Bio
I am a second year Master of Teaching student at OISE. Prior to this program, I worked for three years as a Clinical Research Project Assistant at the Child & Youth Mental Health Research Unit at SickKids, focusing on eating disorder prevention. My research interests include body image and weight bias, with a particular focus on how these manifest in HPE classrooms. Moving into my second year in the MT program, I will be carrying through with a research project, my MTRP 2, where I will focus on the role of weight bias in Ontario schools via qualitative interviews with secondary school teachers. In attending the Sexuality, Education, and Social Justice workshop I hope to share what I have researched on the topic thus far, and explore the unique links to sexuality and social justice.
Julia Antonini
Abstract
The FAT Truth:
The Role of Weight Bias in Ontario Schools
In this presentation, I summarize my findings from my MTRP 1, a literature review which aimed to investigate the issue of weight bias in schools guided by the following questions: 1) How is weight bias defined? 2) What are the effects of weight bias on students (mentally, physically, and academically)? 3) Who are the main sources of weight bias? 4) What programming exists to help prevent weight bias? and 5) What is currently being done about this issue in the Ontario education system? After presenting these findings, I will discuss the role of weight bias in HPE settings in particular, and reflect on how this relates to topics of sexuality and social justice. Principally, how might sexual education perpetuate or challenge weight bias in the health and education curriculum, and are the sexual health needs of differently bodied students being given appropriate attention in the design and application of sexual education?
Bio
I am a MEd student at OISE with interests in sexuality, education, and social justice. Speakers on such topics usually speak from personal experience, and it is from their personal experience whereby their words are given authority and verve. I am however one who traverses the boundaries of two worlds often in conflict, yet rarely in conversation. I am fully aware that the labels ‘Christian,’ ‘evangelical’ and ‘LGBTQ’ are highly emotive terms and mean different things to different people. Yet in times when labels seem to define with the broadest of strokes, it may be necessary to paint over previous caricatures with new models and new ways of understanding. I can (probably) be best understood as an evangelical Christian. I am a supporter of the LGBTQ community. These labels, though they denote a fractious disunity in the heart of our society constitute a lasting peace in my own.
Daniel Bach
Abstract
Jacob's Well
Religious education in the 21st century now almost certainly presupposes a position on human sexuality. In a confused and conflicted era, it has become all the more necessary for faith groups to either reassert or reexamine their positions on what exactly it is that constitutes sex and marriage – those two features of human life that seem to define every generation. At least within the boundaries of the Christian Church, battle lines between and within denominations are being drawn. Looking to a story about the founder of Christianity, I propose new ways of configuring pedagogical models for religious education, ways that emphasize the transcending of gender, racial, moral and religious barriers and seek solidarity with the person, a meeting of I and Thou that is crying out to be realized today.
Bio
Taylor Berzins is first year M.A. student in the departments of Social Justice Education and Women and Gender Studies at University of Toronto. Taylor’s research interests center around sex education in media and tertiary spaces, reproductive justice, and post-trauma sexuality. In 2014, Taylor helped found the activist collective, Advocates for a Student Culture of Consent (ASCC). Through ASCC, Taylor co-authored Wilfrid Laurier University’s Sexual Violence Policy, has organized a number of anti-violence campaigns in the Brantford and Kitchener-Waterloo communities, and teaches sex education workshops for high school students. Taylor also co-facilitates the consent education campaign Consent is Golden.
Taylor Berzins
Abstract
"It’s sexy”: Consent Education Campaigns in Post Secondary Spaces
I am interested in how sex education, and experiences of sexual violence impact survivors’ agency in forming pleasurable sex lives. I will present thoughts about the efficacy of university campus consent education campaigns, as they relate to the sexuality of survivors of sexual violence. I will present on my own experiences as an anti-sexual violence activist and co-creator/facilitator of Wilfrid Laurier University’s official consent education campaign.
Bio
Natasha Burford is currently a Grade Four elementary teacher with the Toronto District School Board and a mother of three. She is the founder of a tutoring organization, More Than Marks Learning and Enrichment Centre, which provides educational supports. Natasha also runs a non-profit mentoring organization in her community of Downsview, Women Of Race Climbing It Together (WORC IT) working with racialized young women and mentors in an encouraging, innovative space to learn. Natasha’s PhD research concerns the experiences of Black Canadian women in education. At the time of the new Ontario HPE curriculum controversy, she wrote an article for parents in her community called “The ABCs of Sex Education.”
Natasha Burford
Abstract
Loving Blackness:
Exploring race in sexual education
I want to participate in the sexuality education workshop in order to share and learn more about sexual health for the students and young women in my community. I want to confront the very real issues affecting racialized youth that are not addressed in the school system or may not be spoken of at home. As a young, Black woman who experienced sexual abuse, I am interested in the intersection of social justice education initiatives and removing the taboos around sex. I will present some considerations derived from critical race studies to suggest how conceptions of sexual health are inextricable from ideas about racial and class hierarchy, while also promoting female empowerment and ownership of the female body within sexual healthy relationships.
Bio
I am a Master’s student in Adult Education and Community Development at OISE. For my MA thesis research, I am working toward an experimental participatory research project that is attuned to the affective capacities aroused in adult sex education spaces. In this context, I use adult sex education to describe the work of instruction about sexual practices: workshops offered through sex-positive retailers, recreational sexual spaces or online. I come to this research with experience as a sex educator with young adults and with an undergraduate degree in Sexuality/Queer Studies. In looking at practices in adult sex education, I am working to weave a Deleuzian approach to mapping flows of affect with a materialist feminist approach to sensing, harnessing, or ‘tuning into’ the erotic.
Lee Cameron
Abstract
TRY ME - Creating D.I.Y. Sex Education Play-Spaces for Adults
I imagine sex education that provides the space for experimentation and openness in its format, one that works consciously and follows particular affects that exceed signification as they are presented, sensed, or ‘tuned into’ in the room. This might look like yelling, producing and/or moving bodies to music, experimenting with self-touching, meditation, improv, or storytelling. I am working through the notions that any adult sexualities education should work to meet people where they are at, and that there are adults interested in expanding their erotic capacities, who might seek out something different than the tactile or skill-building courses already offered in the field within retail stores, pornography, instructional text, or sex lounges. For my research, I will conduct workshops alongside members of the queer/sex-positive education community in Toronto. In this presentation I will describe these affective and sensory workshops through a Deleuzian, materialist feminist framework.
Bio
Shawna Carroll is a PhD candidate in the Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning at OISE/UofT. Shawna’s PhD research focuses on the ways women and gender nonconforming youth negotiate their non-normative gender and sexuality subjectivities through the anticolonial counter-narrative fiction they read. She will use an anticolonial feminist postmodern literacy theoretical framework and a feminist Deleuzian methodological framework to create a book club research environment for her project. She has taught a variety of courses at the elementary, secondary, and postsecondary level, and is an educator at heart.
Shawna Carroll
Abstract
White Settler Colonial Gender and Sexuality:
An Anticolonial Feminist Perspective
Sexuality education is not only the subject within the Health and Physical Education curriculum, but gender and sexuality are woven through all curricula. This presentation explains a specific anticolonial feminism theoretical framework, which is utilized as a lens to enact a critical discourse analysis of the Ontario Secondary English curricula. Through asking specific questions of the documents (i.e., what kind of language is used to describe sexuality, gender, race, culture, and capitalism?), I uncover the ways white settler colonial ideology and discourse are (re)produced in the documents. I explain how white settler colonial ideology understands and (re)produces a binary colonial gender system and heteronormative sexuality, and open up the conversation to understand how this ideology and discourse affect all in different ways depending on constitutive subjectivities (Coloma, 2008). Using the English curricula, I show that although curricula documents aim to be inclusive, they (re)produce white settler colonial ideology and discourse.
Bio
John Caffery is a multidisciplinary artist and community worker who engages art in social change and works on creative responses to oppression. His 15 year career began on the stages of Vaseline, the legendary party where he performed as a dancer. John is a designer and a mentor for the Banff Centre leadership institute. John was selected to be part of the Cultural Leaders Lab, created by Toronto Arts Council and The Banff Centre to enhance leadership capacity in Toronto’s arts and culture sectors. In 2017, John began a new role as a professor at George Brown College teaching in the Community Worker program. At Supporting Our Youth (SOY), John designed the program: HEAT (Human Rights Equity Access Team) to engage LGBTQ2S youth using arts-based methods to develop skills and opportunities that empower them to be active citizens and advocates for social justice. John is currently pursuing a Masters in Environmental Studies at York University to explore the intersections of Art & Activism within 2SLGBTQ communities and how to best engage youth in Social Justice.
John Caffery
Abstract
Hall of Justice:
2SLGBTQ Activist Poster Series Presentation
How have 2SLGBTQ communities had an impact at challenging oppression? How can knowledge of this be discovered and shared in a meaningful way with youth? Hall of Justice explores the historical and contemporary methods and practices 2SLGBTQ (Two Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans, Queer) communities have developed to resist injustice. Answering the above questions involved a project with 2SLGBTQ youth leaders to examine key incidents when 2SLBTQ communities locally and globally have challenged oppression. The results informed the creation of a posters series celebrating 2SLGBTQ activists. This process of creating the poster series explored the intersections of art and activism and the pedagogy of social justice. This presentation is an opportunity to exhibit the posters and share the process of working with youth to create educational resources about sexuality and gender. Hall of Justice addresses a need for 2SLGBTQ youth to see their identities and their communities reflected on the walls of the spaces they frequent. Sharing the posters around the city celebrates both the work of the youth and their growing connectedness with the history of the 2SLGBTQ communities.
Bio
Heather Clark is Masters of Teaching candidate at OISE who is passionate about helping students access important health and physical education during the secondary years. During the first year of her program, she conducted a literature review of the gaps in sexual health education for adolescents. In the next phase of her research, she hopes to investigate the possible ways that teachers could ensure such important health information could be provided to students. She hopes that by attending this workshop she will gather more information about what other researchers feel about improving the health education of Ontario secondary students.
Heather Clark
Abstract
A Literature Review of What Adolescent Health Education Should Include
In this presentation I will discuss the research that I completed for my MTRP1, which summarized the current literature on the importance of health education for adolescents, how teenagers currently make health choices, what should be included in health education, and how it should be taught. Based on the studies reviewed, it appears that additional health education would significantly benefit adolescents for many reasons, that a variety of topics would be beneficial for teenagers to learn about, and that there are a number of methods that educators could use to effectively teach the content to adolescent students. A common theme amongst all of the reviewed literature is that adolescents would learn and utilize health information more effectively if it were taught continuously, incorporated social components, and was actively engaging. I will analyze how the 2015 Ontario secondary Health and Physical Education curriculum fosters these components and how it could be improved.
Bio
Heather is a sexuality educator, an M.Ed candidate, and general rabble-rouser. Her research interests stem from their activism and community organizing, centring on the co-creation and co- maintenance of consent, sexuality education and the acceptance of divergent sexualities. In addition to their formal studies, Heather roots her knowledge in years of field work having spent over a decade engaging in sexuality education, community organization and creating peer support-based spaces for individuals most likely to experience abuse, consent violations and a lack of power in non-traditional relationship structures. It is from these experience and conversations that she grounds her explorations into theory that explains why individuals may behave as they do. Their work is practically focused and always aims to start conversations the honour the complexity of the world around them.
Heather Craig
Abstract
On Speaking Desire – What could happen when we flip the consent script?
Current consent education methods are grounded in the concept of consent as permission received from others, and thus teach others how to ask for or evaluate the presence of consent. This view, however, has some important flaws that need addressing. This session names potential problems with the current dominant model of consent and offers an alternative. By training those who know their desire to speak up and create a space for others to join, we reduce pressure on those who are clear on personal agency, but uncertain of their desires, potentially reducing the risk of self-coercion and creating space for those inexperienced with negotiating intimate encounters. Offering desire also provides us with tools to add check in points with our partners, establishing consent as an ongoing aspect of intimate encounters without ruining the mood. Finally, it charges all parties with responsibility towards co-creation and co-maintenance of consent.
Bio
I am a PhD student in the department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning at OISE. As a scholar who is interested in sexuality education, queer masculinities, disability studies, and Gay Male Social Networking Applications (GMSNAs), this conference presents an opportunity to share the beginning theoretical frameworks for my PhD research with fellow graduate students and academics while engaging with other interesting and unique work in the fields of sexuality studies and education. This conference theme fits within my prior work (both publications and conference presentations) and will allow me to engage with scholars in sexuality education from various paradigms.
Adam Davies
Abstract
Gay Masculinities and Sexuality Education: The Constitution of Gay Male Subjects and Schooling
Gender, as a relational construct, is situated within socio-cultural discourses of capital, power, and hegemony (Connell, 1995). Masculinities, in particular, are multiple and performative while being hierachized under structures of gender, sexuality, race and class. For this presentation, I will present components of the theoretical frameworks for my PhD dissertation on sexuality education and gay masculinities. This presentation will discuss the construction of gay male subjects in schooling and the representation of gay masculinities through sexuality education. Drawing from literature on gay masculinities (Nardi, 2000; Landreau & Rodriguez, 2011; Levine & Kimmel, 1998; Kendall & Martino, 2005; Ward, 2008, 2015) and philosophies of authenticity in identity (Bialystok, 2009, 2013), this presentation will explicate how gay masculinities and identities are constituted through neoliberal and individualized conceptions of sexualities and the various identity-based challenges for gay male youth. While providing approaches for considering gay masculinities and the multiple gender identities of gay men, this presentation will problematize one-dimensional representations of gay male subjects within sexuality education while delineating the identity-based struggles gay male youth encounter in schooling and curriculum.
Bio
As a middle school student, I received sparse SHE. During one health lesson in Grade seven, I recall my teacher forming the shape of a triangle with her fingers as she lowered her hands to her pelvic region and said, “This is the size of your uterus, and this is where babies grow.” No other anatomical terminology or relevant context was provided. Instead, we were given an analogy of watering a seed, which allows a plant to grow. At just twelve years old, I remember sensing my teacher's discomfort and her evident desire to return to a fitness-oriented class. This lack of information from school encouraged me to seek answers elsewhere- community health care services- where I was provided with open and honest pleasure-based SHE free from judgment. Since then, I have had the privilege of volunteering at Planned Parenthood Toronto and mentoring students across the GTA. While I have always felt comfortable approaching discussions surrounding SHE, upon entering OISE in the MT program, I quickly realized my colleagues were less prepared to teach it. Why is this the case? And how can we best prepare teachers to implement the new 2015 curriculum?
Julia Gutowski
Abstract
We Should All Talk About Sex - Implementing Ontario’s New Sexual Health Curriculum
My research focuses on teacher self-efficacy when approaching teaching sexual health. Research shows while most teachers believe in sexual health education, they do not feel prepared to teach it. Without training, teachers are overwhelmed with barriers when discussing this touchy subject, such as parental backlash and fear of student reactions. Some teachers feel health practitioners are better suited to educate youth on this topic. But, while schools have access to students on a daily basis, health services do not. By critically analyzing the syllabi of teacher education programs in Ontario, I hope to assess how teacher candidates are being prepared to implement the new sexual health curriculum. In 2015, the same year the new health and physical education curriculum was released, teacher education programs in Ontario changed from one to two-year programs. How has this additional time affected sexual health training for pre-service teachers?
Bio
I am an EdD student at OISE University of Toronto. I have a Bachelor of Arts in Ethics, Law and Society and Religion. My Master’s Degree is in Religion and Modernity. Previous research has focused on conservative evangelical Christianity and sexual abstinence education in U.S. public schools. My doctoral work is centred around sexuality education in Ontario’s publicly funded Catholic schools. I am particularly interested in the Catholic response to Ontario’s 2015 update to the Health and Physical Education curriculum. I have begun to design and conduct empirical research with participants who have experience teaching sexuality education in Ontario's Catholic schools to determine how they teach the Ontario Ministry of Education’s curriculum from a Catholic perspective, whether they feel any pressure to omit any part of the curriculum and whether they feel conflicted by anything they teach.
Caileigh Guy
Abstract
Sexuality Education in Ontario’s Publicly Funded Catholic Schools: Teaching Comprehensive Sex Ed Through a Catholic Lens
In this presentation I share the current state of my research into sexuality education in Ontario’s publicly funded Catholic schools. In my research, I aim to try to understand how Catholic teachers interpret their task of teaching Ontario's Health and Physical Education (HPE) curriculum through a Catholic lens and whether they experience any challenges in trying to carry out their work. By the time of the presentation I hope to have begun my thesis proposal and to be thinking about an ethics application. It is unlikely I will have have the opportunity to conduct new empirical research before the workshop so I will use the Institute for Catholic Educations’s (ICE) Fully Alive program to demonstrate what the HPE curriculum can look like when taught through a Catholic lens. I will also discuss my plan to interview teachers and observe teaching in action to gain a more in depth understanding of the range of interpretations that can exist when a Catholic lens is employed. I will state my hypothesis, that the ICE’s assertion that Catholic schools will affectively teach the HPE curriculum through a Catholic lens is flawed. Rather, such a hybrid leaves the curriculum open to multiple interpretations and could rob students of the opportunity to gain full and accurate information about sexuality. Some more extreme interpretations can undermine the HPE curriculum by sabotaging student’s abilities to keep their bodies safe and healthy or misinforming students about human right’s issues and where to find emotional support. Such interpretations can have devastating consequences. I hope to share my research plan and goals so that I can collaborate with peers and faculty discussants to improve my approach.
Bio
Laura Hughes is a Niagara-based community educator and speaker passionate about the arts, youth empowerment, and social justice. Her Master's research focused on queering sex education to centre queer, non-binary, and trans youth in Ontario’s updated Health and Physical Education Curriculum and in classrooms across the province. She is a trained counsellor for sexual violence survivors and has facilitated over 60 equity-driven workshops across Southern Ontario in elementary, secondary, college, and university classrooms. She creates and delivers programming tailored to youth, educators, and organizations on topics of consent, mental health, self-care, leadership, and sexual health education.
Laura Hughes
Abstract
Queering Sex Ed: Centering Queer, Non-Binary, and Trans students in the Teaching of Ontario's Updated 2015 Health and Physical Education Curriculum
In this presentation I summarize the findings of my Major Research Paper, which examined the need for comprehensive professional development to support teacher capacity to speak to queer, trans, and non-binary students in the rollout of the 2015 Health and Physical Education Curriculum. I will highlight two main themes and approaches involved in bridging the gap between curriculum and classroom, and between policy and practice: robust training in challenging hetero- and cis-normativity for pre-service teachers (consecutive, concurrent, and Bachelor of Education students) and in-service teachers; and the creation and use of sexual health education programming, lesson plans, and guides separate from the curriculum that can complement the expectations outlined for Grades 1-12. I will present the training resources and programming I've developed to illustrate how my research has informed my practice in queering sexual health education to centre LGBTQ+ students in the teaching of the HPE curriculum.
Bio
Nadia Junaid is a Toronto-based community health educator. She is passionate about health promotion, social justice, youth empowerment, and prevention education. She recently graduated from the AECD program in LHAE. Her Master's research paper focuses on Muslim Young Adults and Sexual Health Knowledge. It is still currently in the data analysis stage. She is a trained anonymous HIV tester and facilitates equity-driven workshops to non-profit organizations. She creates and delivers programming tailored to youth, educators, and non-profit health organizations on topics of consent, healthy relationships, inclusion and equity, and sexual health education.
Nadia Junaid
Abstract
An Exploratory Study: Muslim Young Adults and Sexual Health Knowledge
This exploratory study aims to close a research gap on the sexual health knowledge and sexual health service needs of Muslim Young Adult s (MYA) in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Due to limited research on MYA, in both Canada and the United States, there is minimal or no sexual health education programming that is based in the context of faith and cultural backgrounds in the public health, school-based or community education sector. This includes an understanding of any experiences related to sexual health knowledge, sources of sexual information, beliefs and ability to access appropriate sexual health services and how sexual behavior impacts their mental health. Based on the research examined in my literature review, many MYA engage in sex without accessing reliable sources of information. Some face conflicting values on the subject both inside and outside the home, which may affect their ability to make informed, healthier sexual choices. Even though there is no single homogenous identity amongst MYA, evidence points to a shared culture of silence around sex and sexual health. For some MYA, the conflict between existing in two worlds - the sexual freedom enjoyed by their peers and the more orthodox religiosity of their home - makes sexual decision-making difficult and can cause extensive guilt and anxiety. This study aims to highlight some of these challenges: Where do MYA get their sexual health information? What kinds of information do they access? And what is their comfort level in accessing sexual health services? This paper focusses on MYA’s sources of information about sexual health. A majority of MYA in North America are not accessing reliable sources of information about sex. This has the potential to affect their lives in a harmful and negative way. Several North American studies (Ali-Faisal, 2014; Mohajir, Azmat & Parvez, n.d.) found that MYA got most of their information on sex from the media.
Bio
Alexandra completed her Master of Teaching degree at OISE, with a junior/intermediate focus in Health and Physical Education and a research focus on teaching consent in the updated Health and Physical Education curriculum. She is currently an occasional teacher in the Hamilton area.
Alex Kelly
Abstract
Consent in Sex Education: Teacher Perspectives on Teaching Consent in the Updated Health and Physical Education Curriculum
Explicit discussions about consent have been missing from Canadian sex education and have the potential to enable students to have difficult conversations about their limits, boundaries and desires in intimate relationships. Although consent is now expected to be taught by Ontario teachers in elementary and high schools due to the recent Health and Physical Education curriculum update, a thorough review revealed that ‘consent’ is undefined in the document. Teachers are potentially left to conceptualize and interpret the meaning of consent without any clear guidelines as to what it really is and how to teach it to students of various ages. This study employed a qualitative research approach consisting of a review of the relevant literature about the topic, as well as in-person, semi-structured interviews with two Ontario Health and Physical Education teachers. Through the data analysis, four main themes emerged that highlight connections between teacher practice and current research. These themes centre on teacher recognition of the importance of teaching consent to the lives of students and how teachers teach consent differently by gender. They highlight the difficulties teachers face in understanding consent and translating the meaning of consent into language their students can understand, pointing to the need for additional support and resources in the teaching of consent.
Bio
I am a high school teacher in Toronto. The subjects I teach, most often English and Social Sciences, are not directly affected by what is taught as sexual education curriculum in health class. Indirectly, however, what I teach is often just as much about sex and sexuality. After all, George Orwell’s 1984 is about sex, among other things, and notions of sexuality cannot be isolated from the discussion of most media tropes or current events. Outside of my role as classroom teacher, I am a PhD candidate studying discourses of empathy at OISE. I am interested in how we decide which experiences and narratives are worthy of empathy, and which we may sideline or disregard.
Polina Kukar
Abstract
Ontario’s revised K-12 health and physical education curriculum and the mobilization of empathy
This presentation explores the mobilization of empathy in media coverage of support and opposition to the revised health and physical education curriculum in Ontario. I propose that the discourses around both support for and opposition to the curriculum mirror the challenges of using empathy as a tool for teaching for social justice in the classroom. Both the elementary and secondary physical education curriculum documents note, “Healthy relationships are based on respect, caring, empathy, trust and dignity, and thrive in an environment in which diversity is honoured and accepted.” But how does empathy operate in such a context? With whom do we empathize? With the vulnerable groups whom the revised curriculum aims to protect? With those who feel threatened by these same changes? And if we are to respect, honour, accept, and empathize with everyone, where do we start, and what distinguishes intimate relationships from others where the same virtues are called for?
Bio
Terri-Lynn Langdon is a disAbled social worker and social justice activist based in Toronto. She currently sits on the Toronto Accessibility Advisory Committee (TAAC) working on housing projects and the disability and policing review. She works at the Eight Branches Healing Arts Centre as a social worker and counselling instructor. She is currently pursuing her doctorate in the Department of Social Justice Education at OISE. Her research focuses on health equity for women with Disabilities particularly after they present to health care professionals after incidence of violence. She takes a human rights approach to advance social justice initiatives in the communities to which she belongs. She is an active community member as a hospice volunteer, housing advocate, and an integral member of The Toronto Youth Equity Strategy and CivicAction.
Terri-Lynn Langdon
Abstract
Future Directions and Social Justice Practices:Advancing SexAbility in Education for Student's with DisAbilities and Medical Professionals
In this presentation I will discuss some of the barriers to sex education for disabled students and propose suggestions for future directions. The aims of sexAbility programs for youth with disabilities and for medical professionals will be examined. I will also comment briefly on the paucity of sexAbility training for medical professionals who may express an interest in bringing sex positive discourse to persons with disabilities. Linkages will be made between the medicalization of disability and infantalization of the disabled and how this contributes to current myths of sexuality, desire and the disabled.
Bio
benjamin lee hicks is a visual artist, elementary school teacher and PhD candidate in Curriculum Studies and Teacher Development at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. They taught primary/junior grades in the Toronto District School Board for eight years, and have designed support materials for teachers on topics of sustainable community building, queering space, and arts-based activism. benjamin’s current research considers how teachers understand their own identities in relation to “knowing”/not-knowing. They are particularly interested in how un-certainty affects the willingness of teachers to act publicly on felt-beliefs when it comes to supporting trans/gender diverse youth. In considering this divide, benjamin’s research focuses on teacher education, asking what might happen if we were to slow down the pace at which ideas of social justice are addressed in all levels of schooling – making more time and space for the personal identity work of teachers alongside social and political theory.
benjamin lee hicks
Abstract
A MILLION EXTREMELY AWKWARD PIECES: De-sensationalizing beliefs about transition/change in teacher education
This presentation will share findings from my MA research project, which considers the question of what happens when student teachers are invited to learn about trans/gender diverse identities through a creative exploration of their own relationship to identity+change. Each participant in this study came to a similar understanding: that in order to actively queer space in schools, they would need a) the opportunity to engage in a much slower process of personal inquiry about the topic, and b) the assurance that their colleagues would support and encourage them in this process. In short: they came to believe in the imperative of this work, but were exposed to a supportive collegial community so briefly that they did not yet feel comfortable addressing it in their own schools/classrooms. Plans for my PhD research combine the reflections of these participants with the idea that ongoing professional development could be a place where teachers learn concrete skills of self-care, collegial support, and sustainable community building;and that these skills are essential for queering space because they directly support the emotional labour involved in teaching/learning about transition/change.