(Mis)adventures of a Queer Student Teacher

I took a bit of a risk when I hit the ‘send’ button after typing an email message for all the teachers at my practicum school. I explained that when I began my practicum, I overheard one boy call another boy a fag. I suggested that, as part of a school-wide strategy to stop homophobic slurs, we celebrate the Day of Pink on April 14. On this day, millions of people across Canada wear, you guessed it, pink in order to stand up against homophobic bullying. I attached some links to posters and lesson plans and crossed my fingers that they’d be used.

My email was received by an odd wall of silence both in cyberspace and reality. So here in the real world, I printed out packages for teachers containing full-colour posters and lesson plans and topped them off with a post-it note that said “Take me!” I put a couple on each table in the staff room one morning and again crossed my fingers.

I popped by the Principal’s office and asked if I could hang up the poster featured in the picture above, and create a small bulletin board display for the Day of Pink in the hallway. There was some worry in her voice. She said something not quite clear about being cautious of the parent advisory council: “I’ve been here for two years, and in that time, I’ve noticed that that PAC is… we have to be careful not to…” Then as if to cover up her backtracking, she said with confidence, “Yes, put up the poster. Just don’t put it on the PAC bulletin board.” So I made my first bulletin board display in the hallway.

When I came back to the staff room for lunch, many of the packages I had distributed remained unclaimed. This was disheartening, but later on during lunch break, when I was in my portable classroom, the Vice Principal stopped by. She said that there have never been discussions of homophobia in the school, as its quite a conservative school district, but it’s so great that a teacher candidate is now bringing this forward. She told me she used to sit on the social justice committee of the school district and could put me in touch with some folks there if I’d like. But I was just pleased to have found an ally at my school – in a VP, no less. She asked if she could give the Spirit Leaders the task of making an end-of-day announcement to encourage everyone to wear pink. Of course I was thrilled. And at the end of the day, it happened: students were asked to stand up against ‘bullying, discrimination, and homophobia’ over the loudspeakers. I just about fell over when they didn’t even omit the word homophobia! But the big test would come the following day, the actual Day of Pink.

On Wednesday April 14, the impossible happened. 99% of the staff and 50% of the students showed up wearing pink. The secretary said to me in the photocopier room, “We’re listening to you” before whisking away with a smile on her face. I planted stickers saying “I celebrate diversity” on every kid I could find in pink and I did a lesson on gender stereotypes with my class. I was asked not to discuss homophobia explicitly by my practicum teacher, so I didn’t. But at the end of the lesson, when I asked kids to finish the sentence “It’s okay for boys to…” on a pink shirt, one boy wrote, “It’s okay for boys to love boys.” It was the same kid who had ‘played gay’ in my previous blog entry.

Filed under: Gender, Practicum, Queer Activism Tagged: | Day of Pink, gender stereotypes