For many school boards across Ontario, students can participate in extra curricular activities again during the 2021-2022 school year. For those of you thinking about starting a QSA or GSA in your school this fall (yeah!), here are few tools and pieces of information to get you started! What is a QSA and GSA? A […]
LGBTQ2S
3 things
It’s the start of week 3 in most public schools, and it feels like we are in for some long months ahead. I have 3 things to share to start the year: 1. Hybrid teaching sucks 2. Your students have something to tell you 3. Did I mention that hybrid still sucks? 1. Despite the […]
“Breathe-in experience, breathe-out poetry.” M. Rukeyser
April is National Poetry Month. During this challenging year, poetry has supported critical and courageous conversations, offered some comfort and hope, while honouring pain and anger. Here are some examples of what this work has looked like and sounded like in our Grade 2 classroom: Igniting the Spark: Amanda GormanThe whole world was inspired by […]
International Women’s Day
Happy International Women’s Day! What does this mean to you? What does this mean to your teaching practice? Feminism is for everyone “Eighty-one percent of the members of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) are women and, in many ways, the history of women teachers reflects the struggles of all Canadian women” […]
On Being a Queer Educator in Ontario Schools
If you read Part 1, you’ll know by now that my experience as a student sucked. By the time I went to teacher’s college, I had fully embraced my queerness. I had a reasonably good handle on my identity. As I took my first baby steps into the world of teaching, I had decided that […]
On Being a Queer Student in Ontario Schools
Recently, there was a PD day in my board where the morning was dedicated to equity training. We started with a discussion about a book that has been provided for every school in the OCDSB titled George. If you’re unfamiliar with the book, here is a brief synopsis from Scholastic Canada: A bright, bold debut […]
Hindsight is…
Please don’t make me finish the title until the last second has ticked off the clock. I may have developed a defensive outlook about this trip around the sun. While I know this Gregorian Calender measurement of time will soon be in the rearview mirror of our lives, it is still a battle avoiding the […]
Creating a Safe Space for 2SLGBTQ+ Students and Families
Growing up as a queer kid in a small town, my experience in school wasn’t always very welcoming. Everything felt like it was designed in a way that assumed that I – and everyone – was cis and straight, from the books we read to the forms we took home and the way everyone spoke […]