“Educators engage in professional learning.”
I have engaged in multiple forms of professional learning, but during my last practicum I got to attend multiple workshops on SOGI and here I will recount my takeaways from those.
1st Workshop: SOGI Leadership and Policy
This was an hour and a half long workshop that mostly was an overview on what SOGI is and how it’s being implemented in our district. SOGI (Sexual Orientations and Gender Identities) 1 2 3 aims to reduce homophobia, transphobia, etc through the use of policies/procedures (1), inclusive environments (2), and teaching resources (3). This workshop was more aimed at (1) since we talked a bit about getting involved in SOGI leadership and policy at a school level. The presenter, Lisa Price, is the district 57 lead for SOGI and gave us a lot of good resources for learning more (I’m going to email her for more because she sent some things out to a mailing list that I am not on).
After some introductory videos and looking through the beginning of the district’s SOGI policy, we broke into groups to work on scenarios dealing with theoretical situations involving LGBTQ+ students. Our scenario involved a trans girl, Chloe, who had socially transitioned in grade 3 (but not been on hormones, surgeries etc) and was now going through puberty. As a result, some classmates had been bullying her and calling her a boy, and she was being chastised for using the girl’s washroom. We worked through some possible solutions and decided that the first thing we needed to do was find out what Chloe wanted. One thing that was made clear throughout the workshop was that you can never assume a student’s wants based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. If Chloe wants, we decided it would be a good thing to introduce more SOGI education in the classroom, as well as forming more safe spaces such as GSAs in the school if there wasn’t one already. Also, advocating for gender neutral bathrooms that can be a safe space for trans students because we know that options are important for those who need them.
We met back up after the breakout groups and each group talked about their solutions. One thing that was really interesting was talking about the need for disposal areas in men’s bathrooms for trans men who still menstruate. I honestly had never thought about that but it makes so much sense. I feel like I do a good job being open and understanding but there’s always something new to learn here. Being involved in SOGI as a school lead or volunteer in the future is something that I think would be worthwhile and important.
2nd Workshop: SOGI – Inclusive Environments
This was another hour and a half workshop (although we went a bit overtime because the conversation was lively) focused more on reflecting and talking about the environments in our school in terms of what is being done to make things more inclusive and also what kinds of language/actions you see in the school that are problematic. It was again led by Lisa Price, district lead for SOGI.
Again, we broke into smaller groups to discuss our own experiences in schools. I mentioned how LGBTQ+ related materials and pride symbolism was much more open and around in schools like PGSS now as compared to when I was in high school, and how that alone really seems to have had a positive effect on the school community. I hear much less directly and indirectly bigoted language used in classrooms and hallways than before (ex. using “gay” as a derogatory word). I honestly believe that having these symbols and imagery around as a regular thing at school makes it destigmatised and removes the taboo connotations around LGBTQ+ issues, overall making it a more normal topic to talk about casually. The hope is that those more casual conversations allow people to be more open about themselves and feel ready to talk to friends/teachers/guardians etc. Some other things we talked about in our group were avoiding using gendered language when possible. I know that I personally use the word “guys” too often in the classroom. I have been trying to cut down on it but it does slip out here and then. I was using y’all for a bit but someone in the group suggested saying people and I like that so I’m going to try that out this upcoming week for sure.
After we got back together to the main session, we talked a bit about things we can do to make our environments more inclusive. Some of those things were around language and personal changes we can make to be more welcoming, and some were more structural changes school/district-wide. One thing we could do is make LGBTQ+ content (books, videos, interactive pieces, etc) more readily available and visible in both libraries and our classrooms. While most schools have a gay-straight/gender-sexuality alliance club, they can always use help or more adults involved so that’s another way we can contribute. We talked a little bit more about the importance of pronouns as well. The final really big thing that was touched on was eliminating the binary of things we do when prepping etc. like separating groups by boys and girls, or using pink/blue colours, things like that. There’s also the idea of changing district documents to reflect the diversity of LGBTQ+ people in our school communities. The big takeaway really is that you really can never assume things in the classroom/school community so always ask and try to understand as best you can.
3rd Workshop: Sogi Q&A
More of a FAQ than a Q&A, this session focused on common questions people have about LGBTQ+ issues and recognising changes in language used over the years etc.
We talked a bit about reclamation of language, such as the word queer now being used as an umbrella term instead of a derogatory word. I try to keep up to date on terms but we all inevitably miss some here and there, so Lisa gave us a website we can check that keeps relatively up to date. One topic we talked about was how gender/sex is thought of differently in different cultures (ex. 2S, specifically indigenous world view). Struggles between sexuality, religion, race are very common and trying to understand and be empathetic to the diversity of LGBTQ+ people in backgrounds is also very important. Intersectionality of views and struggles is a key takeaway.
We talked about the differences between gender identity, expression, sexual orientation, and anatomical sex, and how it’s important to understand the nature of all of them as a spectrum. Our students especially are going to be in a space where they’re still exploring all of these things and making our schools and classrooms into a space where they can feel comfortable as themselves is one way to make this phase of their life as safe as possible.
Part of intersecting identities is understanding that every part of a person’s life is connected to each other and informs each other. Some students are ready to be out in some places but not others. Furthermore, we have to prepare students for the possibility that someone who they aren’t comfortable with knowing their identity might find out from people other than themselves.
A sort of fun connection piece, during this workshop I found out that our presenter was actually the daughter of a teacher from my hometown (a teacher I never had but I do know). She also had my father as a 7th grade teacher, so it was a really nice “small world” moment. We had the chance to talk for a bit after the session which acted as a bit of a debrief as well.