Editorial: Queering Schools
The Editors of Rethinking Schools
How can we create classrooms and schools where discrimination and assumptions about gender and/or sexuality don’t keep us from nurturing every child, parent, and staff member?
The Editors of Rethinking Schools
How can we create classrooms and schools where discrimination and assumptions about gender and/or sexuality don’t keep us from nurturing every child, parent, and staff member?
Laura Shelton
A 5th- and 6th-grade teacher asks her students to wrestle with what “identity” and “intersectionality” mean.
Emily Todras
An elementary teacher helps her students express themselves about social justice issues like the murder of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter through movement and dance, and helps them see how dance can celebrate diversity.
Mykhiel Deych
A high school English teacher (also the QSA staff advisor) wrestles with the suicide of a transgender student and calls on heterosexual and cisgender teachers to integrate LGBTQ authors, themes, and history into their classrooms.
Therese Quinn, Erica Meiners
Two Chicago educators question the premier teacher education accrediting agency’s removal of social justice and sexual orientation language from its standards.
Leslie Sadasivan
Tragedy strikes when schools fail to crack down on harassment of gay and lesbian kids.
My seven-year-old daughter came home from school with a handmade calico tie for her dad for Father’s Day. The oversized tie was carefully cut from the blue and orange fabric […]
Wayne Au
A teacher uses the Black Panther’s Ten Point Program to prompt students to consider today’s big issues.
Stacie Willimas
New federal education law withholds federal funds from schools that take a stance against the Boy Scouts.
Stephanie Anne Shelton
A teacher redesigns her curriculum to support a gay student. As the classroom community strengthens, they confront the impact of poverty and geographic isolation.
If it had passed, the so-called “Student Protection Act” could have banned the mere mention of homosexuality in public schools.
Eric Rofes
A look at how different schools around the country are responding — some with sensitivity,others with repression – to issues of sexuality.
Eric E. Rofes
I knew I was queer when I was a small child. My voice was gentle and sweet. I avoided sports and all roughness. I played with the girls. I did […]
Donn K. Harris
San Francisco diversifies its English requirements — and the media distort the issue.
Wayne Au, Jesse Hagopian
Teachers at one Seattle school show the important role educators have to play in the movement for Black lives, in part by creating a Black Lives Matter at School day, having 3,000 teachers wear Black Lives Matter T-shirts, and responding together to issues like the death of Charleena Lyles.
Renée Watson
It is March 2015. America is reeling from the killings of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, John Crawford, and Ezell Ford. As the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter is trending, images of unarmed Black […]
Michael Charney, Jesse Hagopian, and Bob Peterson
The editors of the new book Teacher Unions and Social Justice: Organizing for the Schools and Communities Our Students Deserve argue that teacher unions must move beyond strategies of the past to put social justice and anti-racism at the center of their work.
Young Whan Choi
Teacher educators’ students grapple with the legacy of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, which includes Ericka Huggins talking with the class about her experiences in the BPP.
the editors of Rethinking Schools
There is no end-point in the fight for justice and equality, no moment when the argument is finally settled. As Angela Davis has said, “Freedom is a constant struggle.” Although that proposition seems exhausting, it is also hopeful. If our wins are never wholly secure, then neither must our losses be permanent. The struggle for reproductive justice continues, and our curriculum must nurture our students’ capacity to envision and participate in its next stages.
A.J. Jennings
An early childhood educator shows how far-ranging discussions can open children’s eyes to a broader understanding of relationships, including same-sex marriage and not getting married at all.
Maiya Jackson
Una directora escolar describe el proceso que transcurrió su escuela primaria al darle la bienvenida a una nueva estudiante transgénero de octavo grado y a otro estudiante que estaba haciendo una transición de género.
Melissa Bollow Tempel
One of a Kind, Like Me/Unico como yo by Larin Mayeno // Illustrated by Robert Liu-Trujillo // Blood Orange Press, 2016 Jacob’s New Dress by Sarah and Ian Hoffman // […]
Two days after the election, 21 plaintiffs, aged 9 to 20, won a critical court ruling on the constitutional obligation of the U.S. government to protect our children’s right to […]
Linda Christensen
Students analyze cartoons from Popeye to Brave to see how media teaches children white- and male-supremacist ideas.
Camila Arze Torres Goitia
“We have something to tell you but we’re worried about getting you too involved. We don’t want to get you in trouble,” Baylee and Zaida whispered excitedly as they wiggled through the crack in my classroom door on my prep. I was confused to see them in such high spirits because earlier in the day they had been crushed by news from our administration. For more than two months they had been part of our Restorative Justice club that had been planning two half-day workshops around women empowerment for female-identifying students and toxic masculinity for male-identifying students. The club of 11 demographically diverse students had been urging adults in our building to do something about sexual harassment since October, when they made sexual assault and harassment their Restorative Justice club theme of the month and visited 9th grade classes to lead circles on the topic. This opened up a door for 9th graders to continue to reach out to upperclassmen about the harassment they were facing.