Reading and Teaching the Rainbow

“People are sometimes shocked by the notion that teachers should address lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) topics in elementary schools. Maybe they think children those ages are too young, that those conversations are better had at home, or that the whole topic is simply inappropriate. Such concerns often arise because people assume talking about people who identify as LGBTQ means talking about sex. That is not what we believe at all.

Instead, when we advocate for elementary school teachers to address LGBTQ topics, we simply want them to talk about the diversity of families and relationships and communities in ways that include LGBTQ people. After all, public schools are for everyone, yet many elementary schools are too frequently unwelcoming and unaccommodating of all children, especially children of LGBTQ parents or those who are or may be LGBTQ themselves. LGBTQ people exist in children’s lives in myriad ways. If children themselves don’t have LGBTQ parents, perhaps they have a peer with two moms at daycare or a relative who comes out as gay, or maybe they’ve heard a story about transgender rights on the news. Elementary school students are surrounded by these experiences, but their teachers are often underprepared when it comes to realizing why LGBTQ topics might matter to their work as elementary school teachers and how they might make their classrooms more inclusive.”

The full transcript of this piece can be found here: https://www.aft.org/ae/spring2019/hermann-wilmarth_ryan

Jill M. Hermann-Wilmarth is professor of social foundations at Western Michigan University. Caitlin L. Ryan is an associate professor in the College of Education at East Carolina University.