Familiar versus Unfamiliar

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So, this is a story that actually comes from my family, not from my classroom, but a number of years ago, Netflix put out a documentary on the Paralympics that highlighted different Paralympians and their stories. And because I think that that's really interesting, I was watching it at home and my kid saw somebody who looked physically different than what he's used to. And my kid said I don't like that. And I paused for a minute, and I asked is it that you don't like it? Or just that you're not used to it. And my kid took a minute and said I'm not used to that. I went. okay, well, let's talk about it. And so, I talked about the story of the person that we were watching on the video. I showed him other commercials and things around the Paralympics that help to normalize that. There are people in the world that are different than him. And I realized that in my classroom, often students responses to things that they're not familiar with is an instinctual I don't like that. And it's just because they're not used to it, not because there's actually a negative connection for them to it. And so, my job as a teacher is to help students to become familiar with the unfamiliar. We do that educationally when we're introducing topics and ideas that they haven't learned about before. We also do it with social emotional. Things and so part of teaching SOGI is teaching children that there are families that look different than what they're used to. There are people that love differently than what they see in so much media and perhaps in their communities as well. And when we help students to become familiar with the unfamiliar in our world, we help them to become more accepting of things that are different. And when we help them to become more accepting of things that are different, that only helps everybody who feels different in one way or another, and that includes my queer students feeling more safe in my classroom and with the people who are becoming more comfortable with things that they are not initially familiar with.