So I was debating posting this but I think it needs to be said.
So I’m a student teacher and this week, we started at a new school district. Now I won’t presume to begin to pretend that I know what everyone’s political ideologies are in this school district but keep in mind that it’s in rural New York State and rural New York State tends to run red. Not as red as some other places but definitely not blue and not even really purple.
Anyway yesterday was my first ever professional development day. So I’m all dressed up, introducing myself to other teachers, and I shake hands with the superintendent who seems like a really nice guy.
And about halfway through the day, he goes up to the front of the theater and he starts talking about the best ways to talk to and help transgender/nonbinary students. It’s the basic things we all learn in our education classes. And you can tell that he’s a bit uncomfortable and so are some of the teachers. And at last, he stops and says, “Folks, I have to be honest. My father is rolling in his grave right now.”
And I’m in the back like, “Oh no.”
And so he pauses again and then he starts implying that he was raised to have a very negative opinion on the transgender community. And he continues to say that he had to unlearn a lot in the past few decades and then he admitted that he still doesn’t get it. He outright admitted that he personally doesn’t understand how someone comes to the conclusion that they’re not their assigned gender. And he admits that of course he doesn’t because he’s never had to go through that.
Another pause.
And then he says, “But I don’t have to get it.”
The theater fills with whispers and then he says [and I’m paraphrasing here], “I don’t have to get it. I don’t even have to agree with it. Because it doesn’t matter what I think or what I feel or what my beliefs are. At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is that I respect that student and I respect their choice.”
And then he reminded the teachers of every single policy that the school district follows from letting any student use their bathroom of choice to changing the students’ names per the students’ requests to not telling the parents anything unless the student gives consent to do so.
And at the end, he brought it back by saying, “My father just rolled in his grave again. But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what you think, it doesn’t matter what you believe, because it’s not about you. It’s about your kids. And you need to love your kids! Love your kids! Love your kids!”
Long story short, this looks like it’s going to be a good placement.
love your kids!! love your kids!!!
‘You don’t have to get it’ is the most important and (apparently) most difficult lesson to learn, alongside ‘this is not about you.’
2day my linguistics professor asked people to name some ships bc she was talking about morphology & how ship names were an example of blending and the room of 100+ people was completely silent bc who wants to expose themselves?? until this one person was like “umm johnlock” and i heard someone behind me go “oh my god……. i hate this”
love my linguistics professor but fuck her for being the exact kind of professor found in fake tumblr and then everybody clapped stories she’s making me look like a FOOL out here
do you ever get so disgusted with yourself, like you can not believe how stupid and thoughtless you are and it’s so frustrating because you keep telling yourself that you’ll do better next time but then next time rolls around and the same thing keeps happening and you end up in this pattern of mediocrity.
marshcookie 