Things You Enjoy Thinking About During Homeroom . . .

Your teachers’ sex lives, for example:

One day in early May, Michael Soet, the principal of the International High School in Brooklyn, took over the 11th-grade social-studies classes for the day. The juniors had been learning about McCarthyism, and Mr. Michael, as he is affectionately known by his students, saw an opportunity to elaborate on some of the themes of the class by doing something that he had been waiting for just the right moment to do. He announced to his students that he is gay.

“I thought it might fit in with the lesson about paranoia and making assumptions about people just because they are different,” Mr. Michael says of the timing. He had already alerted his staff and invited them to participate in the discussion, which several teachers did. He’d also spoken with Brian Ellner, a senior counselor to Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, and gotten his support. Still, Mr. Michael couldn’t help but feel nervous at first.

. . .

When Mr. Michael came out to his ninth-grade history classes the following year, Ian David Aronson, a filmmaker making a documentary about the school, was there to capture it on camera. He ended up turning the footage of it into a separate 22-minute DVD entitled Did You Know That Mr. Michael Is Gay? The film comes with a teacher’s guide for educators who want to start a dialogue about homosexuality and tolerance in the classroom.

In the movie, the students first appear shocked by Mr. Michael’s announcement—their eyes widen and one boy says “What?”, though he is promptly quieted down by the other kids. Mr. Michael then explains why he decided to tell them and encourages them to ask questions. The students take advantage of the invitation (first question: “How do you feel now that you told us that you are gay?”), and Mr. Michael answers potentially awkward questions like, “Who’s the man and who’s the woman?” (both people share cooking and household chores, he explains) and “Do you think that you would change if you met a girl that you really love?” (Probably not, but you never know because life is funny.)