Seeking Sustainable Change: Queering School Community Through Holistic Teacher Learning

• In Event: 28.048 - LGBTQ and Allied Parents Speak Out About Their Experiences at School

Abstract

Objectives/Purpose

This paper describes a three-year research project designed to help schools better expect and include people of all gender identities, sexual orientations and family structures. The work focuses on teacher professional learning and responds to my experience doing LGBTQ education with teacher candidates, and as a member of the LGBTQ Families Speak Out project. It also considers scholarly reviews of teacher professional learning practices in Canada and the United States (Darling-Hammond & Bransford, 2005; Kumashiro, 2015; Campbell, 2017). I explain the links between my longitudinal research design and recommendations stating that the most effective and sustainable teacher learning occurs when this work is slowed-down, site-specific and context-responsive.

Perspective(s)/Theoretical Framework

This is a Participatory Action Research (PAR) project incorporating “inquiry as stance” (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009). I consider the viability of a slowed-down, holistic approach (Hart, 2004; Miller, 2006, 2010) to teacher professional learning about gender diversity and queering school space (Airton, 2014; Meyer & Pullen Sansfacon, 2014), and investigate the potential that a “head, hands and heart” (Sipos, Battisti & Grimm 2008) approach to professional learning has to positively affect the way teachers feel about pursuing equity based educational practices in a social/political climate that may not support this content.

Methods/Data

This research design spans three years and includes, (1) practical skills for individual reflective practice and tools to help teachers communicate more empathically with colleagues, students and families; (2) focus on active community care with the goal of helping participants support one another through discussions about identity, inclusion, power and privilege; (3) direct consideration of how the ideas teachers hold about gender identity/expression contribute to our effectiveness as allies for all-gendered students. My data collection includes participant engaged art/writing, field notes, photo documentation, audio interviews and my own art-based responses to this information.

Results

This project design draws on results from my MA thesis (Author, 2017), in which I ask what might happen when teacher candidates engage with trans/gender diverse perspectives through a creative exploration of their own relationship to identity and change. Each participant reported a similar realization that; in order to actively queer space in their own classrooms, they would need a) the opportunity to engage in a slower process of personal inquiry about the topic, and b) the assurance that their colleagues would support them. In short: they came to believe in the imperative of this work, but did not plan to continue it in their own classrooms.

Significance

This paper discusses how previous research has informed the design of a (SSHRC funded) longitudinal study involving the staff at one public elementary school. My work investigates how a slowed-down, holistic approach to teacher professional learning might affect educator engagement with action-based approaches to allyship for LGBTQ colleagues, students and families. Data collection for this project begins in September 2018 and early results will be included in this paper.

Author

• benjamin lee hicks, University of Toronto