It's Pride! How are you going to celebrate Pride not only this month but every day of the year?
As educators, we all want the same thing for our students and their families. We want our schools to be safe, welcoming places for teaching and learning. That means ensuring all students and families see themselves in our schools and our communities.
But where do we begin?
With your union, of course!
Your union is a support for you and your students whether you are LGBTQ or an ally. NYSUT not only has an LGBTQ Committee but also has a resource center that includes information such as sample contract language and welcoming LGBTQ educators into your school. Our LGBTQ Committee also has a Twitter account, a Facebook page and its own dedicated NYSUT web page. At NYSUT, we are committed to equality for everyone. Check out https://www.nysut.org/resources/special-resources-sites/lgbtq and explore the resource center and more.
At the Education and Learning Trust (ELT), the professional development arm of your union, we have seminars for teachers that can assist you in creating a safe, welcoming environment:
- Addressing Anti-LGBTQ Bullying and Harassment in Schools
- Inclusive Curriculum: Incorporating LGBTQ Topics into the Classroom
- Creating Safer Spaces for LGBTQ Students
For our SRPs:
- Our World, Our Students
- Dignity Act: Training in Harassment, Bullying, Cyberbullying and Discrimination in Schools: Prevention & Intervention
Want to learn about the seminars your union has to offer? Go to https://elt.nysut.org/.
Who else can help you celebrate Pride in schools? Your school librarian! Your school librarian can ensure the literature selections in your school are inclusive. By examining our classroom and school libraries to ensure a variety of reading materials are available, all students will be able to recognize themselves and their families in the books we use.
Below is a small list of reading materials educators can use to start to create that safe and welcoming environment for their students:
- AND TANGO MAKES THREE by Justin Richardson, Peter Parnell and Henry Cole. It is a picture book based on the true story of two male penguins raising a penguin chick in the Central Park Zoo. A great book for the little ones.
- TeachingBooks.net LGBTQ Collection - A BOCES compiled LGBTQ Collection that includes over 800 books.
https://www.teachingbooks.net/tb.cgi?adv=title&go=1&culturalArea=LGBTQ - School Library Journal, "Pride for Tweens|Great Books" - School Library Journal usually updates this list each June. https://www.slj.com/?detailStory=great-books-pride-for-tweens
- Rainbow (A Round Table of the American Library Association), LGBTQIA+ Resources for Children -A bibliography of various resources compiled by the Rainbow Round Table (RRT) of the American Library Association. This round table serves the information needs of the LGBTQIA+ professional library community. http://www.ala.org/rt/rrt/popularresources/children
Our LGBTQ Committee also hosted a "book tasting" event. You can learn more about that event and the books chosen: https://www.nysut.org/news/2019/september/nysut-lgbtq-committee-to-host-book-tasting-event
Here are some powerful questions we can ask ourselves to show Pride all year long in our schools:
- Does your school have a student Gay Straight Alliance or a Gender-Sexuality Alliance?
- Does your school have inclusive curricula and policies?
- Does your school use preferred names and respect everyone's pronouns?
- Has your school created a supportive environment for all educators?
Your union can assist you, NYSUT has the resources and works in partnership with organizations like GLSEN: https://www.glsen.org/. Another great resource is Welcoming Schools: https://www.welcomingschools.org/
On a personal note, when I was a local NYSUT president, we began working on changes big and small to make our schools more welcoming.
Training was provided for any teacher or SRP who wanted it, so we could create safe spaces, appropriately teach all students and be better colleagues to our LGBTQ siblings.
We also began conversations about changing forms that families have to complete. Changing words like mother and father to parent or guardian to be more inclusive of all families.
June is usually a month packed full of celebrations, gatherings, parades and events. While many of those activities cannot take place in our current COVID environment, let's find ways we can celebrate remotely and safely to make our world one where we all see ourselves and feel a part of the fabric of our communities.
