SOGI in schools
SOGI in schools
Question: How have you discussed sexual orientation and gender identity in your classroom?
00:00:05
In my classroom, I have a lot of posters and things up that talk about being inclusive and about how everybody is welcome and how the classroom is a stronger place when we are all working together. In my office, I have Rainbow flags and stickers and things like that. It's not a big thing that I have in my classroom. But it is something that is in my office. When those conversations come up with students, I make sure that students know that they need to be speaking with kindness and respect about other students. That we don't use words as insults that might be part of peoples identity, and when it comes to my personal sexual orientation and gender identity, I don't bring up but if students ask questions, I will answer them honestly and with as much neutrality as I can. I'm not trying to push anything on them, but I am trying to answer honestly as my authentic self at the same time. Because I don't want to pretend to be something that I'm not in the classroom, students can tell that. And I know that students have expressed in the past how much they appreciated being spoken to maturely and with the respect that they would be able to handle any answer that I would give them. That being said, if the conversation continues, I tend to say that we need to move on, and if they have other questions, they're welcome to ask me at another time.
Question: What do parents need to know about how SOGI is addressed in schools?
00:02:10
I know that a lot of teachers spend a lot of time thinking very carefully about how they are going to approach this in their classroom because they want to do it well. And I know that when it is talked about, it is done in ways that are about being inclusive and in being welcoming and supportive of everybody. The goal of SOGI is that students can see themselves in their learning community. And when they read books about families that look like theirs, when they read short stories about characters who are asking the same kinds of questions as they are, or living through the same kinds of experiences as they are, they feel a sense of understanding and welcome that other people don't understand because they just expect it. When we show a diversity of teaching, regardless of whether it's around sexual orientation and gender identity or around personal beliefs, or around different ways that people think and live, things that people like to do and don't like to do. When we show that there is diversity in our world, it helps students to build empathy and understanding for people who are different. And it helps people to learn to respect people who are different and have connection and touch points that make them go. ‘Oh, that's like that story I read once. Oh, that's like that poster that my teacher had up in the classroom. Oh, we had a conversation about this one time,’ And so the students who are in marginalized communities feel empowered to recognize that they are not the only person who thinks and feels and lives the way that they do. And those who are part of a more typical community begin to notice that there are people who are different than them in the world, and that's an incredibly important skill for children to have because it helps them to consider other people's thoughts and feelings in whatever environment they end up in in the future.
Question: What are some of the fears about SOGI-focused education that you have heard?
00:04:57
I want to make it very clear that there are very few teachers who teach SOGI focused education. I do not come into my classroom with the agenda of making sure that SOGI gets taught every single day, everything is done through a filter of sexual orientation and gender identity. That is not what I do. But a fear that parents have, that caregivers have is that perhaps this is going to make my child think that they might be gay. Or it's going to turn my child gay. And the reality is that it's more dangerous than the opposite direction. I came out very, very late in life and that was because I was raised in a way that did not introduce being queer as an option. And so, I never considered being queer as an option. And it wasn't until much later that I did my own personal work, asking my own questions and went whoa maybe this is something that's true about me. And I've had to do a lot of processing now about my childhood and about all the ways that being queer showed up in my childhood without me being able to put a name to it. I hope that SOGI education helps those students who are queer, be able to put a name to something. That it took me. Until my adult life to do. Because the students that I see. That are able to name that about themselves now live in a freedom that older people who come out later in life never had when they were a kid. It's not about changing people from who they are. It's about helping people to learn who they are. Which we do in all kinds of ways in school. Children learn that they love sports. Children learn that they love dancing, that they love art, that they love to sing, that they love looking at the stars and learning about galaxies, or about the ocean and animal life, and those people become astronauts and marine biologists and all kinds of great things, because they learn things in school that teach them something about themselves. And who they are and what they love. And SOGI is one more thing that helps students to put names to things that are already inside of them.
Question: What is the purpose of teaching about SOGI, as you see it?
00:08:14
The purpose of teaching about SOGI is to normalize the idea that just because there is not a 50/50% number of students who are queer and not queer. Doesn't mean that we should ignore any information to the smaller group of people. We teach about all kinds of things that only apply to a small group. And it's really important that we honour those things. SOGI is one more thing that it is important for those students who are part of the queer community to feel welcome and accepted and included. It is also important for people who are not part of the queer community to learn to welcome and accept and include people who are not the same as them. It's been very cool for me as a teacher to see how students are so much more accepting now than they have been in the past. It's not that there aren't ever problems that come up, but when they get named students, just accept them and move on. Students understand that what they did wasn't appropriate, and they move forward. I had a student who misgendered somebody, used the wrong pronouns in my classroom and I corrected them, and they just instantly went, oh, right, sorry, used the correct pronouns and moved on with the day. And it was amazing to see because I was expecting them to push back, and they didn't. They just went, oh, right. And they moved on. And that is what teaching SOGI curriculum does. It helps students to learn how to just let these people live in their classroom and to get really good at using correct pronouns. And students are getting very, very good at that and it's very cool for me to see the amount of acceptance and comfortability that students have with this kind of thing, because they have been taught about it.
Question: How have your personal experiences informed your view of SOGI?
00:10:51
My view of SOGI began to change when, as a teacher, I saw what my queer students were going through. And seeing the rejection seeing the pain, seeing the isolation that these students felt, made me start to really dig into how I felt about things, and I realized that I had some baggage that I needed to work through before I was ready to dive into all of this. But I'm so glad that I did because as I worked through that stuff, my students felt safer and safer in my space. As I worked through that stuff my students appreciated that I gave them the space to work through their stuff as well. And because I came from a space of less openness and moved into a space of more openness, I could understand how the students felt who were struggling with the concept while also being able to see how incredibly important it was for those students to learn to treat others with respect and kindness. And how important it was for those students who needed it, to understand that they would always get respect and kindness from me. And that my space would be a safe space for them to exist in. The more students that have safe adults in their life, the more they're able to thrive. And my goal as a teacher, my goal as an adult with the children in my life, whether they are neighbour kids or my own kids or my kids friends, that they bring home. My goal is always that those kids will feel acceptance. That I will give them respect. That I will show them that I can trust them in the journey that they are going through and where they are at in the journey of becoming an adult. In the best way that they possibly can.
Question: Is there anything else you want to share?
00:13:22
A lot of this conversation and question of parents fear comes down to the idea of nature versus nurture. Are people born queer or is it a choice that they make later in life? And if you believe that it's a choice that somebody can make later in life, then introducing that choice means that students, children, humans are given the option to make that choice if they're not given the choice, then they won't make it. But more and more it's becoming clear that it is not so much a choice, but a way that people are born. And if it's a way that people are born, giving them the vocabulary to understand how they are born is an incredibly important thing for students and for humans. The reality is whether it is a choice or whether it is a way that people are born showing acceptance, care and support for our children when they realize something about themselves is incredibly important to continuing to build a healthy relationship with your child.