside the classroom - that could have been hobbies they had, references to husbands, wives or partners, references to kids etc. I don't remember any sexualised or inappropriate questions or comments (and I didn't go to an especially genteel school) - if they had arisen, I think the teacher would have dealt with them the same way as they did with any other sexualised or inappropriate comments in the classroom.

Let's just stick to the show/movie for this thread, since that's what we're discussing rather than the real Jamie.

The careers teacher is cast in a negative light for a one dimensional view of what a successful career looks like, and for insisting on rigid gendered dress code for a school event.

The mum is cast as a hero for accepting her son as he is and not seeking to change him - not just from not being gay, but from being very obviously and flamboyantly gay. She is cast as a hero for repeatedly trying to protect her son from the disappointment of an absent and disinterested dad.

The dad is cast as homophobic because that's what the character is. His objection is not just to drag performances - it is to drag in and of itself. More fundamentally, it is to having a son who does not fit his mould of what a boy should be like.

But my comment is more about those dismissing the OP's DC's teacher saying there were no positive gay role models when he was growing up. This thread - where Freddie Mercury, Little Britain, Friends etc are all cited as positive depictions of gay lives - shows why his perspective is much more valid than many posters on here.

I think it's important that all teachers, whatever their sexuality, keep appropriate boundaries. This protects both them and their pupils.

As usual, any comment made gets taken to the extreme, with suggestions that I was only referring to gay teachers (I wasn't) or sexuality (I specifically also referred to religion and politics).

Ofc teachers can mention their lives - no one expects them to be androids with no personality. But going into too much detail isn't appropriate.

I think what he's said verges on too much detail and if I was a parent on a child in his class I'd bee keeping a close eye (just like I would if he had been talking about going to a political rally at the weekend, for instance). That's what red flag means - it doesn't mean this is an awful person, sack them, it means it's a sign that they have approached a boundary which suggests they may overstep them in future.

Given how often this happens and how damaging it is for the kids, why would you not? Safeguarding isn't about demonising people, its about looking at what might go wrong and mitigating it. Its not about giving everyone a free pass until they've definitely done something awful.

But teachers often give their personal perspective on their experiences of a particular issue, precisely because by definition they are older and have experienced times that those they are teaching have not.

Let's unpick the information this teacher shared:

(1) He is gay.

(2) He is of an age where he was roughly the same age as his students in 2009.

(3) From his perspective, in 2009, there weren't many positive depictions of gay people in media.

Which of these three things do you think is a red flag for boundaries, any why?

You seem to accept it is OK for a teacher to let their students know, by implication, they are gay if (for example) they were to refer to a partner. I presume you don't object to students knowing roughly what age their teacher is.

And the third is merely a factual statement about his perspective of gay representation in 2009 with nothing to do with his personal life.

So where are the red flags specifically?

I too am failing to see where this teacher displayed red flags and I think an overly sanitised environment is not a healthy place for children and teenagers to grow up in.

That's a good question; hopefully I can clarify what I meant.

None of those three individual pieces of information are a problem, taken as stand alone data (assuming that informing the class that he is gay wasnt done in an inappropriate way).

It's the making it personal / political that is a red flag.

When I say red flag, I don't mean 'Omg he's probably a paedophile, sack him!'. Nothing he's done suggests that at all. I am talking about political influence - taken together the things he has said are skirting around the edge of being overly political in the context of teaching a class of children.

This isn't about pre emptively censuring someone for something that they might do in future. It's about keeping an eye, based on what has been said so far.

When safeguarding failures happen it's usually because no one had an overview of each little incident that would have built up a bigger picture. On its own, a teacher noting that Billy keeps coming to school in dirty clothes isn't necessity a problem, but it will be noted and recorded as it could be part of a picture of neglect. Schools have to do this with bullying too - every little incident that on its own may not sound like anything to worry about is recorded, so that if little Johnny says he is being bullied, the school has a complete picture of all Johnny's possible negative interactions and can see any patterns developing that might not be visible to an individual teacher who only has their part of the picture.

Safeguarding procedures and appropriate boundaries are something that teachers are trained to be very aware of. If this teacher isn't, I would have concerns that he hadn't been properly trained or is deliberately prioritising his politics over his training - again, a red flag.

He's a drama teacher. He could have legitimately spoken about gay reprentation in the media in the past - because that's a historical fact. He could even have qualified or with 'some gay people felt excluded by this' etc.

Linking it to his own personal experience is what makes it too much.

In the same way, if I were a teacher, it would be acceptable for me to comment on representation of women in the media. It would be inappropriate of me to qualify this with 'as a feminist, I think that xyz' or to speak about my specific experiences and how it made me feel (unless it was a specific PSHE leading in that subject and I was qualified to teach it). Not because being a feminist is inappropriate or shameful or inherently harmful to kids of course, but because it would be putting an inappropriately personal, political slant on the information I was teaching them.

I've been tending to think of this as "teacher opens himself up to classroom management issues".
But I can also see how it might be "teacher implies children should feel sorry for him/agitate on his behalf".
A teacher wouldn't tell his class "my family rejected me because I was gay".

Hang on, are you really saying that if a female teacher is teaching about, let's say, a lack of female role models in senior corporate roles when she was growing up, she should not give any perspective of what impact that might have had on her and people like her?

So she shouldn't be able to say something like 'Like many other girls, I didn't actually consider a corporate career because there were so few prominent women in senior business roles'?

I think that is a bonkers interpretation of a red flag, such as to make the term meaningless.

Or...

Teacher draws on his own experience to make the point about changes in media representation in the last fifteen years...

It's important for teenagers to have role models. So it's fair enough for kids to know that a teacher is gay.

If kids ask questions like "have you got a boyfriend/girlfriend?" it's a learning point. "Is he hot" is not usually appropriate. but I might say "you mean: "what does he look like?" and an ordinary picture of boyfriend/husband at work or doing an ordinary hobby such as playing guitar can send the conversation off in another direction. (Obviously sometimes you would say: "not appropriate, do your maths".)

I think it may be that a teenager living in a homophobic community in 2009 might have perceived there were no gay people in the media. However, a drama teacher in particular should have watched many films and series and plays that feature gay or lesbian characters in a positive light, and be able to provide a list to watch.

Being a drag queen isn't a non-traditional career, it's a gig, with a risk of sexual exploitation. If a boy told me that was his ambition I would refer him to the safeguarding team. It's literally the job of the careers teacher to help kids find a way to make a living. The film undermines careers teachers - the scene in the film is not true to life - the teacher wouldn't ask the class their plans in that disparaging way. If a kid said they wanted to go into performing arts they would be signposted to performing arts courses.