Teach Out Project Proposal

 CHOOSE A TEXT:

Review your whole blog to remind yourself about what we have read so far in class. What texts have stayed with you so far? What articles inspire you?  What topic matters most to you in terms of your own work? Are there any of these texts that you would like to share with others in your life? 

The sex and gender based systems articles really stuck out to me the most and is the theme I am choosing for my project. It was really interesting to read about RIDE and PPSD's policies on LGBTQ+ issues in education as well as read the articles "Queering Our Schools" and "Being There For Nonbinary Youth" as these felt the most personal to my life and journey with educational attainment. I really appreciated the stance that queer identities have to be integrated and protected within the classroom. 

WHO DO YOU WANT TO SHARE WITH?

Are there people in your life with whom you would really like to talk about these texts? Colleagues? Students? Family members? Friends? Children?

After the most recent class where we discussed this topic, I got pretty vulnerable about an experience I had in high school that was related to a policy surrounding gender. This made me realize I would like to further explore and research the policies put in place from the public school district in the town I was raised in and use the arguments presented in the articles to argue that the field trip lodging policy is not inclusive for gender non conforming students. I know that at the bare minimum I could have a conversation with my aunt who is a Board of Education member from my town. I would love to open up to her about this experience I had and the struggles that I and other queer youth have faced/currently face in school and see if this could warrant any policy change at the local level. 

WHAT FORMAT MIGHT WORK FOR YOU?

Individual interview? Small group discussion? Art activity? Professional development workshop? Poster for your office? Pamphlet to share? Lesson plan? Etc?

To start, I would like to have an individual interview with my aunt to discuss LGBTQ+ issues in education at broad and how they are viewed in the town I grew up in. I would urge my aunt to address these issues at a Board of Education meeting. After this conversation, I would like to see if it would be possible to have a conversation with the Principal of the high school and Superintendent of the school district I attended to see what their opinions are and if they could influence a policy change. This is conditional as to whether the policy has been updated (I haven't researched it yet) and whether the conversation with my aunt is sufficient enough for the project. 

Nonbinary educator reporting live...

After reading the policies from RIDE and PPSD, the Queering Our Schools article, and other classmates blogs, I would say that the policies are blankets that raise questions as to whether they have a strong impact on keeping transgender and nonbinary youth warm. 

At a first glance, the policies are very progressive, as they mandate schools to have recognize the genders students have if they differ from the one they were assigned at birth and not allow discrimination based on gender expression. It is quite sad but after a quick search, twenty two states do not have explicit student nondiscrimination policies based on sexual orientation and gender expression. So, at least Rhode Island has something. 

While the policies tackle surface level issues like bathroom protections and bullying as these are some of the major concerns with transgender and gender non-conforming youth, they seem to neglect the root causes of bullying and why these demographics are targeted in schools. 

What these policies do not account for is how entrenched binary gender identities are in our society and how it is structured. Unfortunately, no matter how progressive the policies are at protecting varying gender identities from the top looking down, because of the conditions of our schools from the bottom looking up, the lived experience of transgender and nonbinary youth can still be quite difficult no matter what. 

I think about my first grade classroom and how reluctant boys are from sitting with girls and vice versa (although boys are always way more dramatic about it if I'm being honest).  When the binary of genders is so obvious at such a young age, the conditions make it difficult for someone to even recognize their gender may differ. 

With my lived experience, I always knew I was different than "boys" as child but I never knew why. From fear of judgement or bullying, I felt like I had to fit in with the boys and couldn't immerse myself in what the girls were doing, even though I felt like on a social level they were more relatable and funny. However, this brought a lot of pain as the male circles eventually would ridicule me for my feminine traits.

While I grew up in Connecticut which has very similar guidelines to RIDE on gender discrimination policies, I think that my schools did not actively disrupt the binary gender structures like the Queering Our Youth article suggests. By creating classroom environments that champion empathy and inclusion, this could dismantle the ways that gender is viewed so that non cisgender youth can feel seen at an earlier age. 

Now that I feel much more comfortable with my gender identity and expression, I hope that living my authentic life can inspire students as well so that I could potentially be a champion for them, however they need!

Lisa Delpit's "Other People's Children"

 The author argues that... culture power is enacted in the classroom in an inequitable way wherein white teachers disseminate their cultural norms and expectations onto black students that conflict with their culture resulting in lowered expectations on black performance.  She states that in order to shed this dominant cultural power found in classroom, educators should embrace all of their students' cultures and identities while being honest about the political power game that is played. 

Three talking points:

Beginning: Within the first few pages of the text, Delpit powerfully describes the experiences black educators have had with encountering white educators viewpoints on education and specifically their views on educating black children. It seemed to be a theme from the black educators to have to smile and nod at the opinions of white educators or hold their tongue. I found it striking that "[white educators] only want to go on research they've read that other white people have written." This doesn't surprise me based on systems of racial inequality that are seeped into the structure of society in this country but it is quite baffling that there has been a pattern of white educators only listening to their racial counterparts on cultural matters they oftentimes do not attempt to learn about. 

Middle: One of the quotes I found most worthy of mentioning was, "What the school personnel fail to understand is that if the parents were members of the culture of power and lived by its rules and codes, then they would transmit those codes to their children. In fact, they transmit those another culture that children must learn at home in order to survive in their communities." This section was super powerful because I feel like this is something that educators fail to recognize--that some of their students really have to learn how to live a double life because their existences at school and home are vastly different. It also recognizes that parents cannot be at fault for the way they raise their children based on their culture and should not be expected to raise their children in line with the cultural expectations of educators who have cultural power. 

End: I love how towards the end of this reading, there was almost a call-to-action section where "black parents, teachers of color, and members of poor communities must be allowed to participate fully in the discussion of what kind of instruction is in their children's best interest." While some white liberal instructors attempt to have good intentions with the ways in which they teach nonwhite students, many times they are actually teaching them in a way that is not pushing them to succeed because their expectations are lowered for them. If a white educator is to work with a nonwhite population, they should really consult ways to instruct their youth in a way that takes account their personal experiences but does not restrict their ability to be challenged. 

Reflection/Connection:

This reading was a great continuation of learning about social issues in education. I feel like it really expanded upon the discussion that Johnson had in "Privilege, Power, and Difference" that we read at the beginning of this course, specifically because of the connection between dominant power ideologies being present in our society. This reading more specifically references the power dynamics present in classrooms, which is very relevant to us obviously as educators, and the Johnson almost previewed the topics covered in this reading to make it an easier read.

I have always believed it to be extremely important that all cultural identities are embraced and fostered in the classroom. Especially as a white educator who works with a majority population of nonwhite students, it is soooooo important to do lots of internalization in order to not continue the cycle of committing cultural power imbalance to the next generation. I found this podcast pretty relatable and for those who want to listen, its advice from a teacher on five actionable ways that white educators can embrace their black students' cultured in the classroom. I think that one thing that I do is to embrace translanguaging in my classroom because I think it is pretty beautiful for students with different language backgrounds at home to be able to use that in the classroom, and I don't think those need to be always separated. 

Finally, I wanted to include this graph because many statistics always show that white teachers in the US are a significant majority of all teachers by race, yet all other races/ethnicities have more percentages of students than teachers, meaning this could have the potential for nonwhite students to not feel represented by their teacher in the schools.