You know, in retrospect, having gay marriage as a debate topic when I was the only openly gay kid in class was SUPER WEIRD. Imagine if you walked into AP Gov and your teacher pointed at you like, “I don’t think Brian should have health insurance because he sucks. Discuss?”
God I swear, debates like those were terrifying for me when I was younger, especially since I live in a pretty conservative area. Like, 10th grade, walking into your history class ready to learn what minimal shit they teach you about the civil rights movement, and the teacher opens up saying “Who here believes in gay rights?”
You timidly raise your hand, mostly without thinking, and notice you’re the only one. Everyones staring, and suddenly it feels like the walls have eyes too, the whole room is suffocating and it feels like everything is closing in on you. You successfully outed yourself as a supporter, which means you’re gay by the standards of every bigot in the class.
The teacher looks around momentarily, seeing no other hands raised, before looking back to you and saying, “Well, ____, not everybody agrees with you, and thats okay,” before going into a rant about how expecting everybody to support human rights for gay people is like communisim.
Your face is red, the class is whispering, and suddenly you feel like the floodgates behind your eyes are going to let loose. You’ve been called out in class, basically outed to people who have every chance to make your highschool years miserable, and then refused the opportunity to debate your stance because nobody else would back you up and if they did, it might as well be communism by your teachers standards. This happened to me. Every word of it, in real life.
I get kids need to sharpen their debate skills, they need to be able to argue things, but if teachers could stop using somebody elses rights as a nifty debate topic that’d be great. Its alienating, its terrifying, and its dangerous to the people it directly affects, because they could be sitting there in your class.
“I dont think people should be allowed to fart in class, discuss”
‘should people be allowed to eat in class”
“would it be better for class concentration if I left the door open during class or closed it, find one source backing up your arguement”
there three topics off the top of my head that are better to use! its not hard at all to not put kids and teens in that kinda situation!
“make a arguement for why you should have this apple that i have brought to class”
“you have a week to make a arguement for why you should be allowed to have a animal of your choice as a pet, bonus for bringing references”
“would this diet work for a person who wants to become a baseball player, convince me”
“I have brough in quak the duck and crazy larry, here are their stances on marketng strategies and promises for this fictional company, here is what they would do as company president, vote then debate why they should be company president”
the day steve irwin died this one kid stood at the school gate yelling the news over and over as everyone went home like… it was so important that he literally took on the role of town crier… and no one believed him…
like im a loser but im cooler and sexier than all of you
people on this site are out here making headcanons about the founding fathers’ sexualities and writing essay-length callout posts over shipping drama. me??? i’m just a dumbass who minds my own business and i honestly think that’s very sexy of me
Just found out that the opposite of a man-cave is a she-shed
Stop assigning gender to your special space and get with the times. It’s an Evil Lair. Both gender neutral and sounds cooler than both a cave and a shed.
On another note, as suggested by a friend on facebook, you can also use Fortress of Solitude
But I still argue that one doesn’t sound as friendly
