Teaching Tolerance; Great Resource #2

The second resource that I want to share with you is called Teaching Tolerance.  Teaching Tolerance is a website that educators use to who care about diversity, equity and justice.  The website provides educators with a magazine, professional development, classroom resources, film kitts, publications and webinars to help teach teachers how to address diversity issues within a classroom.  And the best part; ALL the resources are free for educators.    You are able to subscribe to the website so you never miss a post!

http://www.tolerance.org

How is this beneficial for teaching about the LGBTQ community and making them feel comfortable in my classroom?  Well let me explain to you through various examples that I found on the website.

• Bullied: A Students, a School and a Case That Made History.  This is a documentary that "chronicles one student's ordeal at the hands of anti-gay bullies and offers an inspiring message of hope to those fighting harassment today."  The film is powerful and very realistic.  It is designed to help teachers create a safer environment for all students, not just those in the LGBTQ community.  The best part?  It is not just a documentary; it also includes a viewers guide with lesson plans and activities.
• Lorraine Hansberry: LGBT Politics and Civil Rights.  Although they are forgetting the Q in LGBTQ, this is still an amazing resource!!!! Students will look at the role of gay men and lesbians in the Civil Rights Movement.  It introduces students to four LGBT people of African Descent and their allies through playwright.  The students will make the connection between civil rights, women's rights and gay rights while examining the role African-American women played in the movements for racial, gender, and sexual equality.  What a powerful lesson! So much amazing learning and reflecting to be done.  And this website provides you with all the information needed to successfully accomplish this lesson.
• Reducing Gender Stereotyping and Homophobia in Sports.  This is an excellent resource seeing as many students are turned off of sport and physical education at a high school level because of sexual orientation and gender expression.  This lesson asks students to identify and discuss homophobia and gender stereotyping in athletics, and think about how to combat these attitudes and behaviours at their own school.  By the end of the unit students will understand how stereotypes harm and limit people, understand their own stereotypes about gender and sexual orientation, and make a plan to debunk these stereotypes about gender and sexual orientation within their school community.

Under the classroom resource tab you are able to pick from many topics.  The ones I suggested looking at while teaching about gender are; sexual orientation, gender expression, and gender equality.  There are an abundance of resources on this website that tie in gender in so many ways that half the time students won't even realize that it was the objective; to address sexism and LGBTQ within the school!