“You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”
Written by Corinna Richards
An avid crocheter, who also happens to teach, train and lead.
“You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”
— Andrew Grant.
Whether Oscar Wilde or Will Rogers said it first, isn’t for this purpose particularly important. What any student or teacher with a facial disfigurement will tell you, is that it’s true. And the experience of that is hugely important. It’s always been true, but in our “beauty bias” society, looking different – whatever that difference may be, is a big deal. Having a facial or ‘visible difference’ can be excruciating. Our physical appearance matters in first impressions. I’m not saying it should, but from my experience it does.
I blog about this from two perspectives. Firstly, as a person with a congenital facial disfigurement who works in Education and secondly as an EdD student. I’ve just turned 50, and “back in the day” plastic surgery wasn’t as developed as it is now. I had my first plastic, corrective surgery at the age of 11, so I spent my primary school years looking very different. My skull fused together in the womb prematurely which caused my eyes to be extremely wide set and for my nose to be virtually flat with two small nostrils. You can imagine…
However, like everyone, I’ve adapted, over-compensated and fought my way back. I always wanted to teach and that’s what I’ve always done. Apart from three terms in suburbia I’ve always taught in inner city London and only once did I have any issues regarding my face from a pupil. I loved and still do, the diversity of the inner-city, the children were remarkably accepting of my appearance, we were all shapes and sizes together, the issue of ‘normal’ just never seemed too prevalent. The same couldn’t be said for the parents! The suspicion of my appearance was always there, in some heated exchanges a name regarding my appearance would slip out (yawn… I’ve never heard that one before…) and I’ve even had some parents ask my secretary what is wrong with my face! (One of the many reasons I prefer children to adults!)
But last year, I had a bit of a shock.
I am in the third of year of EdD at UEL and I am studying the lived experience of Imposter Phenomenon in Teacher Educators. It’s really interesting, but it wasn’t my first choice. Initially, I wanted to study IP in teachers with visible differences. I couldn’t find any. I didn’t know any. I didn’t know any teachers with facial burns, or severe acne, or disfiguring birthmarks or craniosynostosis… statistically they must exist (I am for one)… but where are they? I then thought about all the pupils I have taught over nearly 30 years… lots of differences, but when did I teach a child who was like me? I don’t think I have. Where are these children and where are the teachers?
Recently, in an updated version of Malory Towers, a young actor, Beth Bradfield, with a visible difference joined the cast, but how often do we see actors with facial burns or scars? Possibly in James Bond, but then of course, only as the villain. I attended my first DEI event last weekend, it was brilliant. Representation matters. Yes, it does. So how do I help other people like me have the courage to stand in front of groups of people and teach. I spent decades of my life trying to hide my face. I was desperate to make my visible difference invisible. It seems like I might not be the only one.
For more information visit:
‘Changing Faces’:
The Katie Piper Foundation: www.katiepiperfoundation.org.uk
Headlines:
Geography: Righting the world?
Written by Steve Brace
Head of Education and Outdoor Learning at the Royal Geographical Society. He started his career as a geography teacher and had previously led the education programmes for ActionAid and the Commonwealth Institute.
Studying geography enables young people to better understand the world’s people, places and environments, the interactions between them – from the local to the global scale.
As Ofsted notes, this requires teachers to critically reflect on the imagery, data and attitudes they portray to pupils, so that geography can accurately represents the nature of the world’s people, communities, economies, diversities and experiences (Ofsted 2021). And, as our world continues to change so must geography. This makes the subject such a fascinating and challenging one to teach and why geography has an important role in supporting equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI).
Geography has one of the best gender balances of all subjects and over the last 10 years its GCSE cohort has become much more diverse. Since 2010 its GCSE entries have increased by over 50% reaching a record high of 282,000 candidates last summer. It is welcome that this growth has come predominantly from those groups who were previously less likely to study geography: Black, Asia and minority ethnic pupils; pupils with lower prior attainment; those from low-income backgrounds; and/or pupils studying in comprehensive schools (RGS 2020)
However, the positive change at GCSE is not yet being seen at A Level and the narrowing of intake continues further at university. This is despite the positive outcomes that geography provides for its graduates, who experience above average rates of graduate employment and ‘top 10’ graduate salaries.
It is recognised by the colleagues across the subject community that more work is needed to better support EDI in relation to the curriculum, resources, the teaching workforce and how the subject can support young peoples’ career aspirations. Examples of current activities include:
- Puttick and Murrey’s research (2020) which identified that the ‘piecemeal approach to geographies of race and racism is insufficient for educating students for the 21stC’
- The scholarship shared through the RGS’s Decolonising geographical knowledges conference
- The Higher Education community’s support for accessible and inclusive fieldwork and pride in the field
- The advocacy and work of Black Geographers
- And teacher led initiatives such as Decolonising Geography , Inspirational Geographers and – alongside many others – that of Shiv Das, Hina Robinson and Hafsa Bobat
There are also opportunities to reduce the gap between geographical research and the classroom, such as through the RGS’s Ask the Geographer podcast which share the work of research geographer with teacher and their pupils. Schemes-of-work can also be updated through the incorporation of new research findings, such as the resources based on the Migrants on the Margins research programme which investigated the lives of migrants in Colombo, Dhaka, Harare and Hargeisa. Such resources are further complemented by the wider contributions of many others including Worldmapper, Gapminder and Dollar Street.
Consideration needs also to be given to not only to what is being taught, but also who is teaching geography. This situation is explored in I didn’t have any teachers that looked like me which shares the perspectives of Black, Asian and minority ethnic trainee and early career geography teachers. And they recommend the need for EDI to be held as a responsibility for all geography teachers, as well as the wider subject community and its institutions.
Geographers can also critically reflect on the subject’s development through Britain’s period of Empire and imperialism, how the subject helped create and share stereotypical views about the world and the continuing legacy of these. For example, the very first volume of the Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society (1857) an author ascribes the Moroccan town of Sala’s decline to “ignorance, despotism and Mohammedanism”. However, dissenting voices – including those of African descent – can be found in geography’s history, such as the 19thC testimony of James Africanus Horton of Sierra Leone and Edward Blyden of Liberia. Both were critics of Eurocentric stereotyping of African cultures and provide an early precursor to Chimamanda Adichie’s warning of a single story. Now in the 21stC there an imperative to rediscover geography’s diverse voices some of which can be seen in the RGS’s Hidden Histories of Exploration which highlighting the important contributions of African, Asian and Inuit people
As the geographer Professor Chris Philo recently said – geography invites both ‘earth-writing’ – words to evoke worlds, and ‘earth-righting’ – actions to improve worlds. For this to be achieved geography needs to become more equal, diverse and inclusive. Many within the subject have been setting a course to help achieve this, though this journey has still significant distance to travel.
Belonging, safely
Written by Gemma Hargraves
Gemma Hargraves is a Deputy Headteacher responsible for Safeguarding, Inclusion and Wellbeing.
Reflecting on several sessions from the recent Diverse Educators virtual conference it struck me that so much of our EDI work is also vital safeguarding work. As a Deputy DSL I spend my days balancing pastoral care, safeguarding, History teaching and various other responsibilities. Until now I actually hadn’t realised how my EDI work is complementary to my safeguarding work.
All readers will have heard that “you can’t be what you can’t see” and this need for recognition and role models extends to safeguarding too. Pupils need to know they are in an environment where they are valued and celebrated in order to feel truly safe. It strikes me that a pupil may not disclose various issues if they feel they would not be heard, understood or believed. Beit a neurodiverse pupil struggling with issues around consent, an LBGTQ+ young person experiencing unkindness, a disabled child faced with ableism daily or a person of colour dealing with regular microaggressions. Of course having a diverse staff body, including in senior positions, may help ensure all pupils feel safe and a sense of belonging but active allies have a vital role to play here. Pupils in the first presentation said “ignorance breeds intolerance” and I would build on that to say in safeguarding terms ignorance is dangerous. We all need to be professionally curious whilst being respectful. @AspringHeads gave some examples of shocking things Black teachers have been asked, including endless comments about hair, skin colour or names, and comments of this nature to Black pupils would absolutely be considered a safeguarding concern.
A key part of safeguarding is also accurate and timely recording of incidents; this is key to tracking trends and understanding context to actively promote inclusion. If we are to ensure all pupils are safe and can thrive, we need to have a clear picture of incidents or challenges faced. We have a duty to ensure that pupils are not negatively labelled or stereotyped based on any characteristic and teachers have high expectations of all pupils. Safeguarding is also about preventing harm to children’s development and taking action to enable all children and young people to have the best outcomes – here EDI is clearly vital and we can see tangible returns on investment in diversifying the curriculum. Of course, we reinforce this by the displays around school, the books studied, the trips that are offered etc but the culture individual teachers nurture in their classrooms is key to both EDI and safeguarding.
As was made clear at Diverse Educators recently, good intentions are not enough. We must act. EDI requires resourcing, time and energy. It must not be an afterthought in another year of TAGs marking and administration, staffing issues and COVID challenges ad infinitum. Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility and so is EDI. We need to recognise and respect cultures, traditions and changes but with clear red lines in terms of safeguarding to ensure everyone can bring their whole self to school and be safe. Sometimes we hear “I don’t see colour” but surely we must see it, value it, celebrate it and protect all children regardless.
Limp Handshakes and Auditory Bias: My Process of Applying for Headship
Written by Kevin Carson
Headteacher at The Royal Masonic School for Girls. A learner, an English teacher, and a dad to 2 fab girls. Originated in Liverpool, enjoying living in the Shires.
I have been attending a monthly Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion leadership programme with Diverse Educators since April 2021. It is led by @Ethical_Leader and @Angela_Browne, and it has uplifted, educated, and inspired me every month.
Hannah and Angie are clear and correct that DEI work is safeguarding work, that well embedded DEI makes school communities safer places. The aim of their programme is not to rush into anything in a knee-jerk way, but to listen, reflect, learn, and then start to put together a 3-to-5-year plan that works for each school: carefully planning sustained change over time.
At the start of this week’s session, mention was made of an excellent candidate for headship who so far has not been appointed and there was a feeling that this may at least in part be connected to his race and from that perhaps also in part to his strong accent. This anecdote stayed with me after the session, conscious as I am that over 96% of male and female headteachers in England are white, and with my own awareness of how frequently my accent was referenced when I was applying to be a Headteacher.
I have decided to share a couple of anecdotes relating to my applications for the post of Head at independent schools when my accent was considered a relevant factor.
I once applied for a Headteacher post where afterwards I was told by the head-hunters, “You were the preferred candidate, the first choice, but the Board have decided not to appoint. They were quite vague and evasive with us about why this was, and they could only give reasons such as ‘His handshake wasn’t strong enough’, whatever that means. I think you can draw your own conclusions from this, Kevin.” A few months later, the Bursar at that particular school later told me straight that the Chair of Governors didn’t wish for somebody from my background as Head of ‘his’ school.
On another occasion I attended a training session with one of the head-hunter firms, as part of a course for half a dozen applicants who they felt were close to headship. Afterwards, the course leader told me, “We agreed that you were the strongest candidate from the process we saw today. You are 100% ready to be a headteacher, but we think that you should seriously consider booking yourself in for elocution lessons because your accent will be the reason that you are not going to be appointed.” As an English teacher I know enough about language, culture, and identity to be able to reply that if a school didn’t wish to take me as I am then they weren’t the right school for me and I wouldn’t wish to be their headteacher.
For those who do not know me, as my About Me section says, I grew up in Huyton, Liverpool, a working-class area that is in the second most deprived borough in England, and I have quite a strong Liverpudlian accent. The Chair of Governors at my then current school did make a decision to directly address my accent in his reference, raising it as a potential consideration before clarifying why this shouldn’t be a factor in a Board’s thinking, pre-emptively calling this out as it were.
I am a straight, white, male headteacher of an independent school. I have a 1st class degree, and an M.Phil. from Trinity College, Cambridge – there is a whole bunch of privilege there. At the time of the anecdotes above I was also Interim Head of The Grammar School at Leeds, a large, diamond model school. I had quite a strong CV on paper, and to be honest I suspect that in a comparable way to my accent wrongly being deemed relevant at interview, it is also not inconceivable that my educational background helped get me to the interview stage. Some Boards like this kind of thing, taking it to signify far more than it should.
I want to be clear that this is not a post about bias and class in the independent sector. I have worked in four independent schools, valued them all, and have found them all to be far more egalitarian workplaces than some might imagine. Very many people working in the independent sector desire to do social good and to help to create a more inclusive and sustainable world. More specifically, in RMS, I have found a values-led school with a strong ethos that is prepared to think differently about all aspects of education. I feel appreciated there for who I am, and my accent or social background aren’t referenced in relation to the job that I do because nobody feels they are relevant.
But I have shared a few of my experiences here, (and each of these are only from six years ago), as anecdotal evidence that bias is still out there in appointing Heads. The education system would be a better place if this were not the case, and we all need to consider the ways in which we can demonstrate commitment to a diverse, equitable, and inclusive staff community in our schools. For me, it was bias in relation to attitudes to social class, and a little bit of auditory bias. The government figures from 2019 indicate the extent to which this is a far greater issue in relation to race and ethnicity.
The data shows:
- There were around 22,400 headteachers in 2019, and over two-thirds of those (around 15,100) were women
- 96.1% of female headteachers were White (92.6% White British, 1.7% White Irish and 1.8% White Other)
- 97.0% of male headteachers were White (92.9% White British, 2.1% White Irish and 2.0% White Other)
A few final thoughts on this topic for now from me:
- I hope and want to believe this bias and prejudice is receding, gradually diminishing. I believe in the transformative power of education as a force for social change that makes a positive difference. Interestingly, the Foundation that found my background not the right fit for them and that blamed it on my limp handshake have changed their entire Board since then, and there are now seven women and three people of colour on a more diverse Board there. You would like to think this would not happen again.
- @jillberry102 was a great source of advice and support throughout my applications for headship. She always said that in the end you find the right school for you, the right fit for you. I do think there is something in this. I can now view my earlier experiences as lucky escapes.
- There is a great deal I have taken from the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion leadership course, both from the leaders and from the brilliant colleagues that are attending with me from both sectors, and from the UK and overseas. I am sure I will write about this learning again, including about how we strive to apply it at RMS. We have just appointed two DEI leads at RMS – they are brilliant colleagues who will do a great deal of good in this role. My first show of support for them was to sign them up for Hannah and Angie’s training course with Diverse Educators.
Supporting pupils with ADHD in schools
Written by Nadia Hewstone
Nadia is a certified executive school leadership coach. She left headship to start Destino Coaching and now supports school leaders with their own development as well as development of their teams.
Even as a parent of a child with ADHD, as a teacher I struggled to find and implement strategies to support my students with the diagnosis. I found many things that ‘worked’, but many more that didn’t. The search continued when I became a Headteacher who was supporting colleagues who also struggled to find the answer. Where things changed was when I stopped looking for what worked and started understanding what I was happening for those students.
In his book Shattered Minds, Gabor Mate identifies a number of strategies, that spoke to me and that I wished I’d discovered sooner in my career. He makes a case for reducing ‘imposed structure and discipline’ and increasing ‘freedom for individuality and self-expression.’
I was relieved he didn’t go on to advocate unstructured classrooms, as I know that would be nearly impossible, in the current climate. Instead, he talks about recognising the ‘supressed energy’ of students with ADHD through our responses to them, which so often includes sarcasm, shaming and shouting.
This principle is the first to master in our endeavour to support these creative and courageous young people. The secret to success in this matter, for teachers, lies in not adding to the problem by alienating these student any further.
I saw the impact of this in my own school when the teaching staff and I made a pact to refrain from any type of shaming response to a child’s behaviour. We did some work as a team to recognise our triggers and manage our reactions to be able to keep to the pact. Behaviour in this group of students improved dramatically.
This came back to bite me again, when my own child’s behaviour invoked explosive responses in me. I was at my wits end. Then I realised I was angry with my child for having the struggles associated with having ADHD. With lots of support from family, I learnt to change the way I responded to her and I worked on accepting her exactly the way she was. Our lives and our relationship improved remarkably.
Unconditional positive regard doesn’t have to come just from parents, we can adopt it as teachers too. It require honestly, courage and a safe environment, but it is possible. Gabor argues that ‘understanding the student is transformative’ and I have seen this first hand, as a teacher and as a parent. There are other considerations such as working with parents, tailored access arrangements in exams and planning for the need to move and play but the commitment to stop trying to fix children with ADHD is the power pill we all need to take.
So when I work with people who want to provide better support for young people with ADHD, I start with pressing the stop button on wishing they were different and start work on meeting them where they are. All the other work is easy after that.
The British Army’s Diverse Resources for the New Term
Written by Eleanor Brown
Head of Education Marketing at Capita
The British Army has developed new resources to help students aged 11-16 build their understanding of why it is important to commemorate significant groups in the history of the British Army. Focusing on diversifying the curriculum, This resource pack features Women in the Army, LGBTQ+ Voices and Black History resources with links to PSHE, History and Citizenship.
Each of the resources are available for key awareness days in the school calendar and include ready-to-use lesson plans, assembly presentations, case studies and films to help students understand the changing roles of service people in the British Army throughout history, reflect on who we remember as a society or individuals and explore what it’s like to serve in the Army today. The resources are part of the British Army’s dedication to addressing the inequalities within the organisation and raising awareness of the contributions of service people both historically and now.
Women in the Army Resources
An excellent resource for International Women’s Day on March 8th, the Women in the Army resources have curriculum links to PSHE / Health and Wellbeing, Citizenship and History. The lesson plan offers interactive tasks to help young people to recognise and challenge harmful stereotypes and prejudice both at work and in society as a whole. Showcasing the significant roles women have played from the 1800s to today, the resources explore key terms such as feminism, gender and intersectionality, encouraging students to consider the evolving roles of women in the Army in the context of wider society.
The assembly slides and the film builds on these key themes, showcasing the contributions and accomplishments of women in the Army and reflecting on the stories we remember. The assembly brings a specific focus to the history of women in wartime and features empowering women including Captain Flora Sandes, who was the only woman to fight on the front line of WWI, and Adelaide Hall, a jazz singer who entertained troops in WWII and was the first Black performer to be given a long-term contract with the BBC.
LGBTQ+ Resources
Perfect for LGBT History Month 2020 in February, The LGBTQ+ Voices lesson resources show the progress made within the Army and in wider society with activities that celebrate the contributions of historical and current LGBTQ+ Army personnel, including WWI soldier Edward Brittain and Deborah Penny, the first trans soldier in the British Army. Students can also learn how they can be supportive of all LGBTQ+ people, and other groups and communities, through the allyship video resource.
By profiling six historical LGBTQ+ figures, such as the mathematician Alan Turing and poet Wilfred Owen, the assembly resource asks students to reflect on their contributions. This is followed by a film featuring current LGBTQ+ soldiers, addressing the significance of LGBTQ+ history to them and the progress that has been made by the Army to ensure everyone feels welcome.
Black History Resources
These Black History digital resources for Key Stages 3 and 4 include an assembly and lesson plan to help students understand the stories of Black British, African and Caribbean service people who have often been unfairly excluded from the history books and help students consider some of the reasons for and effects of these omissions.
The assembly resource profiles service people from throughout history, while the interactive lesson resources offer source materials to help students build core historical skills and explore the contributions and stories of Black Britons, West and East Africans and Caribbean service people during World War One. The resources also offer examples of the impact of the war on different Black women, documenting case studies of a Trinidadian, British and an East African (from the Tanzania-Malawi border region) woman.
Questions at the end of each resource help facilitate discussions that address the significance of Black History Month and studying Black History more broadly and how this relates to modern discussions on race and diversity, including reflections from current Black soldiers to help build student’s discussions.
All the British Army resources can be downloaded for free online at: https://apply.army.mod.uk/base/lessons
The Heterosexual Matrix
Written by Dr Adam Brett
Adam has completed a doctorate exploring the experiences of LGBT+ secondary teachers. A presentation of his findings can be found here. He also co-hosts a podcast called Pride and Progress, @PrideProgress, which amplifies the voices of LGBT+ educators, activists and allies.
“Children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay”
– Margaret Thatcher, October 1987.
Thanks for that, Margaret. You and your government created a culture of fear, silence and moral panic surrounding LGBT+ lives that continues to this day. Your speech continued, that “all of those children are being cheated of a sound start in life – yes, cheated!”.
She was right about one thing. Section 28 meant children were being cheated of a sound start in life.
Section 28 cemented schools as heteronormative spaces, where being heterosexual and cisgender were silently assumed, leaving LGBT+ people with the impossible decision or whether to be invisible or hyper-visible.
What a choice to have to make.
Do I hide my authentic self to fit in with the legislated normativity of schools, or do I make myself visible and put myself at professional and personal risk?
Patai (1992) refers to this form of hyper-visibility as ‘surplus visibility’, where a person is ‘extrapolated from part to whole’ and seen to represent the entirety of a minority group.
You might be thinking that a lot has changed since the repeal of Section 28 nearly 20 years ago in England. It’s true, a lot has changed and there has been significant cultural and legislative improvements for LGBT+ people. However, schools remain stubbornly heteronormative and cisnormative environments.
Think about the aspects of school that are predicated on a static, binary gender. Toilets; changing rooms; sports; gendered language; uniform; seating plans; residentials. The list goes on. What does this communicate for those who cannot or will not fit into the neat binary of male or female? That they don’t belong.
We could consider similar examples about the ways in which heteronormativity is maintained as the social order in schools. The curriculum; ethos; culture; policies; microaggressions; homophobia; the hidden curriculum; role models.
We can conceptualise all these examples as code.
I love to use the film The Matrix as a metaphor to explain the ways in which socially constructed ideas such as heteronormativity are held in place. When we are plugged into the matrix, we believe it’s real and can’t see the code that is continually constructing it. We can’t imagine alternatives as it’s all there is, in the same way that we can’t think outside of language.
However, when we develop the critical awareness of what is upholding this normativity and develop a language to name it, we become unplugged. LGBT+ people have the critical awareness to identify the ways in which schools seek to include or exclude them. Section 28 plugged us into a matrix of understanding where the silent assumption of cisgendered heterosexuality was so entrenched, that to this day, being an LGBT+ person in school can be a point of constant navigation and information management. Exhausting.
As educators and leaders, we need to listen to the lived experiences of our LGBT+ students and colleagues to create a culture, curriculum and language which can disrupt this code. We need to name things as heteronormative; we need to name things as cisnormative; we need to name things as microaggressions. We need a new language: one that allows us to think outside of the current heterosexual matrix. We need to create schools and spaces where LGBT+ people feel safe and included, without attracting surplus visibility.
Section 28 cheated a whole generation of LGBT+ young people out of a sound start in life. It’s time to unplug the matrix and make sure it doesn’t happen to the next generation.
Adam Brett
@DrAdamBrett
My Lip Sync Battle
Written by Emma Ludlam
Emma has worked in Early Years for 14 years and is into her 8th year as Head of Nursery in a London Independent School. Emma has a background in the NHS and is passionate about Early Years education and development with a special interest in Disability, Diversity and Inclusion. Emma is also an EYFS Co-ordinator, dovetailing the two ends of the EYFS in her school.
I only ever knew one person with Dysphonia and Dysphagia before I was affected. My Father’s voice slowly disappeared and his swallowing was affected by Progressive Supranuclear Palsy. I always found it so distressing that he struggled to express his needs and couldn’t eat “normal” food because of the risk of choking. I never imagined I would be in a similar position in my early 40s.
In 2020, some surgery to my throat caused some nerve damage, leaving me with a paralysed vocal cord. My cord became peeled back and stuck, exposing my airway and damaging my voice.
Until you lose your voice, you have no appreciation of how much you rely on it and how much it makes you – you! As Early Years Professionals, we’re well practiced at supporting children to develop communication and language and readily support communication difficulties in the very young, those with EAL and those with a SEND that makes communication more challenging. I didn’t appreciate that I would find myself in Speech Therapy too as an adult. Voice disorders are wholly under-recognised; arguably less common than hearing or sight loss; people find it more difficult to be inclusive and more awareness is desperately needed. I am still me – just a very quiet me.
My voice is typically very weak and lacks volume. Even a simple boiling kettle can drown me out and I sound very raspy; very similar to someone with a bad dose of laryngitis. I lack expression and my tone sits a little higher than my pre-damaged voice. I have lost much of what makes me who I am. I cannot sing or laugh with any sound and the voices and accents used to read a good story, are no longer there. Dreams of reading Harry Potter to my grandchildren seem to slip further and further away. I used to love singing; (I’m not saying I was good!) whether it be in the shower, with young children or even belting out a good old Whitney Houston at karaoke – it’s something that has come very hard. I’ve upped my Lip Sync Battle game massively!
One of the more complex aspects of my condition is the accompanying dysphagia. At my worst, simply a sip of water would cause me to choke until my face was red and the tears rolled down my face. Eating is no longer an enjoyable experience; more a process of dodging aspiration and learning what you can eat and drink. Food becomes a hazard – the Squid Game of eating and drinking! Dysphagia increases risk of aspiration (food enters the trachea and lung) and can cause chest infections and pneumonia – the gift that keeps on giving! I now enjoy, safely, a partly liquidized diet and am more aware of what I can and can’t eat, but it means eating in public or outside of home is still incredibly tricky and embarrassing for me.
So how do I function? Adaption and acceptance (which is very hard to achieve) is a huge proportion of “moving on.” Waking up from anaesthesia to find yourself so changed is a real challenge. There are several aids that I couldn’t live without. My dog has been incredibly adaptive and now knows that when I grab my high decibel whistle (because I cannot call or shout) that it’s time for a walk and he has taken on board a change to hand signals well – it seems you can teach an old dog new tricks! The children I work with have been the most adaptive and that gives me real heart for the future of diversity and inclusion in all walks of life – they are our future. They have accepted my voice amplifier (a small speaker box I wear attached to a mic headset) and this helps me to be louder and is less straining for me. On most video calls, I think people assume it’s just a mic – it’s slightly less familiar when worn off screen. My other most treasured possession is my face mask from National Spasmodic Dysphonia Association which reads “Bear with me I have a voice disorder;” it allows people in shops etc an opportunity to understand my needs and help me – hearing me through a mask is impossible. I also use my iPhone to write notes for others to read.
It is essential that we take time to understand all types of communication needs. We need assistance; understand I have a lot to say and need that chance. Accepting that we cannot take speech for granted when engaging with others is a huge first step. Maintaining independence and inclusion should be our aim in all walks of life.
I challenge you to a Lip Sync Battle!
New Research: LYFTA Storyworlds Help Reduce Anxiety Around Meeting People From Different Backgrounds
Written by Dr Harriet Marshall
Head of Educational Research at Lyfta and has been a global education advocate for over 20 years, as a teacher, researcher, consultant and education project leader.
A University of Tampere study found that virtual immersive environments that contain interactive human stories can help reduce learners’ social anxiety around meeting people from different cultural backgrounds.
A study using teaching resources from Lyfta has found that the multi-sensory and participatory nature of immersive 360° experiences led to a decrease in learners’ sense of social anxiety about meeting people from different cultural backgrounds. Engaging with new people in an immersive virtual setting gives students the opportunity to identify common interests and, as a result, develop more positive feelings towards them. Although the study was completed with undergraduate students, we are excited about the implications for engaging school-aged students with digital immersive storytelling.
The study has been published in the International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning. Its findings show that the reduction in social anxiety was especially significant among those who had high levels of social anxiety before the learning experience, adding to our growing understanding that immersive digital storytelling can be of particular benefit to students who get little or no opportunity to interact with those from different cultural backgrounds.
The researchers were influenced by our own school-based research (summed up in the video here), where students were shown photos of six people featured in our storyworlds, and asked how much they felt they had in common with each person, before and after exploring their stories. We found that experiencing the storyworlds led to a significant positive difference in students’ attitudes towards the people they ‘met’ there.
Our vision at Lyfta is that by the time a child leaves school, they would have had the chance to experience, and emotionally connect with, human stories from every country in the world. Lyfta stories give students the opportunity to see how interconnected and interdependent we all are. The findings of this study provide exciting evidence that Lyfta’s powerful and immersive resources have real impact in helping to nurture empathetic global citizens.
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Increasingly Visible: Being an ‘Out’ LGBTQ+ Educator
Written by Vickie Merrick
PE and History Teacher at an International School in Rome and has previously taught in Vietnam and the UK.
This post was very much inspired by Dr Adam Brett’s (@DrAdamBrett) recent talk about his PhD findings on what it means to be a visible LGBT+ educator. It is a personal reflection of my journey to becoming visible in an international teaching community.
During my ITT year there wasn’t the same talk and work that there is now about DEI, social justice and decolonising the curriculum. As a white British cis woman going through my training year, I never thought about the importance of representation. “If you can see it, you can be it” wasn’t a phrase that ever crossed my mind.
Now I realise and acknowledge that I have white privilege, I’m cisgender, I’m middle class (in that whilst my parents consider themselves working class, I went to a grammar school, I’ve gone to university twice and am currently back again completing an MSc and these experiences have afforded me the opportunity to emigrate and continue my career abroad) and I was lucky enough to be born in the Global North. There are many things about my life that mean I have an easier time than so many people in the world.
I’m also a member of the LGBTQ+ community. And I have a chronic health condition that impacts both my physical and mental health. These two areas are the only parts of my life where I have ever faced any difficulty due to my identity.
Section 28 left a strange underlying legacy on schools in England. Although I began working in schools a long time after its 2003 repeal, I heard “don’t tell the students about your personal life, it’s none of their business who you are” more than once in the staffroom. Even though my straight colleagues would quite openly talk about their partners/spouses, the insinuation was that I shouldn’t allude to being a gay woman in front of my classes.
In addition I was aware of the cultural background of my students and knew that some may not have heard positive things (or anything at all) about LGBTQ+ people at home. If I was in the same situation now I don’t think I would hide myself at the risk of causing offence (offence after all is taken not given) and would have used it as an educational opportunity to discuss embracing others regardless of their identity. But I was a new teacher concentrating on learning how to teach (something I’m still learning) and was not too concerned with being a representative of the LGBTQ+ community.
There were students who found out that I was gay and I never encountered any problems from them, if anything they were extremely positive and open about wanting to support LGBTQ+ people. On the other hand, I did once experience a student using ‘gay’ and ‘f**’ as an insult to another student in a lesson I was covering so I followed the school policy and the student waited outside for an on call member of staff. The member of staff had a chat with me and the student then brushed off the incident and sent the student back into the lesson. Again, looking back, as a more experienced teacher, I wouldn’t have let it slide. But as an NQT, I didn’t feel that I had any power to insist that this was homophobic language and should be treated in a serious way that shows the student it is not acceptable.
The final reason that I was never fully visible in my first school was more of an internal one. I teach history and PE. We’ve all heard of and perpetuated (myself included when I was a kid at school) the stereotype of the lesbian PE teacher. I didn’t want to be a stereotype. I’d previously been in the Army Reserves for a short time and found the same stereotype about female soldiers. That wasn’t my reason for leaving the Reserves but with the Army, working in sport, and being a PE teacher, it can get tiring constantly laughing with and brushing off people making jokes and having ‘banter’ about a part of who you are. And of course you laugh because they’re your colleagues and friends. They mean no harm but it’s the microaggressions that we know now to be aware of alongside our own unconscious biases that can build up and deeply impact people.
Leaving the U.K. and yearly visits to Pride Parades behind brought a change to my level of visibility. I left the U.K. with my partner and moved to Vietnam. Throughout the recruitment process we were up front about applying as a couple and didn’t face any problems when it came to contracts, housing allowances and dealing with HR in our new country. There was a surprising moment when the estate agent who was sorting out our rental apartment said the landlady was concerned that two single western women would have lots of men visiting and would receive complaints. The estate agent luckily had read the situation well and assured the landlady that she didn’t have to worry about frequent male visitors staying over…
In school itself it was a different story. We often talk about walking into our school and seeing a rainbow painted on one of the corridor walls with the words “love is love” below it. Talk about a welcoming sign. Again, at the beginning I didn’t intentionally come out to any of my students. Not through a conscious choice but I still didn’t really consider the positive impact it could have for LGBTQ+ students to see a visibly LGBTQ+ member of staff. There were other LGBTQ+ staff and couples at the school and openly LGBTQ+ students who felt they could be ‘out’ at school even if they couldn’t be at home due to the traditional values of their families. Over time, and partly due to the nature of international schools, many of the students my partner and I taught learnt that we were a couple- and exactly as it should be, they treated this as a total non-event. They treated us the same as the other teaching couples in the school. My form, however, were so excited on the day they noticed my engagement ring that I had to usher them out of the door to be on time for their first lessons because they wanted to stop and hear the full story of the proposal. And as we were getting ready to leave and say our final goodbyes in the midst of a lockdown and online learning, some of our grade 10 students were insisting that we sent wedding photos to one of our colleagues after the holidays so that they could see our dresses and hair and make-up.
In Vietnam, my visibility as an LGBTQ+ educator had increased because I felt supported by my colleagues, the school and the students. And the more visible myself and other LGBTQ+ educators were, the more I noticed the way the vast majority of our students, even though they were from all over the globe with different cultures, beliefs, values and backgrounds, treated their LGBTQ+ peers with an awareness, a kindness and acceptance. I left that school thinking that the kids are alright.
The transition into our second (well my third, as I had taught at two different schools in Vietnam) international school was where the first real challenges of being an ‘out’ educator were posed. And they were not posed by students. Recruitment during COVID was a struggle. We sent off around 40 applications and did about 15 interviews between us. We had been lucky to get jobs in Vietnam for our first international roles as it became quickly apparent that many other places were not as keen on hiring an LGBTQ+ teaching couple. Sometimes this was due to visa complications or job openings, other times it was the laws of the country (43 jurisdictions still criminalise lesbianism) and laws around housing. After a particularly challenging experience where we had offers rescinded because, after checking, the school decided their community wasn’t ready for an LGBTQ+ couple, we were feeling pretty disheartened.
Many of the schools we were applying to were IB schools. I still struggle to see how the IB, who preach about global communities and international mindedness, can promote schools and allow them to teach the IB programs when the school communities themselves are anti-inclusion.
Nearing the end of our tether with the recruitment process, my partner had an interview with a small school in Italy. Whilst they did not have a role for me, they were willing to make something part time if my partner was offered the job. The interview was a breath of fresh air. They were the first school who had asked about my partner or I as people and wanted to get an idea of us to find out how we’d fit into their community. They were upfront about wanting LGBTQ+ staff as they were aware that they had students who were part of the LGBTQ+ community and they didn’t always see themselves represented in the staff body. After accepting the jobs, my (now) wife was asked about joining the DEI team, and whilst she is careful as she knows this has become or can have the potential to be quite tokenistic in some schools, she is aware that she has the ability to do work with her team members around social justice and to help combat racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism and other forms of discrimination within our school community.
For the first time in a school, as an educator, I have been a visible member of the LGBTQ+ community from the beginning. I am aware that I have a-sexual, transgender and non-binary students (and probably others who identify as somewhere on the gender/sexuality spectrum) and delight when they come to tell me about the first time they went to a pride parade or show me the rainbow item of clothing they have worn that day. Whilst I cannot know or understand all of their experiences, especially as a cisgender woman, I can be an empathetic listener from the large umbrella family that is LGBTQ+. The school has an LGBTQ+ club run by a member of staff who is an ally to the LGBTQ+ community and who knows that providing an inclusive space for our students is everyone’s responsibility. The community isn’t perfect and the country, with its strong religious affiliations, has laws against gay couples adopting. It is a work in progress in our school that will require buy-in from all its members to fully promote inclusivity and celebrate diversity, no matter what that looks like. But it is not tiring to be visible here. Every day when I tie up my rainbow laces (a great campaign from @Stonewall) I know the importance of showing my students that LGBTQ+ people are a part of their community, we’re here to stay and that’s very much ok.