What makes a ‘queer-friendly’ school?
November 18, 2005 - Why does queer matter? The word 'queer' derives from the Indo-European word terwekw, the German quer and the Latin torquere, which mean across, traverse, and to twist - or in other words, to look at something differently. In the past two decades, lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans-identified persons have actively sought to reclaim the word 'queer' as a source of pride and in protest of the ways in which society fixes a person's sexual orientation and gender identity as deviant.
Queer persons do not ignore the painful history and violence associated with the term. For example, the pink triangle, a prominent symbol in the queer community, was reclaimed from its original usage in the Nazi Holocaust. In the concentration camps, an inverted pink triangle was assigned to gay men and was larger than all of the other triangles assigned to prisoners, thus enabling prison guards to easily single out gay men for some of the most horrific atrocities. When the camps were liberated by allied forces, rather than be freed along with other prisoners of war, gay men were sent directly to state jails where many more died.
Today, the pink triangle is used as a symbol to fight back against prejudice. It reminds queer people, in Kierkegaard's sense of the necessity of "remembering forward," to never forget the past for fear of it being repeated in the future.
The lessons of the past are important in envisioning the future. Building queer-friendly universities and public schools calls for a more expansive notion of tolerance and dialogue - one that is premised in the genuine need and desire for the other person. This as Martin Luther King Jr. suggested, is a disinterested form of love - a love that doesn't know the boundaries of race, gender, sexual orientation or other differences.
In queer-friendly schools, all students can openly question understandings of sexuality, challenge gender roles and expectations, and feel valued for their differences. These schools don't force students or teachers to find their place in the mainstream. Instead, they create spaces that actively encourage students, teachers and same-gender parented families to ask critical questions in an effort to open up new possibilities to feel accepted for who they are and not for what society tells them they should be.
To help engage a critical dialogue about diversity in our schools, I developed an ethical framework that outlines seven guiding virtues required to meet the legally mandated responsibility of publicly funded schools to accommodate queer students, teachers and same-gender parented families. These seven virtues, grounded in educational values for critical transformation, are:
Commitment: Social transformation takes time and open dialogue. We will not overcome a history of discrimination and build queer-friendly schools overnight. Societal and cultural change is built upon a foundation based in human rights and social responsibility. By helping to construct coalitions and support across multiple differences, we can open the dialogue towards full inclusion, meaningful access and unrestricted accommodation.
Vigilance and shared responsibility: Challenging homophobia, transphobia, heterosexism and sexism requires constant evaluation. How are the structures of oppression connected? For example, how is homophobia utilized as a weapon of sexism? Vigilance and shared responsibility are embedded in the belief that we need to look more critically at our schools and communities as we ask: Who is included and who is excluded? Why?
Building queer-friendly schools is not the sole responsibility of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans-identified teachers and students. Everyone has a part to play. In some cases, heterosexual allies may be in the safer position to open dialogue and advocate for change.
Honesty: By sharing our personal stories and collective history we invite an openness and vulnerability that encourages others to share their own experiences of difference. We all live storied lives. Stories are the way in which we relate and make sense of our shared experiences, our collective humanity. By sharing these lived experiences in an honest way, we can begin to open the hearts and minds of others.
The virtues of honesty and truth are also embedded in the difficult work of challenging the status quo. This work can be understood as a part of learning in the struggle as we strive to dismantle the structures of oppression.
Passion and desire: Ultimately we need to internalize compassion in order to live it out in our everyday practice. The construction of knowledge is not separate from our lived experience. We need to envision and become the change that we seek in the world.
Brazilian educator Paulo Freire reminds us that we can have two basic types of encounters with people. It is our choice as to whether those interactions will be humanizing or dehumanizing.
Critical and hopeful thinking: Critical and hopeful thinking not only involves asking "why" and "how," but also "why not," "what if," and "what about" questions. We need to believe that we can change the educational system and society for the better. We can start to establish the foundation for this hope by creating the glimpses of the social transformation that we seek in our schools and communities, by intervening in homophobic language and name-calling, through incorporating queer educational topics in the curriculum, and by establishing gay-straight student alliances.
Transformation of the self: Noam Chomsky has passionately stated, "If we believe there is no hope, there will be no hope." Ultimately, we as individuals choose how we live and interact in the world. Before we ask others to change, we need to begin with ourselves and ask if our own values and beliefs are inclusive. This is about asking ourselves, "What makes us uncomfortable? Why?"
Democratic classrooms: At the heart of any critical praxis is the understanding that classrooms are communities of learners. When one member feels excluded, everyone loses access to that person's insights and contributions. In this heartfelt community there is no learning for students, but only learning with students. In this way, the teachers and the students both become the educators.
Democratic classrooms and schools ought to attempt to move away from a simple process of transmitting knowledge to a more complex understanding of transforming relationships to knowledge. In these schools, classrooms become sites for critical democracy where students and teachers learn to embrace, rather than fear diversity and its challenges.
To learn more about building queer-friendly schools, attend the 5th annual Agape: Sex, Sexual, and Gender Differences in Education and Culture Conference, November 25 & 26th, 2005, in the Faculty of Education, University of Alberta. Admission is free and everyone is welcome.
Kristopher Wells is a Killam Fellow and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada doctoral scholar in the University of Alberta Faculty of Education. In 2005, he received an Alberta Centennial Medallion for exemplary community service and educational work. This article is a condensed version of an essay published in the Fall 2005 edition of the Parkland Post.
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