Small Steps, Big Impact: Queer Identity in Teaching with Aaron Rupchand-Kokotek

Bryan: 0:27

Teaching While Queer is a podcast for 2S LGBTQ plus educational professionals to share their experiences in academia. Hi, I'm your host, Bryan Stanton, a theater pedagogy and educator in New York City, and my goal is to share stories from around the world from 2S LGBTQ plus educators. I hope you enjoy Teaching While Queer. Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Teaching While Queer. I am your host, Bryan Stanton, today. I'm so excited to have joining me a Aaron Rupchand-Kokotek teacher, . Hi, Aaron, how are you doing?

Aaron: 1:08

Hello, I'm doing pretty well today. Thank you so much for having me on.

Bryan: 1:11

Oh, it's my pleasure.

Aaron: 1:12

Glad to be here.

Bryan: 1:13

Tell us a little bit about yourself. How do you identify within the community? I've already mentioned you're a science teacher. Where do you teach?

Aaron: 1:20

Sure. So, as you said, I am a science teacher. This is about to start my eighth year in the classroom teaching science. I work primarily right now. I work with middle school, but I've also worked with high school in the past. I generally use he, him and his, although in some queer spaces I'll use she, her and hers, because that just feels like praxis and I generally identify as a gay slash queer man.

Bryan: 1:45

Awesome. And so in teaching middle school science, do you cover, like, all the basis or do you like, do you have a specific biology or or what not that you cover?

Aaron: 1:57

Gotcha, I should have said that earlier. I specifically teach earth science, so focus a bit on space geology. There's a little more math in it than I think some of my kids like or expect, but we try to have fun along the way.

Bryan: 2:11

Awesome. And so let's go back on a journey in time and tell us a little bit about your life as a queer student.

Aaron: 2:21

Sure. So I don't remember particularly identifying as a queer student until maybe late middle school, early high school. I went to small private schools, particularly Jewish schools, considered Jewish day school in the Salmon Shepter system on the East Coast. For, yeah, through high school. So there weren't really many models of queerness or, frankly, even mentions of queerness, so I was never quite sure of what that was or what it could be, with the exception that it was kind of bad, you know, and labeled them the zeitgeist, and also it felt to some degree the school culture and even some of the things we taught in the classroom were like that's a bad thing, that's not a thing we do. So very much either wasn't spoken about or, when it was, was spoken of in a negative instead of a positive. So that was unfortunately how I have more my queer awakening started was like oh oh no, this is, this is not ideal for where I am.

Bryan: 3:26

What's interesting to me is that you hear that a lot when it comes to the Christian religion, and so for me. This is maybe the first time I'm hearing someone who comes from the Jewish religion who is experiencing queerness as something that's bad, that we don't don't do that, and so how do you think that kind of informs who you are as a teacher? Now?

Aaron: 3:52

Oh man, I think back to a specific speaker that someone that someone brought in. I think it was one of the physical education teachers. You know this was 2004, 2005. So, like before, we did as much work in education as we do today on sort of recognizing students and emotional support. She brought in a speaker I think his name was Scott freed, who, like, came to us and spoke about his experience as a gay man with AIDS and like what that was like for him and living with HIV and like how he was treated and how he was made to understand the world. And he's a motivational speaker at least was at the time. And so for me to just see that was like, oh, my goodness, like this is a grownup, like he's, he's doing okay. And so for me, I think, a lot of the work that I hope I'm able to do, at least for my students to say, hey, like here's a grownup who's been through maybe some of the stuff that I've gone through, you know, maybe not quite the same, because you know they're, of course, in a very different stage of development than I am, but you know they have that moment saying, hey, these things happen to other people too and they can get through it, you know, and seem to be more or less whole.

Bryan: 5:14

Yeah, I have to agree with that. As a young person who was growing up in the late 90s or coming of age in the late 90s, I had this experience of just not realizing that there could be a queer future, Because there were, there were no examples of it, and I think in retrospect I can look back now and find clear queer influences and queer people that were in my life that I just didn't know were here, like my mom's hairstylist. You know that gentleman was a very queer man but, like I was a young kid and did not realize that that's who he was namely because it wasn't okay to be out and there were no like out examples of what queerness looks like. As an adult I used to joke not really joke, but like. For a long time I didn't see myself my life after high school Because for me there was no life for queer people, it just didn't exist. And so it's interesting now to be married with children, because that was an impossibility, it was a future that didn't exist and it's so, I don't know, surreal, I guess, to be living a future that never existed in my childhood.

Aaron: 6:35

And I think part of that also is just sort of the content and the things that we're able to speak to children about. I think there's a much wider field right now, particularly because there's a lot more focus on gender and identity and expression, because when I was younger, I remember very much being like, you know, you're either lesbian or you're gay, or you're bisexual, or you want to go from one quote unquote, air quotes gender to another, whereas now we're really opening a larger conversation and you know, frankly, it's a more appropriate conversation for me to have with an 11-year-old. Like that's, I'm not going to talk to an 11-year-old about you know, I don't have things to talk to him about sex, that's not my job, that's not my training but like we can talk about gender. How does this make you feel about you and your like who you are in your body? We can talk about that. That's totally workable.

Bryan: 7:33

Yeah, absolutely. I think it's so interesting because I just finished reading a book called Rainbow Parenting by Linz Emmer and they talk about the fact that, like so many, people get caught up in sexuality and think intercourse and quite literally none of us, not even people who teach sex education, none of us want to talk to children about intercourse.

Aaron: 8:00

What we're saying is that like?

Bryan: 8:02

gender is almost, it's the love for yourself and who you are, and then sexuality is who you love. And so it's a, it's a focus on love versus, like, the physical act of intercourse which so many people get caught up on. And I think you're right there and say, like, I'm not going to have a conversation with these 11-year-olds about sex, but I can talk to you about being comfortable expressing yourself and being respectful of other people when they're expressing themselves and who they are. So I think that you're right, on par with where really society needs to be. But there's a large group that still focuses on the fact that, like, homosexuality is sex and heterosexuality is sex and it's all about sex and sex equals intercourse, when really that's not the conversation we're having here. It's just word association.

Aaron: 9:00

Right, no one like, even as a you know someone who's taught bio to like seniors and juniors like. No, I don't like listing all the parts to these people, but like that part I will do. I will use the terms and we will get through it.

Bryan: 9:15

Yep, and you just teach it on basic science, biology.

Aaron: 9:19

Yep, yep, I do have a prepared rant that I do like to give some of my students on some of the scale pictures, but that's for another podcast.

Bryan: 9:28

You have a prepared rant because of the scale, the pictures that show up in textbooks.

Aaron: 9:33

I do. It's just the scales. They're just wrong. They show part side by side. There's no scale, it's just. It's just bad for everyone. I have so many thoughts, but that's another thing.

Bryan: 9:45

I was actually just talking to my husband yesterday. We were talking about real estate but about how pictures don't really have scale.

Aaron: 9:53

No, they should.

Bryan: 9:54

I went to see a property that he, that we are buying, and it was my first time seeing it and the pictures make it look bigger than it is and I was like oh Always. And and that's a wise euphemism, I suppose but like pictures pictures of high scale Yep.

Aaron: 10:15

No, they need scale, it's it's helpful. They shouldn't be side by side. If they're not the same side, it just doesn't make sense.

Bryan: 10:21

Absolutely, I also get it. I don't know. I find intriguing just how things are drawn, because even when they're trying to show anatomy. Things don't hang that way in real life when they're showing pictures of animals. Yeah.

Aaron: 10:43

It's you know.

Bryan: 10:43

so right, there's one version and science books are so helpful and also have their problems right. Right and also, and also we were talking briefly at the start of that episode- and this kind of touches on the conversation about culture and connecting with students, and that's when I was learning how to pronounce your name. You had informed me that you are one of those folks who either uses a nickname or abbreviation. A lot of my students call me Stanton, because I have a as a theater teacher. I surprisingly have a lot of athletes and so, like that's a very athletic thing right To call people by their last name. But there's conversations it's the start of the school year here in Texas right now and there are conversations flying around the internet about take the time to learn your students name, which I 100% agree with. And as I am engaging in those conversations, I'm getting a lot of people saying okay, so what do we do for the students who are like you can call me whatever, or just call me an initial, or here's an Anglo Saxon nickname. That makes things easier for everyone and they've just become accustomed to people not being able to pronounce their names. So do you mind talking on that a little bit?

Aaron: 12:06

Sure, I have so many thoughts. I guess one thing I should say is where I currently teach. Now I teach in San Francisco. I work in a place where a number of teachers also go by one or two letter names. So some of them it's first name, some of them it's last name, but for whatever reason they have chosen to use one or two letters for their names. So that's, that was already in the culture of the school when I came in. I have a long last name, even longer since I became married, and so my original last name is I believe it's check and origin, and I've maybe heard one or two people in my life pronounce it correctly off the bat the first time, and that's even after going to the Czech Republic, like it's not an easy name to pronounce, and so my name got twice as long. It felt I mean, we're going right into that topic. You said like it felt easier, right to just automatically shorten it to some degree, and I also agree strongly with, as you said, that we do need to learn our students names and we do need to learn how to pronounce their names properly. For me, what it's where it feels the spot that I've come to, I think, is, you know, at the start of the year. I have ever many students I have. I am very open with them about that. I'm going to essentially make them wear name tags for about three weeks so I can learn their names. Even though the school I'm is that I work in now is not very large. It's hard for me to learn names. I can only imagine some of them might also have that difficulty right there, all learning all of their class and all of their teachers, whereas we teachers like oh yeah, you're, I know you, I've known you for years, I even know your family friendly beverage of choice at that cafe we go to on Friday is like you know, I know these people, and so for me it does just feel like it's a little more accessible. Say like hey, you know, here's my full name on the board. I'm going to tell you how to pronounce it, but you're doing a lot right now. If you want to just go with RK, we can just do that, and that's a fine place to be.

Bryan: 14:26

Absolutely, and I think what's really key there is, just like you go through the process of teaching the name. You go through the process of learning the name and then, just as you would with any student like, call them what they prefer to be called. So, if they really are, like I don't know, for some reason wanting Marcos to be Mark, then you know the mark and you just respect their choices but at the same time, you take the time to learn how to say their names. I had a student who had a beautiful name, jitangili, and I spent a couple weeks learning to say her name correctly because, one, it's beautiful. And two, I didn't want to be one of those people who just said, oh well, I don't know, I'm never gonna be able to pronounce that it's words and names. Names are super important and that dovetailed into a great relationship with her parents and whatnot. Because I took this effort in this time to connect and really get to know her through calling her who she is. So fully respect that. And also I'm in the same boat. If you want to call me Stanton, you can call me Mr Stanton, you can call me Mr S. Do what you need to do, and there's so many teachers who are like that. Right, just call me Ms G. My best friend is just Ms G. Her last name's Guerrero, but she's just Ms G. Everybody knows her as Ms G. So I think there's so much value in taking the time to connect with someone but also respecting that. One, people are going through a lot. Students are going through a lot, especially at the start of class. So if you want to call me RK, perfect, you've got a lot going on. And two, you know learning.

Aaron: 16:35

Yeah, I do tell them, though not my first name. Never call you my first name, we're not there. I have to think about how I'm going to work. Word, my we're not friends. Conversation better with the students because someone's just like, oh, he doesn't like us. I'm like, oh, that's okay. So I got to reword it, we'll get there.

Bryan: 16:55

I totally. When I went into my first year teaching, I had two full things happening. I really like held on to the classes I had to take to become a parent through the foster care system, where it was like be stern and strict with your rules like key barriers, and so I had students who were like we really didn't feel like we got to know you until three quarters of the way through the school year. And I was like wow, I didn't mean that. And it's not to say that I don't care about you. It's that I don't care about your drama because we teach. I'm teaching theater and if we start focusing on our personal dramas, then we're not going to get to the drama we're trying to put on stage and so then I got better at communicating that right the next year. And then I had another thing happening where I was, like sure you know, I heard the students calling the principal by the first name and he, like you know, wanted everybody to either call him doctor or or you know first name or whatever. And so I was like sure, call me Brian. And that lasted two weeks. Before I was like nah, that doesn't feel right.

Aaron: 18:03

Yeah, I mean, with that being said, I have worked at a Quaker school before, so first names was like the thing to do there, but also that there were a lot of very different things about that school compared to everywhere else I've worked since, so that's that's really neat.

Bryan: 18:17

That's really interesting. I want to talk a little bit about. You know, I have a lot of respect for middle school teachers, because middle school is a wild time, and so I appreciate you for doing what you do, and I don't know how you do it. In fact, I just interviewed for a position where I might be teaching eighth grade and high school, and so I'm like what am I?

Aaron: 18:41

going to do with those eight years? That's an interesting range, all right.

Bryan: 18:48

So I just wanted to see, like, how do you see yourself in middle school? Do you see yourself working with a lot of queer students?

Aaron: 19:03

Oh, this one's a yes, but she's an improv game kind of I do, and this is so. This is something I've been struggling a bit in the past two years at my current school, because I do work in the GSA and one of the GSA chairs or maybe officially the GSA chair because we don't have a lot of students who come to GSA our gender and sexuality alliance and I don't think it's necessarily because they, because there isn't a population of queer students. I think there certainly is right. Like, if I ask the students, they know who they are, they know who is around. I can tell you. For example, I bought a bunch of pride flags specifically for my GSA, just to be like, hey, everyone, we're starting the year, everyone gets a flag that you can either keep in your locker or keep wherever, fine. But the entire grade, this entire sixth grade, we're not rabid for them. We're like, yes, we all want them, and I don't mean to imply that I think the entire sixth grade is queer per se Like, wow, that breaks the proportions, yeah, but like that, enough, them were like, huh, this is a great flag and I'd love to have one, and that the queer kids who kept it personally in a place where it meant something to them, were like, yeah, I'm gonna take one and everyone else also wants. Like it is a good, like admirable slash, good, I don't know, I don't know what the terms the kids are using these days Like that is a positive thing to identify X, y or Z and so like, yes, there are a number of kids who, like you know I've gleaned one way or another are queer, that I've seen coming in, but they don't necessarily express that to me and I'm not saying I like what's. I do a riff with some of my colleagues on, you know, that horrible stereotype that we're like looking for kids, these like awful things. People say and I'm like we don't. What's the phrase? I think we're in, it's like we don't look, but we scout, like, we look out for, like see who might be, like needing something for us or from us. And so you know, I see students who are. I know they're talking in the little click that I'm like, oh, everyone else in that click is one of the queer kids. Hmm, I wonder like what they're dealing with. They're like they seemed really excited about such and so show. That goes against stereotypes of what someone might have thought. Huh, are they really got into this role, doing this or that? It's like huh, okay, like not saying anything, not approaching, just like, okay, I'm ready to support, I'm bracing myself if they need or want or express something.

Bryan: 21:51

I love that. I think it's so interesting because there's so much pushback right now on like people thinking that we're looking and trying to like pull kids into queerness, when really we're looking out exactly usual we're scouting out for those students who need help. Those students who might identify but not feel safe in other spaces or whatnot. And so it's so interesting because it's like there's so many things going around right now about social media and media and just like how transness or queerness being portrayed in the media is going to turn people gay and I'm just sitting here thinking like I consumed literally only heterosexual media my entire life up until an adult like up until I was an adult and still turned out queer Like if it was really that influential, we would see far less queer people than we do.

Aaron: 22:54

Right, and I should say, as a caveat also, I very clearly was just mentioning like oh, I'm like looking out for different stereotypes and this and that and the other thing, and there are any number of times where I'm just straight up wrong. You know, that's why I'm not approaching a kid, being like I saw you wearing that turtleneck, you little. You know, like I'm not doing that, I'm just like okay, like things to keep in mind. If they bring it up to me, I'll be like okay, wonderful, like I'm ready to help.

Bryan: 23:25

I saw you wearing that turtleneck. Are you a little in a limbrist?

Aaron: 23:29

Yeah right, I saw that yearbook picture. You looked great Like I'm not.

Bryan: 23:35

Right and I think that's the thing is it's not about approaching other people, it's about being approachable, so that if someone needs to come to you for something that they feel confident and comfortable doing. So how do you see like I've heard stories about how wild middle school can be Do you see a lot of anti-queer behavior in middle school? I mean, you're in San Francisco, so that might be a little bit different because you know, at least for a while and possibly still so it is considered like a gay center, so you might not see it as much as, say, other spaces, but there are a lot of wild things happening right now in California.

Aaron: 24:20

Yeah.

Bryan: 24:21

And as a person who grew up there, I'm like looking back at my state going, oh my gosh, what is happening?

Aaron: 24:29

I thankfully have not. I've not seen anything against, like my students in particular, either in school or out of school. I do note something we are kind of thinking about and nervous about. I'm thinking, I guess, particularly about a situation we have. Not a situation is too strong a word, but there is a. Where is it? It's an episode on Netflix about the gender binary by John Van Ness, where they sort of talk about, you know, a few examples of what different binaries of gender mean. They meet a few people who are non-binary or trans and they talk about their experiences with gender. Overall, I think it's very sweet. There's like a handful of swears which gets my sixth graders very excited, but I had originally just planned to just show it to the kids, let them see it. And one of my administrators was, you know, she was nervous about this. She was like wait, like I wanted to at least tell the parents first so that you know the parents will know what's happening. And you know, at the time I balked a little bit. I was like whoa, like why? Why do we need to tell the parents what this is about? But you know, as I sat with it and I thought about it and I spoke with her afterwards which is like okay, this is really sort of a CYA. You know, we're making sure that we're okay If anything happens that we're all in agreement about. Hey, we were gonna show this to the kids. It's sanctioned. We agreed on it. It is what it is. If you don't like it, I'm sorry you didn't like it, but we here agreed that we're gonna do this.

Bryan: 26:12

I actually kind of appreciate that step. I know it seems like a lot of paperwork and I had this as a theater teacher because theater is being censored nationwide, all over the place, and I've had situations where, like the previous directors, who were all cisgender, white folks could do whatever they want, like literally could do whatever they want. I heard stories about like they did a production where a student flips off an audience member and one night the principal was in that seat, you know and like I've heard about a student who they were doing a show where they faked smoking weed on stage. Like really could do whatever they want. But as soon as I came into the role, things started to get questioned Like my morality was questioned and I literally had to answer a question about whether or not I would put sex on the stage and I was like, oh my gosh, these kids are like my kids.

Aaron: 27:16

I always say that I have four children plus 150 others Like.

Bryan: 27:21

I would not wanna see my children having sex on stage, so why would I wanna see yours? Like that's just so gross to me. But the question came because of this idea that, like in conservative communities, queer people are just innately immoral.

Aaron: 27:39

Sure, there was a conversation I was having with the theater teacher at my school right now where we were just sort of joking about, you know, making a short list of plays that you can never do in a middle school, that, like, sometimes you're still in high school and you're like I wish you hadn't done that. Those dancers are 14, we didn't need that.

Bryan: 28:01

Yeah, I've seen like Chicago's happening in my community and I'm like nope, no, thank you Like. I don't wanna go see and some of the students had like transfers because it's the performing art school in the city and so like, by all means they're the performing art school so they can do a little bit more pushing of the box.

Aaron: 28:22

And so on. And whatnot.

Bryan: 28:23

but like some of those kids transferred from my school and I was like nope, I do not wanna see you dancing around in a lead guitar, I look back at my high school experience and we did damn Yankees and we did Crazy for you, which are all, like I don't know, pretty misogynistic musicals in a sense. It's like these men can do whatever they want and like the women just have to deal with that kind of thing. But some of the costumes that these girls had to wear were literally like unitards with feathers and unitards with nothing. At some points it was just unitards and I'm like why were we okay with this?

Aaron: 29:07

Right.

Bryan: 29:08

And to the same point, like now, I see like plays where all of a sudden the men in the play are all, or young men in the play are like all shirtless and whatnot, and so it's interesting to me that there's this like push about queer people sexualizing students. But I almost guarantee that if you go to a queer director versus a heterosexual, cisgender director of a theater program, you're gonna find the more risque things happening on the other side, because we will immediately be targeted as being immoral. And so, like in your instance, the way I see it different from the forms and whatnot I had to fill out it was that I don't think they came to it from a question of immorality, but it's like a way of saying that they've got your back Like yeah, for sure we want the parents to know that you didn't just make a decision on your own and that this is you pushing the quote unquote queer agenda. It's right that we talked about this. We agreed on this information being sent out and that if people have a problem with it, they go directly to the administrators. They don't have to come to you because it wasn't you for sure, you know and I think that that, in that instance, is so helpful, because a lot of times it's hard to know whether or not your administration is going to have your back, especially nowadays.

Aaron: 30:40

Right.

Bryan: 30:42

And so have you had instances where your administrators had to like step in because of who you are or anything that came up. I mean, teaching earth science might be a little bit easier to manage without something controversial popping into the curriculum or the conversation.

Aaron: 31:06

Not particularly related to school. I did make the mistake of once having part of my socials unlocked and I said something in the big wide world and some people took very unkindly to it and found where I work frankly and so I just have a talk with, like my. Yeah, basically, I had to like find my HR people at work and be like hey, here's what happened. You know, I've shut down all my accounts, I've deleted the original thing. I'm like blocking and reporting things right and left. They don't seem like quality, frankly, quality humans at this point I they're not acting in any sort of good faith. Here's all those things that I've done and my HR and admin thankfully there's a few jobs back like that sounds terrible. We got you. Like we, you know, we hired you for reasons and we trust those reasons and we trust, we trust you. Like that's, that's part of it. We're not going to listen to some randos on the internet. I was like thank you so much.

Bryan: 32:11

I love that. I had an issue in first season of this show where I had interviewed a couple and they came on and some conservative folks from their community found the podcast and started going after their jobs and their administrators at the district level the high school level listen to the episode and were like this is a fantastic episode. I ended up taking it down because I wanted to take the heat off of them, but it is so frustrating to me that literally people will spend hours of their day trying to ruin someone's life because you made a statement online. So, thinking about authenticity and whatnot we've talked about, like showing up for students when it comes to name and whatnot how, or rather what, advice would you give to a new queer teacher who's headed into the classroom, who's kind of unsure about how to authentically show up as themselves in the classroom?

Aaron: 33:06

Gotcha, this is something I struggle with myself and, as I said, I've been in the classroom for what? Seven years now. I think that we as teachers and I guess specifically as queer teachers, right, we're trying very much to be visible, like visible where we can show students, show up for students and for ourselves to some degree, right of you know, our full gender presentations and our full gender expression as much as we can. But I know, at least for me, like you know, for example, the outfit that I wear at Pride or at certain events that I go to, that makes me feel like very euphoric and feel very great. Can't wear that at 8am on a Tuesday, like that's not, that's not going to fly with these young people. And so I think and you know, it also doesn't feel for me that like I'm tamping something down that I'm not wearing that when I come to work. I'd come to peace with that. But one thing that I will say that is important is to try to find spots that feel visible enough. Just that sounds too small, but that's all I can come up with but like things that show that you're there, that you're present, you know that you are also one of their teachers and you're a queer person, right? I'm thankful that I'm able to be at a school where, like, I have a picture of my husband on my desk. I bring him up, I mention him now and again. I have a progress Pride flag on my desk. Do the students always remember that it's there? No, sometimes they're surprised that I'm married or have a husband. I will gesture and say it's been there since you started in August. But you know, finding things like that, if not even for the students, like it can just be for yourself first of like. Hey, I like this figurine because this figurine means X to me from like this weekend I went to it. This thing, like you know, it doesn't even have to be a rainbow covered thing. It helps the students a bit. If it is Like, if you just need to do something for you, great, put that figurine on the corner and they ask why it's there. You can share or not.

Bryan: 35:25

I love that.

Aaron: 35:25

I was speaking with educators years ago about this, but like I don't know if I would be as out as I am now if I weren't a married person. Like that's that changes the game, that changes the conversation, because you know that fits a certain mold of adults of a certain age, like, oh, like you may be queer but you're married.

Bryan: 35:48

So like you're not one of the ones we're quote unquote worried about so I want to wrap up on my portion of interviewing and then this season you'll have the opportunity to ask me a question. But for my final question for you is thinking ahead, what can schools and that includes the school community parents, teachers, administrators, community members what can they do to create a more inclusive environment for LGBTQ?

Aaron: 36:15

students. All right, I guess I have two answers One is structural and one, I think, is cultural, because I, as a teacher, I've come up occasionally with structural barriers to students wanting specifically to change names and or pronouns. So specifically and I bought a decal, I'm talking about like in house, like I'm not talking about forms that are going home or communication with parents per se, but like what can we do in house to validate and affirm those identities? So I guess the first thing I'm thinking is like can we change if they have a school email, can we change that school email, at least internally, so that there's a version that, like we know we can send something to and like it'll go to the same inbox Great. Or is there a way that we can all agree on? You know, whatever grade keeping software we use or on paper, we all use the same thing? That I think would go a long way towards making a lot of kids really happy, because oftentimes it's a really simple fix. You know, I'll, I'll try to go to Adam, but like that sounds so hard. But then I'll talk to our IT person, like yeah, give me like three minutes. I wish you had asked me in September. It's March now and I'm like, oh easy, got this. So that's one thing. And the second is, I think we worry a lot and, like you know, we're teachers. We kind of worry a lot. That's kind of what we do. We worry a lot about getting, uh, like all of this right, you know, and like high school and middle school and even elementary to a degree also, are like they're messy times like these, these, these people are making little messes because they're they're kind of little messes and like that's okay. But like what, I'm trying to. So, wherever we can give them space to be like okay, like you know what, try on that gender identity, try on that other. Like fine, you know what, we don't necessarily have to have like a three week, a three, three week process where we, you know, bring in all of the parents and the guidance counselor and all the teachers and have a meeting in triplets. It's like, okay, great, that student wants to use some pronouns you haven't heard, try it. And if you know, let them try it. And if you, honestly, as a person, are struggling, say, hey, I'm trying, I'm working on it, I want to meet you where you are, give me a little grace, like I think, I think it'll make our lives and their lives a little bit easier.

Bryan: 38:59

Absolutely, and I think that's where there's, like, troublesome laws that are coming into play, where, like, if a student requests to use different pronouns, you have to immediately inform the parents, and I'm like. I feel like that needs to be a bigger conversation, because sometimes the student just does need to try it on and see if it fits Right, because maybe it's not always serious.

Aaron: 39:28

Yeah, mm-hmm.

Bryan: 39:31

And maybe it does fit. Yeah, and things will have to change. But those bigger conversations shouldn't have to be driven by school administrators because, quite literally, who's in danger by saying these pronouns Like? No one is in danger by doing that, unless the school environment is such that that student gets put in physical danger just by being out about who they are. But, we're in this place where, like counselors, are supposed to be able to keep some things to themselves. Right, unless the child is in danger or is going to put someone else in danger?

Aaron: 40:16

Right, we got that mandated reporter status. Exactly that's part of what we do.

Bryan: 40:21

And so it's just, I think, disrespectful to children to be like you don't have the capacity to make that choice for yourself. When you literally, who knows? It could just be a passing thing, but it also could be who this person is. Well, they're not going to know unless someone supports them, and then maybe, like a lack of support is going to make things 20 times worse, because that seems to be the experience Right.

Aaron: 40:50

Right.

Bryan: 40:51

So I think you're you're spot on with that. I also think that what you were saying about structures is so important because, like I've had experience where rosters have messed me up. Like I happen to look at the school roster and I said the wrong name and I was like I literally don't ever use that name Like. You've never told me that name, you didn't tell me that name but it's on the roster and it got stuck in my head. Or or teaching in a digital world where you're doing everything on Google classroom and having students be like. I don't know who this person is, because the name is not right and that gets so frustrating because that is really an easy fix. I mean, if you've ever changed a name or email address on Google, it takes a matter of seconds. Especially disbilling names like at minimum Great, keep the email address. Whatever you want to keep the email address at minimum. Display name can be changed in a second. Right, and that's not a legally binding thing. Google classroom is not a legally binding thing, so why can't we do? Or Canvas, or whatever your school is using?

Aaron: 42:05

Yeah, whatever the platform.

Bryan: 42:07

Yeah, so I think those things systemically need to be changed because that really is like. I honestly feel like the Department of Education should take a stance on that and contact all these companies and just be like. You need to find a quick solution for if someone needs to have a different name, so that the legal documents have the legal name and the non-legal documents don't.

Aaron: 42:34

Right.

Bryan: 42:35

So I think you're absolutely correct At this point. Now, though, you get to ask me a question, so I'm going to turn the table and let you take it away.

Aaron: 42:46

Okay, where do you find your queerness affirmed in your teaching practice?

Bryan: 42:58

So I'll give a very specific example because I think it's interesting and it was a journey that I took with my students when I first started going by he they pronouns. I was a solo teacher, just teaching theater on my own, and I hadn't built a culture where I believed that yes, ma'am, yes sir, were like important phrases. And that's because one like I grew up in Southern California and it is an at least out thing to say like yes ma'am, yes sir, like it's really built into the culture down here. And so when I moved to Texas I noticed that my kids started like my personal children were doing a lot more yes ma'am, yes sir. But like I didn't work it into my program. When I moved to a new school, the culture of the program was yes ma'am, yes sir. But my students, knowing that my program, my pronouns were he, they asked me one day like what do you want us to say? Like is it yes sir? And I was like it's, it's really not. And yes, ma'am doesn't sound right either. Like we need to find an honorific that is kind of more non-binary affirming. And my students came up with I, I captain, because anybody can be a captain. It's pretty gender neutral, but it's also a sign of respect for somebody who's in a leadership position. So that is the gender neutral, affirming response that we created for yes ma'am, yes, sir, and worked it into the culture so that when I was giving instruction, the response was I, I captain. And when my partner was giving instruction, the response was yes, ma'am. And I think that for me, just that little bit of like classroom management respect, really like, did a number to change my interaction with students because, one, they were able to follow through with the same kind of culture that was built by the director and, two, they got to see what it means for a non-binary person to have a euphoric honorific. So I think, that is super fun and it was completely unexpected, but it also comes down to like a lot of the times I jokingly say are you? Ready kids, and so it's that leading to South Park, right, hi, captain. I do it with my own my own kids whenever we leave the house, and so I just worked that kind of goofiness into something that actually turned out to be really meaningful to me and we'll see if I'm able to keep it and include it in future programs, because I am moving out of state and yes ma'am, yes, sir, is definitely like very Texas. So if we get into situations where my students are like, yes, sir, they're not, we get to have that conversation and be like actually. I would prefer that you say something like aye, aye, captain, because one, it's a little bit more fun and two, it's more tender, neutral. Yeah well, erin, I want to thank you so much for being on the podcast today. I really enjoyed our conversation and I just love a lot of what you said, and I think we came up with a lot of things today just through talking that haven't been addressed in the podcast, and so I think that's super cool. For everybody who's listening, I hope you enjoyed the podcast and I hope you all have an amazing day. Goodbye. Thank you for joining us on this episode of teaching while queer. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to your favorite podcast, leave a review and that would help out tremendously. You can also support the podcast by going to wwwteachingwhilequeercom and hit support the show. Thanks so much and have a great day.