Bergonzi, L. (2014).

Sexual orientation and music education: Continuing a

tradition.
Music Educators Journal, 100(4), 65-69.
doi:10.1177/0027432114530662
Bergonzi mentions the privileges of both heterosexual teachers and
students in music education; the point is to see if people are willing to
remove these privileges.
Looking at the privileges of straight music students: the student can
confidently go up to the teacher to talk about relationships; the
student can show how they feel about another student and openly tell
their friends.
Looking at the privileges of straight music teachers: they can speak
freely about their personal lives, the students will understand and they
dont have to edit themselves when they share their stories; they
can bring their partners on school trips and no one would think twice or
judge them; a big one that he mentioned is that the teacher will be
known as just the music teacher and not the gay music teacher by
students.
Bergonzi included in his article a sidebar of 4 scenarios with the
question of what to do when these scenarios come up; its looking at it
in a music teacher perspective. I will answer a couple of these
scenarios of what I would do as a music teacher. One of the scenarios
was: a section leader in my ensemble talks with me that she is
worried that the students in her section dont respect her because they
think she is a lesbian. If this were to happen to me, I would have a
casual lecture to the ensemble that the section leader should always
be treated with respect. In this case, the section leader was chosen for
a reason; she has great leadership skills and she demonstrates an
advanced level in her instrument. She is a great musician, why treat
such a highly skilled musician with disrespect?
Another scenario is I am backstage during a rehearsal of the school
musical and catch two male students kissing. I would stop it because
its inappropriate to be kissing during a rehearsal anyway, it doesnt
matter who is kissing who, what matters is that its not appropriate to
an educational environment.
In response to this article, I would say that Bergonzi seems to be
against the fact that the majority of teachers are heterosexual. In our
world today, being LGTB is already socially acceptable. There are huge
gay pride parades that every time, more and more people support it.
Not every mind in this world can be convinced to support LGTB, just
the same as not every mind in this world will stop being discriminative

to different races. All it takes is time and the evolving and fluid nature
of society for there to be no racism in the world.