ABSTRACT
Queer activists work to expose problems in the status quo and help people imagine and create more socially just alternatives. They work to change laws and policies by lobbying legislators or staging protests, they teach others to break through glass ceilings or challenge discriminatory employment or housing or healthcare practices. They organize community or school groups for political action. Like queer activism, teacher education needs to involve challenging both the institutional practices that perpetuate an oppressive norm and people's emotional responses to and discomfort with things that are queer. Like queer activism, queer teaching always works through crisis. And like queer activism, the goal is not to be able to teach without crisis. Queer theory tells everyone that the norms actually produce queerness. By saying that this is what it means to be a teacher or learner, the field of teacher education is simultaneously saying that other images of teacher or learner are pretty queer.
