Rethinking Sexism, Gender, and Sexuality met four times this summer to think about our individual selves, our school culture, and curriculum, as they relate to LGBTQ students and educators, feminism, and gender.
Many thanks to our hosts and note - takers, including Giovanni's Room, for making space for us.
One participant wrote about an action that she took following her involvement with this book group!
In our last meeting we talked about the idea of doing low/medium/high risk actions to make our schools and workplaces more respectful of gender and sexuality. We passed out stickers that we could put up in our rooms that said on a rainbow flag "this is a safe space for LGBTQ people." I thought about how I wanted to put it low enough for my preschoolers to be able to see it ask about it. So far, with the exception of my enthusiastically supportive co-teacher, no one has commented on it but I'm looking forward to some object being the thing to start the conversation. Somehow it is easier to answer a question then to come up with the right time to bring up a new topic with children. This small, very "low risk" action has made me more open to the next level of actions I could take, and more excited to explore what the next step will be for me in my classroom.
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Here are our notes for all of our meetings. It's a great document.
Some of the things we discussed as we move forward are...
- having space to continue this conversation as LGBTQ issues, feminist lenses, and ending sexism, applies to our classrooms, schools, and lives.
- continuing in the form of an ItAG through TAG Philly this winter (see tagphilly.org)
- continuing to use this list to share ideas, stories, and resources
- creating a list of different ways to do this work in small and large ways
- creating a list of points for Rethinking Schools that includes feedback about the text
- using resources similar to those from the British Columbia Teacher's Federation that we shared last night.
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