A picture is worth a thousand words!

Draw a picture of a family

Teacher Ideologies on Implementing Diverse Family Structure of Same-Sex Couples into The Elementary

Curriculum:

Provoking Critical Thinking or Masking The Controversy?

By: Brittany Fehskens

What is multicultural Education?•Immediate response vs. true definition•Multicultural education is composed of

nine essential factors including ethnicity, race, language, social class, religion, gender, sexual orientation, ability, and any differences (Nieto & Bode, 2008)

•Which component do you believe is the most looked over or avoided topic in the classroom?

The Perfect Book!•“And Tango Makes Three”•Two male penguins hatching an egg:

Tango•Adoption and Same-sex parents•Picture walk

▫Gender neutral pictures▫Openly addresses stereotypes

Well Done! However…•Initial Response:

▫Yeah, I guess this book covers a pretty controversial topic involving same-sex couples

•Morphed Response:▫But isn’t that part of multicultural

education, and yet we are not implementing or scared to implement this into our schools. How is this harming our youth?

Questions•Sub Questions:

▫Misconceptions…it’s not about sex, it’s about family and community. (French, 2002)

▫Do people understand what they are saying?

▫Do teachers address anti gay slurs in the appropriate manner?

▫Do teachers even cover same-sex families in “family units” in the younger grades?

Questions• Essential Question:

▫how can teachers effectively address diverse family structure of same-sex couples within the classroom curriculum when teaching about family to instruct about respect and acceptance

• Some might find their options or chances of addressing these diverse issues in the classroom inhibited by such factors as job security, parent opposition, religious backlash, and the struggle to neutrally and effectively address such heavy political issues (Hanlon, 2009).

How would you address homophobia situations in the classroom?• If we as teachers fail to address all aspects of

multiculturalism within the classroom and our society, then I believe that we are doing a disservice to our students by failing to interlace multiculturalism within the curriculum.

• This includes addressing homophobia issues before they occur so that they can fail to occur altogether.

• Anti-gay language and slurs should not be tolerated within the school, but a teacher can’t just say, “stop,” they have to educate about it because if they do not educate about it, then it won’t stop (Chasnoff & Cohen, 1996).

How would you respond?•Imagine how one teacher felt as she

overheard the following conversation take place between the students within her classroom:

•If one of my kids turned out to be gay, I would kill him,’ said one of my students. ‘But you might not want to kill him,’ replied another, ‘because that would be murder, and they can put you in jail for that.’ There was nodding all around,” (Peters, 2011, p. 71).

Research Questions• What are teachers’ existing ideologies of inclusion of

controversial topics within the elementary classroom? ▫ Do teachers feel controversial topics should be included within

the elementary classroom? Why or why not?▫ If so, how would they include this material into the classroom?

• What are the benefits and limitations of teaching the controversial topic of diverse family structure of same-sex couples with thought provoking literature to children within the elementary classroom?

• Do teachers feel that same-sex families should be included within classroom units discussing family structure and family diversity and how would they implement it or why do they chose not to implement it?

Research Design•Qualitative•Unit Plan•Pre- and Post-interviews

▫1 pre service teacher (age: 24)▫2 current teachers (ages: 24-30)▫1 post teacher (age: 40s)▫Additional Participants provided drawings

Unit Plan•Brainstorm ideas/feelings/descriptions

about families.•Picture walk “And Tango Makes Three”.•Utilize words to describe the family of

penguins.•Read the book•Do students consider the penguins a family?•Literature (letters to Tango, Mr. Gramsey,

etc).

Assertion 1•Most graduate students thought families

consisted of a mom, a dad, and children.•There is a preconceived notion that many

hold about family structure

Assertion 2•Teachers believed they have a

professional responsibility to teacher about diverse family structure despite moral beliefs about the topic.

• Cognitive dissonance can be defined as the psychological tension or dissonance one feels when new knowledge or information is unlike previously learned knowledge (Novak & Cañas, 2008).

Teacher Responsibility vs. Cognitive Dissonance• On a personal level, it’s something I haven’t dealt

with yet and I don’t know how comfortable I would be because I have certain religious and moral beliefs that become problematic with this text but I am also very aware as an educator that my job is to introduce students to situations encountered in the real world in as unbiased a way as I possibly can. I am there to provide information and to help them learn…it’s one of those places where personal belief rubs very close to professional responsibility (Dan, interview, June 2013).

Teacher Responsibility Cont’d• As an educator, your job is to educate every student

in your classroom and statistically the odds are that you have probably already taught quite a few students who would identify as being homosexual, and our job as educators is not to allow students to be going through our classroom and our school feeling isolated. And so part of that is bridging the gap even if you might not personally agree with it, as an educator you have come into this profession to serve your students and so you need to be realistic about the population of students that you are probably serving. (Anne, interview, June 2013)

Student Cognitive Dissonance•What are student preconceived notions?•The importance of gender neutral

characters and a picture walk▫“it gives [students] the chance to make the

assumptions…they think the book is one mom, one dad and they starting generalizing them… and then boom, it’s not one mom, one dad, it’s two dads” (Dan, June 2013).

Assertion 3•Using diversity as a way to mask the

controversy.

•Opposition from parents▫Moral beliefs▫Personal beliefs▫Do not want kids exposed to the topic

Parent Opposition• I do see a lot of resistance occurring with parents.

This is unquestionably a hot button subject and whenever you do any kind of teaching that may or may not introduce kids to an idea that they have been taught is wrong by their family, you’re going to want to get approval from the parent and you may not receive it. I think there will be some difficult explanation going on in any classroom…no matter where. Now you may get support from parents too, you may have some very progressive parents who are glad this is being introduced (Dan, interview, June 2013).

Diverse or Not?•My unit plan was not a unit plan on

diverse family structures…true!•I only looked at ONE family structure•Sincere attempt to truly make a diverse

family unit plan that included ALL family structures

•Yet, what was the true intention?

Masking the Controversy•Why did participants feel the need to

supplement more family structures in a lesson on diverse family structure that was meant to specifically look at same sex families?

•A lessened resistance and opposition from families.

•They believed that if they taught about other family structures, the controversial topic of same-sex parents would not stand out; it would be masked by the other structures.

Masking the Controversy•And Tango Makes Three

▫Gender neutral penguins▫Not easily identifiable▫Title is not revealing

•Does the book mask the controversy? What do you think?

•Did I mask the controversy by picking a “safe” book?

So what do you think??•Would you teach about same-sex families

within an elementary classroom?•Would you use the book “And Tango Makes

Three” or would you chose a different book?•Is a lesson on diverse family structure

important to implement in the classroom? Why or why not?

•How would you teach this lesson so that you felt comfortable doing so?

References• Chasnoff, D. (Director/Producer) &Cohen, H. (Producer).

(1996). It’s elementary: Talking about gay issues in school [Motion picture]. San Francisco: The Respect For All Project.

• Chasnoff, D. (Director/Producer) & Cohen, H. (Producer). (2007) It’s still elementary [Motion Picture]. San Francisco: The Respect For All Project.

• French, J. (2002). Idealism meets reality. In L. Darling-Hammond, J. French, & S.P. Garcia-Lopez(Eds.), Learning to Teach for Social Justice (59-65). New York: Teacher College Press.

• Nieto, S., & Bode, P. (2008).Affirming diversity: The sociopolitical context of multicultural education (5th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

• Richardson, J. &Parnell, P. (2005). And tango makes three. New York: Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers.