Dear parents,
I’m a high school teacher.
I don’t really want to teach your children moral values. Even though school was originally set up to teach students how to be productive and patriotic members of society, I’d rather let your children figure out most of the details on their own.
There’s one moral value that I think ought to be universal: Don’t deliberately hurt innocent people. And we can disagree about the details of that, too, but I think, overall, it ought to be universal.
I also think it ought to be something I don’t have to teach your children because you already have. So they already know it. And many of your children already, in fact, know it.
But some of them don’t. Because you haven’t taught them, and in many cases, because you don’t believe in it yourself. You think it’s fine to hurt anyone you please, either physically or emotionally.
I find that very sad, and as long as your child is in my jurisdiction, I will do my best to teach them that it’s not fine at all.
As for the rest: I’m multiply disabled and queer. I have never encouraged and will never encourage a youth in my school to be queer. I won’t discourage them, either. Just as I won’t tell them what religious beliefs to have, or what political beliefs to have, beyond that very basic universal: If someone tells you it’s okay to deliberately hurt innocent people, that’s not a good thing for that person to say.
(And I’m not perfect. I slip on the political thing sometimes. Plus this whole “innocent people” part gets complicated quickly.)
What I won’t do, though, is hide who I am. I’m multiply disabled and queer. I mute myself at work, because the focus should be on the content I teach, not on who I am. But I won’t lie to my students just because you have been led to believe by people who haven’t even been in a classroom for decades that things are happening in schools that simply aren’t happening.
Here’s another thing. If your child is reading a book you don’t want them to read, if your child is expressing beliefs about their identity they don’t want you to know, that’s between you and them. I’m not telling you. I’m not giving them those books, and I’m not encouraging that identity, but I’m probably not telling you, either.
Because if you’ve created a relationship with them where they’re doing things or reading things behind your back, that’s on you. If I think a youth is on their way to imminent risk, I’ll loop you in (or, more likely, I’ll tell the school social workers and let them loop you in). But if a student tells me they’re gay or trans, or I see them reading a book I’m pretty sure you don’t want them to read, as long as it’s legal for them to read, I’m not going to tell you.
Here’s the saddest part of what I’ve just written: The parents who agree with me have nodded along and understand. The parents who absolutely should never be told about who their children really are, on the other hand, are likely angry with me. The messenger. When the person they should really be upset with lives in the closest mirror.
If that applies to you, I hope you find peace, and I’ll gladly discuss, in civil tones, how to find that peace. Be well.
Signed,
Me