As a gay educator working at both North Shore Community Action Programs, Inc. (NSCAP) and the Peabody P.R.E.P. Center, I believe in the power of identifying and addressing gay and lesbian topics in literature. Teaching gay and lesbian topics in the ABE classroom is a serious moral and cultural undertaking that plays a role in defining the quality of both personal and community living in a pluralistic society. ABE teachers are aware of the power of literature to foster and celebrate feelings of community and to shape and understand personal experience. Readers who see alternative lifestyles represented in literature refine their sympathies and become more humanistic.

Giovanni's Room
For example, in the book Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin, the two main characters in the book are gay. The quality of their lives is characterized by the ethical choices they make. Because of their dishonesty to each other, communication between the men breaks down and they become alienated from each other. This book can become a catalyst for examining standards of behavior that shape personal experience. Teachers who use such books, however, must become educated about matters of gay culture, including mannerisms, interaction styles, embedded meanings, and taboo words and actions. This would involve immersing themselves in gay and lesbian topics in literature so they can be aware of them as they teach books with gay and lesbian characters to students.

In today's multicultural ABE classrooms, there are many ways to refocus and extend teaching and learning for all -- including gay and lesbian students. We can do this by:

• Asking who is and who is not represented in our ABE classrooms, in curriculum, in language use, and in social relations, and then working toward more inclusive representation;
  
• Cooperatively studying with our gay and lesbian students, as with all of our students, the real-life substance of their lives -- their problems, their languages, and their thoughts -- and constructing active, creative ways to make these realities the knowledge base from which other learning evolves;
  
• Critically considering how literature can present multiple perspectives, lenses and voices, including those of lesbian and gay students;
  
• Thinking about how our ABE classrooms encourage or discourage critique. Are all students -- gay, lesbian, and straight -- and teachers encouraged to question and think critically rather than to passively accept information, policies, and practices as givens?

By following the above suggestions, ABE administrators and educators can work with gay colleagues and students in the development of a pedagogy that promotes civic responsibility and encourages positive action for change in our ABE classrooms and in a pluralistic society.

Tomas Napoleon, Citizenship Director at Northshore Community Action Programs, is an ESOL teacher at Peabody P.R.E.P. Center. He holds an MA in English, an Ed.M. in Educational Administration, and a C.A.G.S. in Modern Greek. He can be reached at 978-531-0767, x102.