Two Thompson and Woodstock health teachers teamed up to give a presentation about making classrooms more inclusive, at the True Colors Conference at the University of Connecticut on March 22 and 23.
Tourtellotte Memorial High School health and physical education teacher Elizabeth Ten Eyck and Woodstock Middle School health teacher Michelle Rawcliff presented “Strategies to Make Classrooms More Inclusive” to 40 education professionals. Theirs was one of 45 workshops geared to adults.
The True Colors conference is the largest LGBT youth conference in the country. This year, more than 3,000 people attended workshops, meetings and lectures on the UConn campus. The 200 workshops were specifically geared to youth, college students, and parents, guardians, and professionals.
They ran the gamut from suggestions for establishing gay/straight alliance groups in schools to research on transgender youth. Professional development credits were available for educators and clinicians.
Ten Eyck has taught for 14 years, the last four at TMHS in Thompson. In her health classes, she covers a variety of topics including human sexuality and healthy relationships. She has seen a change in terms of LGBT acceptance among staff and students.
“I think it’s a positive change,” she said. “Some kids can still be mean, but it’s becoming more accepted.”
Ten Eyck called a meeting among TMHS faculty and students last February. She wanted feedback on how students in particular felt about the school climate surrounding LGBT culture. The students said they felt physically safe, that they felt supported by the staff, but not always supported by their peers. Ten Eyck said that was a common perception.
Still, she wanted to help teachers be more comfortable talking about and becoming more aware of LGBT issues. The group talked about how teachers could be sensitive to pronoun use, understand the terminology to use, and to admit when they didn’t know something.
That discussion was the starting point for a proposal Ten Eyck and Rawcliffe submitted to True Colors. The two teachers worked with Martha Goldstein-Schultz, Ed.D, who compiled data on teachers’ attitudes, values, and comfort levels with LGBT issues in middle and high schools. Rawcliffe and Ten Eyck shared their own strategies for making classrooms inclusive of all students. A standing room only crowd attended.
Ten Eyck uses different family scenarios in her health class discussions. Those families aren’t always comprised of a mother and father. She’ll show videos that have relationships other than heterosexual ones. She tries to use gender neutral names to get students to question their own biases.
“If you’re talking about consent, does gender matter?” she asks.
They shared suggestions on handling tough questions.
“You can always take a breath, gather yourself, and redirect the question,” Ten Eyck said. “And if you get something wrong, apologize and keep going. We’re all trying the best we can.”
The teachers plan to modify the presentation for next year’s conference. Participants asked for their suggestions about how to make science, social studies, and English classes more LGBT inclusive.
