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Overview
Teach multicultural awareness from preschool to graduate school!
Blending personal experience, theoretical discussions, in-depth research, and practical exercises, The Work of a Gay College Chaplain traces one man's odyssey from effeminate boy to openly gay college chaplain, a journey that led him from a loving childhood through repressed sexuality, gay bars, Union Theological Seminary, and positions teaching preschool children, prisoners, and college students. In all these situations, he discovered that the key to nurturing individuals is discovering and supplying what they need, not imposing on them conventional ideas of what they should do.
The practical application of that philosophy is the heart of this book. It crosses conventional and academic boundaries in its courageous exploration of what it means to be a gay man, a Christian, a teacher, a parent, a minister. Instead of focusing on the problems and victimization of gay and lesbian people, The Work of a Gay College Chaplain celebrates the unique perspectives that gay people can offer to straight people.
This genuinely multicultural book shares specific ideas, exercises, and techniques for crossing boundaries and understanding widely divergent points of view, including:
- parenting techniques for rearing children whose tastes and needs are very different from those of their immediate families
- designing a preschool curriculum that avoids imposing inappropriate cultural expectations of gender and orientation
- writing methods that help clarify issues of identity and self-expression
- developing a theoretical and practical model for relating to people whose experience is different from our own
- creating worship services that work for people of many faiths
Synopsis
A gay college chaplain describes his professional interactions with heterosexuals and offers suggestions for improving communication and understanding. Topics include Comstock's (sociology, Wesleyan U.) relationship with his father, the development of his college teaching style, and how he creates weekly worship services that embrace all faiths and include non-believers as well. Comstock also describes a preschool curriculum designed to help children to "discover and create themselves."
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