Diversity week-do my dc need to know they're teachers ' sexuality?

[SistemaAddict]

Dd has been sent a video for the school diversity week. Teachers hold up pieces of paper with something about them written on it e.g. Gay and Proud, curly hair, Jamaican etc to give 3 examples. The information before the video states:

"...please watch the staff video to get a sense of how diverse our school is. We have such a range of different personalities, hair colour, opinions, genders, sexualities, religions, beliefs and colours that our school is a rich, welcoming diverse pot..."

I struggle to see how it's anyone's business what sexuality you are especially for a child to know that of their teacher. Surely sexuality is a private matter and not one to share with students? The video shows one teacher with a piece of paper saying gay and proud. They are not the only gay teacher in the school so it makes me wonder why they chose to say this about themselves but the other teachers chose something else about themselves. Another teacher declaring they have bipolar which seems something else that is not something to share with students. I get that they might be sharing so that students feel they have something in common with their teachers but it doesn't sit comfortably with me.

I have no issue with teachers sharing these details about themselves if they are happy to do so. The way they did it was maybe a bit cringe but at long as they are actively practicing what they preach and not simply doing it in a Tokenistic way I wouldn’t mind.

@cabbageking

Children worry about being different If there is one child with any worry about their sexuality, body image or mental health they need to know they are not alone.

If the teachers are happy to say something about themselves I don't see any problem.

If you come from a family or community where being gay is a sin who do you turn to, to not feel like a failure or when you are considering suicide?

But what about the child who comes from a Catholic family that sees sex and marriage as tied to procreation and wants to connect with another adult who is Catholic?

The sense of what counts as diversity is really rather narrow. Is this stuff outside the scope of publicly funded education or not?

Oh fgs. Crying homophobia. Every single criticism dismissed as bloody phobia. It’s not. You know nothing about me but I laugh at the suggestion that this is why I object to it. It isn’t. It’s because I want teachers to have distance, authority and privacy. Space and headspace to do their jobs without having to share details of their private lives. It’s cringeworthy, absolutely cringe inducing, to think of any teacher discussing a forthcoming wedding with pupils. It’s absolutely none of their business and distracts from the business of learning.

@BlusteryShowers

I would find it a bit cringey, but I don't see a problem with students knowing that they have gay teachers. My students will know that I had to have had sex with a man in order to be humongously pregnant last term.

Or that you're single, or a lesbian and have had IVF.... Ironically sort of proving the point that heterosexuality will be assumed as the 'norm' without initiatives like these, cringey as they may be. Sometimes people have to make what seems like a 'big deal' out of their sexuality or another feature because some people just don't pick up on it unless you make it very obvious, particularly if you don't match people's stereotypes of what a gay/muslim/whatever person acts like.

I have a close friend who's gay and she told me that even in 2020 the number of people who whenever she spoke about her and her [very female sounding] wife's name doing anything, and even when they were face to face, she constantly got 'oh is [wife's name] your friend/sister/housemate,' etc. as the first assumption rather than gf/wife!

@fascinated

Oh fgs. Crying homophobia. Every single criticism dismissed as bloody phobia. It’s not. You know nothing about me but I laugh at the suggestion that this is why I object to it. It isn’t. It’s because I want teachers to have distance, authority and privacy. Space and headspace to do their jobs without having to share details of their private lives. It’s cringeworthy, absolutely cringe inducing, to think of any teacher discussing a forthcoming wedding with pupils. It’s absolutely none of their business and distracts from the business of learning.

So when a teacher changes their name after marriage how do they inform the pupils and hide their marriage?

But why is that an issue? We speak a different language at home which baffles lots of people. I don’t really care though. Nobody needs to know about anyone else’s private life, especially not kids that they teach or people who are clients etc. You need boundaries.

I don’t agree with changing names anyway - I didn’t precisely because I didn’t want folk moseying in my business. What’s wrong with Ms.?

@BlusteryShowers or not you could be gay and have used a sperm donor, had ivf........

I would be worried about this, as I think children have the right not to know anything about their teachers - or at least to choose how much they want to know.

Sharing personal information can be intrusive. I mean, if someone at work came up to me, someone I wasn’t close friends with, and started telling me personal things about themselves, religion, sexuality, vales, I’d feel invaded. I’d feel: no, I didn’t ask for this, I’m not your mate, go away, give me space.

It makes me think a bit of ‘forced teaming’ as a tool for breaking people’s boundaries.

The more I think about it the more I think it is intrusive and inappropriate and not respectful of children’s boundaries.

The objection that "the teachers' sexuality is none of the children's business" would have more weight if there were some kind of "blank slate" according to which the children would make no assumptions about the teachers and just leave all these details open, if they're not filled in.

But we all know that it isn't like that. Most times, the alternative to telling someone you're gay is not them seeing you as an open book, it's them assuming that you're straight. Straight is still the default assumption unless you're told otherwise, particularly for inexperienced kids.

And as pp have said, teachers flaunt their sexuality all the time, every time a male teacher mentions their wife or a female one their husband. You could even go further and say every time they conform to gender stereotypes in dress, grooming etc. This idea that schools, workplaces etc. are free of overt displays of sexuality right up until the point where one of the gays breaks the silence, is completely disingenuous. The silence is not that of no-sexuality. It's just what you get from the lack of friction when ALL accepted displays of sexuality are straight ones, to the point where nobody notices them any more (apart from the kids who notice them because they define a world in which they have no place).

@fascinated
“It’s cringeworthy, absolutely cringe inducing, to think of any teacher discussing a forthcoming wedding with pupils. It’s absolutely none of their business and distracts from the business of learning.”

This genuinely made me feel really sad. Some of my memories of my best teachers focused around them sharing some of themselves with the class. The science teacher who came to sports day with his new baby to show everyone, the tutor who showed us pictures of his honeymoon. It made teachers feel like real people and felt like they they valued us.

There’s a difference between sharing personal information in a professional and boundaried way and sharing too much or inappropriate information. Sharing a little bit of something personal, in a professional way, is great for relationship based practice.

Children aren’t robots....teachers aren’t robots....they’re people.

@Xanthangum

I think I'd like reassurance that everyone participating is fine with what's being shared.

Its hugely different if I volunteer some information about myself than some overpromoted member of the SLT starts handing out roles - "Mary, you're on anti-depressants, you'll do for mental health, Geoff you used to live with Steve so you can be the gay one, Cathy your mum delivered leaflets for the Jehovah's, could you be our weirdy religion person?"

Judging by the title, it's homophones you want to watch out for.

OP, why did you post this on the feminism board?

I'm an MFL teacher. A lot of my lessons involve asking kids about their hobbies, families, opinions, likes and dislikes etc in the foreign language. I usually start the ball rolling by giving examples about myself. I have described my husband and children and talked about our holidays, hobbies etc countless times. All the pupils I've taught over my 25 year career have therefore known I am heterosexual. Is that a problem?!

Yes it is a problem. How bloody inconsiderate and intrusive. I had a very nice but very, very unconventional family. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to discuss it with a nosey- parker teacher in front of the whole class.

@Pigeonfaces

I would be worried about this, as I think children have the right not to know anything about their teachers - or at least to choose how much they want to know.

Sharing personal information can be intrusive. I mean, if someone at work came up to me, someone I wasn’t close friends with, and started telling me personal things about themselves, religion, sexuality, vales, I’d feel invaded. I’d feel: no, I didn’t ask for this, I’m not your mate, go away, give me space.

It makes me think a bit of ‘forced teaming’ as a tool for breaking people’s boundaries.

The more I think about it the more I think it is intrusive and inappropriate and not respectful of children’s boundaries.

I'm not sure I'd want to know, for example, that my gay male (or any others for that matter) teachers were having a baby with a surrogate. It would be very awkward as that's something I have a really significant problem with.

In some cases these things are obvious, like a pregnancy, and I don't think it's necessary to police ever little thing we say. But I'm not sure I like the idea of having to celebrate things that I have issues with. And I am sure other people who have issues with other things are he same, YK?

@LonginesPrime

Judging by the title, it's homophones you want to watch out for.

OP, why did you post this on the feminism board?

Because talking about personal information around sexuality with students is something that has form in other areas related to safeguarding.

I also think it’s disingenuous to compare what the OP describes to a teacher mentioning a spouse. This doesn’t take account of the complex ways in which our words convey implicit messages.

Take 2 (wholly imaginary) statements by a (male) history teacher.

Statement 1 - my husband and I are going to the Tower of London at the weekend.

Statement 2- I am gay and proud.

Statement 1 will convey that the teacher is gay, and that he’s happy for pupils to know this. Statement 2 also conveys this. But the difference is that Statement 2 also contains a vital subtext which is -‘I am sharing personal information with you’.

Statement 1 does not contain this subtext (or not to anything like the same extent) and it’s the subtext that worries me. I think it’s akin to forced teaming. (I’ve definitely had men use unwanted confidences, with this sub-text, as a way of convincing me we had a non-existent personal connection).

I think teachers should stick to Statement 1 type statements.

Pigeon faces that’s a really good point. I’d not heard of the term ‘forced teaming’ before.

As an older teacher I would be concerned staff especially younger ones were being jollied into this without being aware of potential implications/repercussions that could arise. Revealing a MH issue via a poster on a video is a terrible idea.

The more I think about it the more I think it is intrusive and inappropriate and not respectful of children’s boundaries.

This is one thing that I think is ignored in so much of this PHSE stuff - respect for children’s boundaries and the right to say “no, I don’t want to talk about sex and sexuality in front of a room full of people”

The more I think about it the more I think it is intrusive and inappropriate and not respectful of children’s boundaries

Well poster lazylinguist seems to have no concept of boundaries.

This is one thing that I think is ignored in so much of this PHSE stuff - respect for children’s boundaries and the right to say “no, I don’t want to talk about sex and sexuality in front of a room full of people"

Yes. Especially as there is actually quite a narrow set of acceptable views, and any deviation from that will get you branded as hateful.

@didolamenting the gcse syllabus for French and for German (DP is a French and German teacher) mandates topics for pupils to cover, including oral exam questions which are families, hobbies, what your house looks like, holidays, and so on. You’re jumping on the PP for having those conversations but that’s just what GCSE MFL is - maybe it shouldn’t be, but it isn’t her fault that that’s what the syllabus is!

This is one thing that I think is ignored in so much of this PHSE stuff - respect for children’s boundaries and the right to say “no, I don’t want to talk about sex and sexuality in front of a room full of people”

Yes, absolutely.

I've been thinking and I can't recall any of my teachers talking about their personal lives. We didn't care, they didn't discuss it. Honestly. I had some pleasant relationships with some teachers, respectful, engaged, etc. I had absolutely no idea if they were married, where they went on holiday, what their beliefs were. Actually, I do remember in Modern Studies all of us asking our teacher how he voted and he [sensibly] point blank refused to say.

Don't most people make those up for their language GCSE though? My dc has the most interesting weekends according to their Spanish textbooks - mountain climbing, play football, skateboarding!

The MFL curriculum doesn't force them
to disclose anything, or have anything disclosed to them.