Caitlin Ryan and Jill Hermann Wilmarth
Episode 24 To the classroom podcast
October 30, 2023
My guests today—Dr. Caitlin Ryan and Dr. Jill Hermann Wilmarth—are co-authors of the professional book Reading the Rainbow as well as many scholarly articles. They will help us think about the whys and hows of LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum and texts in K-8 settings. Later I am joined by colleague Gina Dignon to discuss practical takeaways for both teachers and school leaders.
Jennifer Serravallo:
Today I welcome Dr. Caitlin Ryan and Dr. Jill Hermann Wilmarth. Welcome to both of you.
Caitlin Ryan:
Thank you.
Jennifer Serravallo:
So you're both the co-authors of Reading The Rainbow, a fantastic book, and have collaborated on a number of peer-reviewed articles arguing for the inclusion of LGBTQIA+ topics and children's literature and school. We're living in a time when there's not only societal, but also legislative pushback on this effort. So I think it's important to start with a rationale. Why is it important that teachers of all ages are inclusive?
Jill Hermann-Wilmarth:
I think it's important because kids of all ages come from all kinds of families and grow up to be all kinds of people. And so particularly in public schools, as public school educators, our job is to meet the needs and welcome the children from all kinds of families and to help all kinds of children meet all kinds of potential that includes LGBTQ plus folks or people in those communities. So I think that's sort of the easy answer, that those of us who do this work are like duh, or who have kids or who are queer ourselves are like, of course, but there's also research that gives that rationale too. So if you are in a school that says we need research based reasons for things, there's that too, right?
Caitlin Ryan:
And Jill and I both identify as queer, and we both also have kids. So we're parenting kids who are in school at various ages and context. And I've often said that it would've helped me had my schooling been inclusive of L G B T Q topics, I would've had a much better understanding of myself. But even more than that, it would've been really helpful if my brother who is very straight had had L G B T Q inclusive topics or my cousins or my neighbors, that it's not just, we talk a lot in schools about Rudine Sims Bishops' great idea about windows and mirrors and sliding glass doors and the importance of seeing ourselves in books and in curriculum. And we know that that makes a big difference, particularly for queer kids. But the windows piece is also really important. I have, Jill and I have heard a lot of teachers say things like, well, if I ever had a kid that had two moms, I would definitely read a book about diverse families. And that's wonderful. I appreciate that. But what if you had done it the year before you had the kid with two moms or two years before, so that those kids were coming into a school where other kids who don't have two moms who come from straight families who might be cisgender, who might be straight, still have an awareness that these are realities in our diverse world and are more prepared for that and are hopefully more accepting of just letting people be who they are.
Jill Hermann-Wilmarth:
I think that from, they're like GLSEN, which is a wonderful organization that every other year does a school climate survey and we can learn from that. And the Trevor Project does great studies too. We know from this research that trans kids benefit from having teachers who see who they are from having inclusive curriculum. We know that queer kids also do. So all of that research is out there.
Jennifer Serravallo:
And can you speak to a little bit, I know this isn't your area of research, but I think people would benefit from hearing some of the specifics around GLSEN or Trevor Project's school climate survey impacts on reducing bullying incidents, for example, if there are any specific facts and figures you can offer to make a case for this from that perspective, that would be really helpful too, I think.
Caitlin Ryan:
Yeah, GLSEN -- glsen.org -- does a great climate survey every year or every two years, every year, every year, every year. So that the numbers are always changing, but what they consistently find is, first of all, a lot of queer kids hear negative comments about queer people. A lot of kids hear negative comments about trans folks and about folks who don't conform to the gender binary. Sometimes those are teachers and staff making those comments. So it's not just an issue of peer, this is also an issue of teachers needing to be more aware of our language and our approach around kids. And they also find that as curriculum becomes inclusive at a particular school, attendance for queer kids goes up, graduation rates for queer kids goes up. So I think Jill and I often remind people that if you are a school or a district or an administrator who is interested in things like test scores and interested in things like attendance rates for funding reasons, those are also reasons to be LGBTQ inclusive. And so it's not just a sort of touchy-feely, kumbaya sort of situation, although one might suggest that just who we are as humans might be enough reason that we should have, but if you need other reasons, those are also bearing out that inclusive curriculum decreases bullying, it increases attendance and graduation rates. And it also, if you use a, and I don't remember, this is not from glsen, but if you use trans kids pronouns and names, their suicidality drops significantly. And all the major medical associations say that the best support that we can give trans kids is by listening to them and believing who they say they are. I just pulled up the 2021, some of the 2021 numbers from GLSEN, and I think that I, I'm sure we'll talk about this more as we continue our conversation, but there are a lot of places that have a lot of restrictions around what folks can teach in terms of curriculum in general. We know that the scripted curriculum push is serious. And then also as an additional layer, what folks can teach related to race related to sexuality and gender expression related to topics around difference. And I think that those are real concerns that teachers have, and Jill and I have the utmost respect for people who are navigating. Teaching is hard in the best of times, and I don't think anyone would suggest this is the best of times for teaching, but what Jill and I often to remind people is there might be a lot of things you can't do, but find something you can do. And so the GLSEN statistics here say that 58% of students reported hearing homophobic remarks from their teachers or other school staff, and 72% of students reported hearing negative remarks about gender expression from teachers or other school staff. So maybe again, maybe you're not ready to set up a unit around,
Jill Hermann-Wilmarth:
Maybe you're not having pride week,
Caitlin Ryan:
Maybe you're having pride week, but maybe
Jennifer Serravallo:
Just don't, don't do harm,
Caitlin Ryan:
Maybe don't do harm. And maybe talk to your colleagues if you hear them do. And I think the thing too of how can we just feel empowered even in a time when so much about teaching is or so much of the discourse around teaching is meant to disempower us as teachers. How can we think about how we intervene just with our colleagues, not even with kids? How do we make sure that at least we're doing less harm and starting there? And hopefully we can do more than that. Hopefully people have some, find some ways to be courageous and find some ways to do more than that. But even that, I mean, we have a lot of work to do. So finding the places you can intervene is really helpful.
Jennifer Serravallo:
Yeah, I think that's a really important point. Let's start there. Before moving into the classroom, let's just talk about the grownup work. What's the kind of personal work that teachers could or should do to understand LGBTQIA+ people, the community, to intervene in incidences with their colleagues? And before even trying to attempt to bring any of this into the classroom, what are your recommendations for that self-work for adults?
Jill Hermann-Wilmarth:
So I'm going to first say that literally as a middle-aged lady who has been out since I was a teenager, stuff changes all the time. And I am not hip in any part of my life.
Jennifer Serravallo:
Same, same...
Jill Hermann-Wilmarth:
And so I have to keep reading and learning. Caitlin and I have an art-, a chapter that came out a long time ago, and I'm like, I reread it once and before, oh, that language about trans topics is not what we're using now. And so first, to understand that you're going to make mistakes no matter who you are, we do this for our job and we make mistakes. And so one, giving yourself some kindness, but two, not stopping here. So continually reading. Finding organizations that are set up for educating-- GLSEN is one, they have a whole list of terms. And I think practicing those terms, one of our colleague favorite colleagues, Lee Airton, has this amazing book called Gender Your Guide. And in it, Dr. Ton writes about practicing using gender neutral pronouns on your cat because your cat does not care if you make a mistake. The more often we practice these things, the better. And so I think becoming familiar with the terms can be important.
Caitlin Ryan:
And so I think thinking about that for teachers, thinking about how we can, where are those sources of reading? Where are those sources of learning? How can we be involved in the community? And I want to talk for a second to people who maybe feel a little uncomfortable. I think I teach a lot of pre-service teachers and in-service teachers, but a lot of pre-service teachers and many of my pre-service teachers are identify very strongly as Christian. And that means a very particular thing to them. It is okay to be religious person and maybe it's not even Christianity, maybe it's another religion, but maybe you have some religious or cultural or ethnic beliefs that make this a hard topic for you. I think the first thing is to say that's okay. The second thing is to say, what are you going to do to serve all the kids and families that you work with? And so there's a tension there, but there's a tension that we have to engage in the same way that I need to make room in my teaching for my Christian students and who they are, but I also won't let their views silence queer folks or queer perspectives. And so there's going to be a lot of tension and sometimes it's messy and we know that so many teachers are white middle class ladies. And in general, we don't love conflict. So that's an uncomfortable space to be in. And yet it's also what our work as public school educators engaged in a public institution requires. And if that's not a space that you can, if that's not a place that you can be in any way, then maybe you need to be in a place that's not a public institution. Maybe a private school is where you want to teach and where everyone has sort of agreed, these are the values we're going to align around and that that's okay too, but that if you're volunteering to be a face of a public institution, then there needs to be some level of comfort trying to find a balance. But I had a student this past semester, who was really engaged in my course, but was also very vocal about some very particular Christian beliefs. And she was really wrestling with how to do this sort of tension. But I really appreciated that she was wrestling with it. And because she was open to me and I was open to her, we could have that sort of dialogue. And we certainly don't think the same about everything, but I was able to hear her and she was able to hear me. And what she said in one of the final courses classes that we had, which I thought was so powerful, was she said, well, obviously I want my students to feel included in the curriculum. And obviously I want to have books that represent all my students and obviously I want to be able to serve all my students well, but what I'm wrestling with is, and I was like, see, that's what we can do. If we can just set a baseline of, alright, these are the non-negotiables. My students have to be safe in my classroom. My students have to feel that they're valued. My students have to feel like they are fully human. And then the details of that we will work out. But if we can get that sort of baseline, I think that we're making some good progress.
Jennifer Serravallo:
I think it's so helpful, the advice that you give that we're all learning, even queer folks are learning, how to be more inclusive or to understand updated terminology or to be sensitive to things that people may take offense to. I wonder even in that survey, how it worded again, hearing homophobic remarks or something like that, would you even be able to pick it out of a lineup? Would you know what a homophobic remark is, right? I mean there's very overt homophobic remarks, but then there's also sort of being dismissive,
Caitlin Ryan:
Right?
Jennifer Serravallo:
People's humanity, which some might interpret to be that's homophobic, that you're not acknowledging this about me or this about my family. And it may be subtle, but it may be deeply harmful or hurtful to certain people. So I think that your advice to read, to visit sources like GLSEN, which offer a lot of really helpful, they're an educator-facing organization, so giving really practical and helpful support for educators who are working, working on this.
Jill Hermann-Wilmarth:
Teach for change also. I mean, they do so much great work and they, I turn to them for help in addressing my identity deficits. And so they have a great resources and free resources. So all of these, I like that, that we are here for educators, folks who are focused on exactly what Caitlyn's student said, I want my kids to feel safe and welcome. They are going to be the places to go.
Caitlin Ryan:
To your point about silence, Jennifer, I think it's really important. I was doing research many years ago now with kids of gay families, so they all had lesbian moms. And I followed these kids for months and months and I was with them in their homes, and then I went with them to schools. It was my dissertation research. And I remember I was talking to one of the little girls I was working with, they were all in between kindergarten and fourth grade. And I was talking with them and I was asking like, well, how do your teachers feel about the fact that you have two moms? And I remember one little girl said, oh, they're great with it. They don't say anything. And I thought, what an amazing interpretation of silence. And there's some great work on silence in the research that other people have done. But I think again, it's that idea of that's great that there wasn't harm. And then think about all the potential that's still on the table of that if we really took inclusion seriously and didn't treat it quite so surface level and quite so. And I think this gets wrapped up in ideas of politeness and about who should be talked about and not talked about. And you don't have to agree with it and you don't have to valorize it, you don't have to do it, but just, yeah, that's a thing. And that's a thing that's not just for this kid or this family, but that's a thing that's shared among a lot of people. I think that does really powerful work. So we practice a lot of, what are those things that you say, if a kid says, what would you say? If a kid says, what would you say? And this is true for all kinds of things. If a kid says, I have a parent who's incarcerated, or I have a parent, what do you say? Because the number of times that I see silence from teachers because they're so nervous, and the times that I have been silent myself when I haven't known what to say, I mean, I've had to practice that a lot too. So when things come up that disrupt our sense of what feels appropriate or normal or things that we're used to talking about, how do we lean into that a little bit, even if it's just to validate it in the moment, that's the thing that happens or that happens to some people, or that's, I know people like that. How do we have that ready in our pocket so that then we can come back to it and think about it? Do we want to address it more later? But at least we've said something in the moment, rather than this idea of silence
Jennifer Serravallo:
That rehearsal I think is so important. Absolutely. Alright, well let's move now into the classroom. And let's think first about our youngest learners pre-kindergarten through second grade. I know that some of the pushback about including these topics in classrooms is it's not age appropriate. So let's talk about in specifics, what are some age appropriate for pre-kindergarten through second graders way of being inclusive?
Caitlin Ryan:
You're talking about families, we're talking about communities, we're talking about difference. We're talking about bullying and how we treat other people who are different. We're talking about understanding who we are and who other people are. Those are the things we're talking about.
Jennifer Serravallo:
So if you're reading books where there's a character that has a mom and a dad, you're saying it's no different If you're reading a book with a character, with a mom and a mom,
Caitlin Ryan:
yes.
Jennifer Serravallo:
It's simply a representation of a certain type of family.
Caitlin Ryan:
And I think that sometimes I'm in the south, so bless our hearts, but sometimes as teachers, we forget that we have know things and that we have experience, and it's somehow just because there's a family that has two moms or two dads or something or a trans person in it, suddenly everything we know just falls out of our head. No, you still do the same thing. You still answer kids' questions or if there's a question you don't feel comfortable answering, then just draw that boundary and say, that's a better question for your grownups at home.
Jill Hermann-Wilmarth:
And I also think, I mean, the idea of gender identity, that is really, I think that people are very worried about, but people have always been worried about it. None of the people on this call, remember when girls weren't allowed to wear pants, but that was a thing.
Caitlin Ryan:
One thing I saw Marie do once that was so great is that she just asked a rhetorical question because she was talking about this historical difference. So it used to be that girls had to wear dresses and boys had to wear pants. Now it's okay for girls to wear pants. And she just went, huh? But has the other part changed? Is it now okay for boys to wear dresses? That's interesting. And just went on this idea of why is it one sided in this way? What is it that keeps that binary still in play in this particular context and not in this other one? And she didn't go into the whole thing of like, well, that's feminized and feminine is blah, blah. I mean, it didn't go a lot farther than that in that moment, but the kids heard her, right? And they ended up picking it up actually in some interesting ways. And so sometimes just posing those like, huh, that's interesting, huh, I wonder why. And then just moving on can be really
Jill Hermann-Wilmarth:
Powerful that you wonder showing your kids that you notice that difference invites them to also wonder. And also notice that not in a neutral way, it's noticing it in a neutral
Caitlin Ryan:
Way and it gets kids thinking about systems. And I think that's one of the things that Jill and I have been talking about, especially in light of a lot of the restrictions that people are facing, the newer restrictions that people are facing, which also feel old, but feel new in the same way. I said the other day, it's a very old playbook, and yet here we are, but if we can't talk about gay people or we can't talk about trans people, can we talk about the systems around gay people and trans people. And so actually, I think some of these laws are written so broadly that they ban discussion of gender identity. Well then how do you ever say she? And I think that's an important thing to remember that we all have gender, and so how do we think about getting folks to notice those systems that shape how people can act and connect safely or not?
Caitlin Ryan:
You don't have to figure everybody out that you have to figure it all out. You just have to teach in these expansive ways that keep questioning systems so that everybody can find their own place.
Jennifer Serravallo:
Exactly. And I think what you're describing is the modeling of curiosity, openness, and asking questions. Sometimes even just rhetorical, just letting it be out in the air and letting kids think about it. Your examples about the children show, I think the ways in which kids make sense of the world by trying to suss out patterns. They're seeing a pattern, and then they're saying, how do all these things fit together? And they're drawing a conclusion, which I'm a literacy educator. This is a kind of reading comprehension work that we want. It's
Caitlin Ryan:
An inferential skill. That's right.
Jennifer Serravallo:
Look, the patterns draw a conclusion, and then you're giving kids an example of, well, this is also true. Does that fit the pattern? This is also true. Does that fit the pattern? And they're making revisions and they're reinterpreting things based on those more expansive, more diverse examples across their lives
Caitlin Ryan:
And using evidence. Using evidence to support their thinking. All
Jennifer Serravallo:
This is all literacy stuff. Yes, exactly. Yes.
Caitlin Ryan:
So it's
Jill Hermann-Wilmarth:
Good teaching's, good teaching. It's good teaching.
Jennifer Serravallo:
It is. Let's talk about older kids. And I know you write a lot about critical literacy framework, and maybe we can give some examples of what this can look like with older students applied to texts that they might be reading.
Caitlin Ryan:
One of the things that we are really pleased about when it comes to older kids is that the amount of texts and the quality of texts and the intersectionality of texts with LGBTQ characters is so much better in the last, I don't know, 10 years or so. Really, really. I mean, we have a paper that looked at middle grades novels that had gay characters. And even just a few years ago, there were really very few. And luckily that is starting to expand. And so I think one thing that we want to think about, particularly with older kids, is getting out of this binary that's really problematic of gay folks or queer folks are white and that folks of color are cis and straight, because that's wrong on both sides. And so how do we make sure that we are, when possible, not just representing queer folks in general, but that we're representing queer folks of color, that we're representing trans folks of color? Because we know from a lot of research that those intersectional and overlapping marginalities make a lot of life outcomes, much more difficult. Trans folks of color experience violence at much greater rates than almost anyone else in this country. And so how do we keep thinking about how to draw students' attention to the ways that identities overlap? Jill and I are queer, but we're also white, and we bring our whiteness, and that whiteness still has privilege even though our queerness doesn't, and our cis ness has privilege even though our queerness doesn't. And so how do we keep getting kids to think about the ways that those systems get a little more complex and we can think about them in more complex ways. And there are great books, Casen Calendars's, books and Alex Gino's books and Oh, I know lots of other great books. Leah Johnson's books. Yeah, yeah,
Jill Hermann-Wilmarth:
Yeah. Jacqueline Wilson. Yeah. So there are a lot of texts, and Jennifer, you're, and you're probably more adept than Caitlyn and I at talking about, well, how do you teach a text? How do you do a whole class text? How do you do small group text the same way? The same way, but figuring out, and to me, just like I believe in choice in literacy. So if you are in a public school classroom and you're going to have some kids who have parents who are like, don't read that book. Here are all the choices. We're doing book groups. Here are all the choices. And so I think that can be a part of it. But I also think that pushing on these sort of what relationships are allowed, what gender expression is allowed, excuse me. We wrote in a piece a while ago about books that don't have L G B T Q characters. And one of my favorite, I love this book and I cannot remember the full title, but it's about Calper Tate. Somebody can help me remember the
Caitlin Ryan:
Evolution. Evolution of Thank you.
Jill Hermann-Wilmarth:
So she's this young girl who is not allowed to think about science or she's not supposed to wear anything but these big dresses and want to embroider, and she loves science, and okay, we can think about gender here. And so absolutely, I want you to be reading Melissa's Story by Alex Gino, and absolutely, I want you to be thinking about Jacqueline Woodson's myriad books have myriad characters in them. Yes, please. But if you can't, right, for any host of reasons, Caitlin jokes that I'm my more question asker. I love to create questions, but we have multiple articles that we can send to you that you might link in your podcast. I listen to podcasts, so I'm sure you have podcast notes.
Jennifer Serravallo:
I sure do, yes.
Jill Hermann-Wilmarth:
But as an educator, how can you think about questions that help your students think about these books either that you're required to read because you have a scripted curriculum or short text because you don't have a lot of time for books in your class, whatever. How can you create these questions that help students children think about the systems of gender, the systems of relationships, whose relationships have been voted on and whose haven't? How do we see that as shaping the setting and the context in the character development in this text? How do these outside things, I talk with my hands, sorry. So how do these outside things, these things that are outside of the plot, inform the plot, and how can that help us more deeply understand what the characters are doing? And so I think that can be a way to enter into these kinds of texts, right? It's the same, I think about teaching poetry. When we teach poetry, we teach, we want our students, our children to see the basics so that they can escape the basics and write more interesting poetry. We don't start with avant garde poetry's a reason. And so I think it's that same idea too. It's like how do we think about teaching our students to think about why are these systems present? How can you question them? How do you think about them? Do Caitlyn shared the example of the fourth grade young man who was my gender parentheses, which is male, close parentheses, where did the go? Right? He's still thinking about systems, all of those things. I think
Jennifer Serravallo:
Those are great examples, Jill, of some of the big questions that kids, you can ask of any text. And then kids can carry those same big questions into subsequent texts. Caitlin, do you have any favorites, like these questions that tie to critical literacy that you think could be helping kids to interrogate systems or think about identity or anything like that?
Caitlin Ryan:
Yeah, I mean, these are pretty popular. I don't even know who to attribute them to, but whose voice voices are we hearing? Whose voices are missing? What does hearing that voice get us? How does hearing that voice position us as readers? And then what other positions might be available that we could think through, like Jill said, then what's the context? How does the context influence the characters? And then if that context were different, what else might be available to them?
Jill Hermann-Wilmarth:
And even what did the author assume of you as a re, and is that, yeah. Yeah.
Caitlin Ryan:
And I also want to stress that this work, like you said, can be done with any text. Two of the examples that we've written about before are Tale of Despereaux by Kate de Camillo, who's obviously amazing, and the Bridge to Terabithia by Catherine Patterson. So much gender stuff. In both of those books, if you go back and think about who fits, who doesn't is marginalized, who is shamed, who is included, who is accepted and embraced, that all kinds of systems going on there that are not directly about sexuality or gender, although Bridge to Terabithia is a little closer. But how do you get those ideas out? Even in any kind of award-winning texts that maybe are in your scripted curriculum? How can you find places to do that?
Jennifer Serravallo:
Yeah, I was going to ask you about what to do in the cases of all these very scripted box curriculum that are coming out and how to make some changes. But I think you've given so many practical ideas of ways to do that. So last question I have for you. Your book came out in 2018 and before many of the most current wave, as you said, Caitlin, everything old is new again, but the most current wave of restrict restrictive laws that are in place now banning these topics in schools. There was recently a story in the news I read about this teacher in Georgia who lost her job for reading a book called My Shadow is Purple, which she'd purchased from her school's own Scholastic Book Fair. And she lost her job for reading it. So being more inclusive with text selection in some or maybe many places is something a teacher should have maybe administrative support for. I, I'm wondering just kind of the political systems of schools and public schools in the context of these laws. What are your suggestions to teachers for navigating this? Or do you just tell them don't go there and try to do this work with texts that are within your curriculum already?
Caitlin Ryan:
So hard? I have to say, I don't think that, I think some of the things that we used to tell teachers that we felt fairly comfortable advising teachers to do don't always hold up anymore in the case of that teacher, okay, that book is a little bit less explicit. It's a little bit more about, sometimes we're different. It's not really, I am Jazz that details the story of a particular trans child so that I say, make sure that it comes from your school and that you have school support that. So it is frustrating that some of the things that we've recommended up to this point maybe don't work in some places anymore. And so again, I want to empathize with teachers who are navigating that. I think the best thing to do if you feel like your context is particularly restrictive, is to make connections, is to talk to other teachers, to find your allies, to build some support in your building with your principal principals. If you are listening, you have so much power. I know it also feels like you don't, I know superintendents are also in the sort of line of fire. Sorry for the metaphor. I, so I know that everyone is vulnerable particular ways, but the more that you can sort of marshal support even for big ideas, even for policies, even for, we talked about older kids, can you change your dress code? Can you make sure that kids can wear whatever they want to prom and graduation, right? There is a lot of work to be done, even if it can't be the particular books. So I think doing work is one suggestion, finding your allies, making sure you have connections so that you have support tuning into these national organizations like N C T E and ALA that can give you support for book bans. And then make sure that you're asking questions of all texts, even if you can't read particular ones that you want to. And again, maybe making some of those other texts available for individual kids to choose from, even if it's not your class read aloud. Those are some things you can do, but I know it's a tricky situation.
Jill Hermann-Wilmarth:
That's really, and I also know we recommend all the time, and I think Caitlin told me that you had Goldie Muhammad on, and I think that when she writes about black literary societies and doing the work in non-traditional spaces, like being that educator who does work in non-traditional spaces, it might be more work on the outset, but it's going to do so much for you and your kids together. So learning from people who have been in these moments forever, how did they, and they have survived and thrived. So how can we learn from that and model our work after people who did it better than we did? And so how can we learn that?
Jennifer Serravallo:
That's a great place to stop for today. Jill. Caitlin, thank you so much for your scholarship and thanks for joining me today on the podcast.
Caitlin Ryan:
Thank you so much, and thanks for what you do, Jennifer. I was telling Jill that it did not go unnoticed by me, that when the reading strategies book came out, I was like, who? How? She's got Pinky and Rex and the Bully. She's got a rainbow flag. In the student example, she's said you were in there too, and you are. You're pushing it in ways that are really appropriate and really helpful for teachers. And so it doesn't go unnoticed, and I really appreciate it. So thanks for what you've done in the field too.
Jennifer Serravallo:
Thank you, Caitlin. I feel like I'm always learning and I can do more for sure. And you've, you helped
Caitlin Ryan:
Out. Well, we all can. So let's to everybody doing so much.
Jennifer Serravallo:
Thank you. Thank you both.
Jennifer Serravallo:
I now welcome my colleague Gina Dignon for a conversation about that interview. Gina, should we start off by talking about the kind of grownup self work that we talked about at the beginning of the conversation?
Gina Dignon:
Yeah, I thought that that was really important because I think a lot of grownups are nervous about what to say and what language to use, and they don't want to do harm, I don't think. And I think sometimes it's just really hard to know what to say and to be using the right terminology and actually recognizing kids as how they want to be recognized. And at the outset, I think both Caitlyn and Jill said that basically kids of all ages come from all different kinds of families and they grow up to be all different kinds of people. So that's why we should have inclusive education. I love that. But I think grownups need, I just think grownups who work with kids with everything they're asked to do, they just need some support. And I think that admins and teacher leaders can use some of the strategies that are actually in the character chapter, even seven point 15 with identifying social issues to identify social issues in your community, in your school community. And they could use that strategy when they're leading staff meetings or the back to school, or do they really want to embrace inclusivity? They can use some of these and they can personalize it to their school community. And even the one where it's consider characters identities for different perspectives on themes, I feel like you can do that with just using yourself. It doesn't have to be a book. You can start there and then go from there. And then how they can do that with their kids.
Jennifer Serravallo:
I think that's such an interesting perspective because we talked later in the interview about how a lot of the reading work we do, a lot of the comprehension work we do is really thinking and noticing patterns and drawing conclusions and making inferences. And that maybe even should start with just real life happenings, real life people, real life issues that are coming up in your school. So the idea of using the reading strategies to help with that, that's a really interesting perspective. I like that.
Gina Dignon:
And I think there other suggestion about, I don't know which person suggested this, but having, if a kid says this, your response as an adult educator or adult in their lives could be just helping adults know what to say. And I think is a great place to start because just from my own youngest daughter's perspective, she feels that sometimes teachers are silent or dismissive, especially around kids' gender identities or just kids being out or not out at school. There's a lot of hallway conversation that happens that kids overhear the adults in their lives saying and just more of bringing that to a, I think if that was brought to adult attention, they would make a change. Because I think that all teachers want kids to feel safe and welcome in their school.
Jennifer Serravallo:
And I think about that statistic they said it was like, what was it, 78% of people said that they remember hearing a homophobic or transphobic remark from an adult in their school community. Am I getting that statistic? I don't remember the exact words.
Gina Dignon:
I think it was something high. It was high. And I don't know. And I do think there's a lot of discomfort among adults around knowing which terms to use or how does the student want to be identified today? Because there is some of that fluidity that happens, especially in middle school. I feel like one day, not one day, I don't want to be dismissive in my own language, but there kids go through different phases where they're trying on different identities and it can be confusing for the adults in their lives. But I think just being a little more flexible that somebody is trying to experiment or try different things on, that's okay. And isn't it great that they feel like they can do it at school as I don't know. So I think that sometimes it can be confusing, but embracing that idea of what she was saying, what are you wrestling with? I think that that's okay to be in that stage of if you're wrestling with something, at least you're trying to be inclusive and understand someone else.
Jennifer Serravallo:
But I was thinking from that statistic and the prevalence of these remarks that the respondents to the survey are considering to be harmful, asking them for examples of what have you heard? Not necessarily putting specific names, examples, but the kinds of language that you find. What are the kinds of language that you find harmful or what's a situation where you wish an adult had spoken up and instead they were silent and that caused you harm? And then using those specific examples to discuss as a faculty, how can we be more inclusive? How can we understand that this is hurting kids and creating a school culture that is not one that where kids are going to be able to do their best learning?
Gina Dignon:
Yeah. And the point that one of the professors made around the power of the principal and the power of the systems that students that we're all operating within I thought was really powerful. Because if you have a principal or you have a leadership team that really wants to dig into this and not just sort of checklist it off, here's the Board of Ed's policy, you know, need to use the pronouns that students want you to use. Okay, that's great. But that's not really delving into it as much. And just one example from my own life is my youngest daughter really felt like her school community could do better around inclusivity. And she had an independent project and her principal and her teacher encouraged her to do this, but she did a year long survey for the sixth graders at her school around sort of LGBTQ+ issues. And then her principal actually had her present to the faculty around, this is what I've been hearing, these are the microaggressions that kids have heard. This is what you could do. And just giving them a little bit of a handbook of this is what this means, this is what this means, just because someone's saying this doesn't mean this. And it was just really great. And then the principals also having her revise the handbook, the parent student handbook, so it has more inclusive language. But this is actually giving me another idea around if a kid says this, what can the adult say? I think it would be awesome for her to do an extension because it's sort of for her whole middle school, this independent project, she can do it, but just that is so
Jennifer Serravallo:
Incredibly powerful on multiple levels. Props to your daughter. That's just amazing that she's taken this on. And then how incredible that the school has made space for her to explore this topic and has given her a platform to talk to and teach. I think it's this topic and others, kids have so much to teach us, and the more we can create a school community where kids are in the position of teaching adults and helping them to learn, oh, it's just such a powerful example. Yeah.
Gina Dignon:
Well, if the kid is open to it, I feel like I was very conscious of, was it Jill who said that she was happy that an adult stepped in, so her kid didn't have to be the one educating, so if they don't feel she felt comfortable with,
Jennifer Serravallo:
It felt, sounds like this is your daughter's initiative, she wanted to do this. It was like, why don't you take this on?
Gina Dignon:
It was just supported. Yeah. So absolutely. She was supported in it. So not to say that force kids to be educating adults when they don't want to, but yeah. So anyway,
Jennifer Serravallo:
I think that's an important distinction. Let's just talk for a little bit about some of the practical strategies we might consider to be comprehension strategies that will help kids to apply this critical lens to the texts that they're reading, to ask questions, to approach texts with curiosity to interrogate systems. They were talking a lot about, I was thinking about some of the strategies from maybe some of the strategies from the character chapter maybe that could be helpful in this regard. And from the theme chapter, what are you thinking?
Gina Dignon:
Yeah, I initially went to the theme chapter because I just thought about, it seems like more of a global topic, but then we were talking about types of texts and so it could be from a character's perspective too, but I guess I'm wondering when somebody mentioned about what does the author expect of the reader? For me, I was wondering if that had to do with bias, but I think that that might be in one of the non-fiction chapters, but sort of questioning the author and why did they present it this way? Or who's perspective is here and whose isn't? Or using theme, the 7.16 to say more about a theme. So if somebody has come up with a theme with a single word or short phrase, so what about that? I like that strategy. That would help to synthesize theme different themes into an idea. I also, I think I mentioned already 7.15 identifying social issues, but then also 7.13 is actually find a stories themes by focusing on character. I think that one kind of brings together a lot of what they were saying, because you can do that in any book and it might help this kind of questioning. I kind of was what they were saying about talking about gender. For instance, in any book, it doesn't have to be a book that has a gay character. It could be just in bringing up that issue and just having those open-ended prompts around being curious about, well, the author said this, I wonder why, or this is represented this way. I wonder why and how you can do that even with young kids, you don't have to wait until they're in middle and high school to have that questioning or even posing those questions.
Jennifer Serravallo:
Yeah, I was thinking about the discussion we were having around noticing patterns is one thing that's maybe an interesting thing to explore with kids. And there's a strategy about noticing behaviors of a character and noticing those patterns and then drawing conclusions from them. So noticing patterns across the text that we're reading or noticing patterns amongst the characters. Those could be things that we're doing. I was also thinking about their suggestions to consider the historical context in which the story is set and there's a few strategies toward the end of the plot and setting chapter that there's one, it's called use notes to prime and deepen prior knowledge. There's one about analyzing historical context, thinking about the social, economic and political context. And then there's another about considering the macro, or sorry, micro meso and macro environment systems. And I think I don't didn't articulate this actually in that particular strategy, but gender expectations could be something to add to that. Would that be macro meso or micro? Yeah, I guess, yeah. And we meso maybe and I dunno.
Gina Dignon:
I guess so. Yeah. Well, and now that I'm looking at this strategy, I was thinking, I wonder what this would look like if a school building did this for their own school, their own
Jennifer Serravallo:
Community, analyze their own community. Interesting.
Gina Dignon:
Yeah. It could be classrooms, school, district, state. I just feel like with the atmosphere of education right now, that it would be interesting to just name those things out in different buildings. Yeah. So sorry if I'm getting a little meta there, but I was just thinking how a school leader could use these to not only bring your resource to life, but to also help people self-study and sort of just do a little reflection around the issues that impact the classroom and their school.
Jennifer Serravallo:
No, I think that's a really helpful piece of advice and an interesting perspective on all of this work is to consider applying reading strategies to our school context, to the people in our school, to the themes we're noticing in our school and doing that work as adults, and then considering what feels right to bring to the literacy instruction with our students. Gina, thank you so much for your time today. Really appreciated the conversation. Yeah, thank you.
Gina Dignon:
Yeah, thanks.