By We had a teacher’s PD seminar yesterday on LGBTQ rights, issues, and how to stop bullying.
At the beginning of the seminar, the presenter asked us to introduce ourselves in our small groups, and include which pronouns we preferred to be identified with. More than a few teachers complained how awkward that was for them.
One exercise all of the teachers participated in was to walk over to one side of the room or the other based on whether you disagreed or agreed with a statement. When the presenter made the statement, “people should be required to use the restroom based on the genitalia they have” I stood on the disagree side and watched mostly men go to the agree side.
The presenter asked one of the teachers on the agree side why they chose that side.
“I don’t want my daughter exposed to that kind of thing,” one of the male teachers answered.
My first thought when I heard that was, “I bet if your daughter were standing here right now and heard you say that, she would be the first one to call you out, dad.”
After the exercise, the presenter displayed the school district’s anti-bullying policy and showed us that transgender had not been included.
“You will need to address that as soon as possible.”
You would think schools would not be a place where LGBTQ issues are awkward and uncomfortable for teachers to talk about. Many of the teachers there stated they would not be comfortable talking about the subject in their classroom because they didn’t feel qualified to talk about it. My thought here was, “the point of an education is for everyone to benefit from learning, and that includes the teacher.”
Shame how many teachers are afraid of learning something new.