[Intro Music]

00:00:08:27 – 00:01:04:26
Hannah
Welcome to the Diverse Ed podcast. Diverse Educators is an intersectional community of educators who are passionate about diversity, equity and inclusion. Our vision: everyone is celebrated in every classroom in every school. Our mission: a collaborative community that celebrates its successes and amplifies the stories of diverse people. Our values: promoting acceptance, increasing visibility, encouraging celebration, creating belonging and enabling learning. In series two of the Diverse Educators podcast, we have ten episodes. In each episode our co-hosts, Mahlon Evans-Sinclair and Jess Boyd, will interview one contributor from each of the ten chapters of Diverse Educators: A Manifesto. Each conversation will reflect on how they have found and used their voice, discuss how identity shapes them as an educator, share the challenges they’ve had to navigate on their journey, and identify the changes they would like to see in the school system.

00:01:04:28 – 00:01:17:14
Mahlon
Hello and welcome to series two of the Diverse Ed podcast. My name is Mahlon Evans-Sinclair and I am the founder of Educating While Black podcast and the director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at St Clements school in Toronto.

00:01:17:17 – 00:01:34:00
Jess
And I’m Jess Boyd. I’m a former head of music and currently writing my PhD in culturally relevant pedagogy. I work in initial teacher training and I also run an open access community music project. In this episode, we are going to be talking to Amy Ferguson from the Sexual Orientation chapter.

00:01:34:28 – 00:01:37:05
Amy
Hello. Thank you for having me today.

00:01:37:13 – 00:02:00:15
Mahlon
Nice to have you here as well, Amy. Your chapter is really, really, really important and really interesting. And as a coauthor in the Sexual Orientation chapter, I really enjoyed reading your essay. So I guess why don’t we start there by saying, could you introduce yourself and your chapter in couple of sentences so that the audience gets a feel of who you are?

00:02:00:17 – 00:03:04:04
Amy
Okay, so I’m Amy Ferguson and I am, you’ll very quickly be able to tell that I am from mighty, mighty Birmingham. I live in Oxfordshire with my wife who is in the RAF. I am an assistant principal at a large mainstream secondary school. It’s a Catholic school and I’ve been teaching for 14 years, I know I don’t look it, not that the listeners can see me, but I don’t look I’ve been teaching for 14 years I’d like to say. My chapter is all about aligning your own personal identity, how you see yourself and how you would like to be perceived potentially, with the, how it aligns with the vision and the kind of intention at school and how you want to portray that identity at school and whether or not you choose to share everything or you choose to be more private and what the reasons potentially could be and advantages of sharing as much of yourself with the children and your colleagues at school.

00:03:04:06 – 00:03:18:01
Jess
So interesting. Okay. So we’re going to dive into our first question and can you tell us a bit more about how the different intersections of your identity and how that inspired you to write your contribution to Diverse Educators: A Manifesto?

00:03:18:03 – 00:05:51:18
Amy
Yeah, so for me, I always talk about the fact that I’m mixed race. My dad is from the Caribbean. My mum is British but has got an Irish family and you know, that’s something that, you know, I look mixed race. You can tell that I’m mixed race, but you know, my skin is brown, but I feel like it’s sometimes a shock to people when I reveal I’m married to a woman or, you know, they become very flustered because they’ve said husband and, you know, blah, blah, blah. And it’s kind of like it feels like all of these different intersections of my, of me and what I identify with, being a woman. Some things it feels like you can’t pick up and put down one thing, but one thing is more obvious, maybe then another. If you think stereotypically the assumptions that people make, that’s really what inspired me. And I think teaching for so long and children, I’m always a teacher whether they know that I’m gay or not, and I’m always a teacher that children tell that they’re questioning their sexuality or questioning their gender or I’m always the teacher that gets that kind of, I think I am gay, I think I’m queer. I think I fancy my best friend, what should I do, kind of thing. And I think by me talking about how I identify and my relationship and the fact, you know, you might just say my wife said, and I think it just kind of gives the children, whether they’re gay or anything else, a little bit of, oh, it is normal. You just said it in just a normal, usual, I’m doing air bunny quotes, normal, usual way that it’s not something that needs to be a big parade. Of course you can have a big parade. How lovely would that be? But you don’t need to. It could just be, yeah, that’s what my life is like. And it’s okay. And it’s normal. Usual. And there are people in the world just out there living their life as this identity of person. And because they might not have met a black teacher before and they might not have met a gay teacher before, a gay person before. So it’s giving the face of the identity or protected characteristic in a way, I’m showing people that people are just out in the world living and it’s okay.

00:05:52:18 – 00:06:52:03
Mahlon
You know, it’s interesting because how you’ve articulated everything, there’s a lot of stuff that already comes to mind with regards to ideas around which identities are more visible or which identities are more what’s the word I’m even looking for, I guess much more… [Jess: seen?] seen, but then also more assumed, right? So the idea that even a person who is attached to black identity when blackness and homophobia come together, this for some people it’s a party, right? So there’s an assumption that anyone that is associated with black would obviously be homophobic. And so therefore, it might be even more of a shock for some folks to have a biracial teacher or mixed race teacher to also say I’m also gay, like I’m a lesbian, I have a wife, I have kids. And so I guess with thinking about that, was there a particular voice that you wanted to bring to the chapter on sexual orientation that intersected with anything else, so any of the other identities that you may have.

00:06:52:05 – 00:08:07:12
Amy
I think certainly around being a woman and thinking about stereotype threat and being able to perform within that stereotype and whether it is a performance, I feel like I’m going to go off on about 10 million tangents here, but thinking also around aligning who you are with where you work, and also not being afraid that if you, you don’t have to stay in that school, if you are not, if you don’t, your identity or how you choose to present in whatever way, whether it even is your teaching style or you know, your values aren’t the same, don‘t be afraid to say actually this isn’t the right school for me, I’ll go somewhere else. So it’s about the alignment of your identity and how much you show, how much you feel safe to show. If you don’t feel safe to show yourself at the school in what way, whatever way, big way, small way, private or not. If you don’t feel safe, then you’re not in the right school. So yeah. How much you share is different to your kind of level of safety, how much you feel safe to share. I don’t know if I’m making any sense?

00:08:07:23 – 00:08:51:07
Jess
You’re making so much sense and do you know what, I feel, you just said that and I just thought how I wish someone would have told me that when I was training. I broke my neck to look professional when I started teaching. My hair was never curly. My outfit, I was wearing the stupidest pencil skirts and heels and trying to look, you know. And I just, I think I fell into my, you know, as you grow, I fell into my confidence in who I was at home that I can bring to school. But just, you just, you saying what you just said there. I wanted to like, massively highlight it somehow and put it on a billboard. Like, if only you knew you could just rock up as yourself from day one and you don’t have to do the whole dance, you know.

00:08:51:07 – 00:09:26:07
Amy
You don’t have to. And if you are doing it is so exhausting, so exhausting trying to, you know, especially like being a black woman, don’t talk over somebody else in a meeting because God forbid what they’ll start saying, you know, or thinking. You are so threatened by being able to even talk, aren’t you? Sometimes I don’t want to, I don’t want to argue a point, even though it’s the hill that I would die on because I’m worried that somebody is going to go, oh, God, she’s a bit angry isn’t she.

00:09:26:09 – 00:09:26:19
Jess
Oh, yeah.

00:09:26:22 – 00:10:10:16
Amy
That’s not, you know, you need to be very, very mindful of that. But the more I’ve become comfortable in sharing my identity and all of those kind of things, I’ve cared less about whether or not people are going to think that I am an angry black woman or I’m a loud you know, I’m a loud gay or whatever people might say. Because I think yeah, because some of the things that I’ll go on the hill and die for are important to me. So I don’t care about that stereotype threat. I will, I’m confident, comfortable enough secure, safe enough, to be able to argue those points now without fear of that threat.

00:10:11:26 – 00:12:17:26
Mahlon
You’ve said so much that it’s just, I’m percolating. There’s so much there in what you said. I mean one of the things that’s like was really important and I don’t know how you feel about, you know, your contribution to the chapter, but as a, you know, as a fellow BAME, bipoc, I’m not a fan of these terms anyway, but as a person who wrote also in the sexual orientation chapter, there was no way that I couldn’t bring my racial identity into the conversation around sexual orientation. And I think for everything that you’re saying, it’s something that’s really clear to me that I think I want to like just spotlight for a minute. Is, there’s the thing about knowing who you are, being comfortable in who you are, so that when you are told something that you’re not, you confront it to be like, that’s actually not me or it’s incidental that I’m also that thing or, you know, it’s in some ways it is a main driver of how I turn up or show up in the place because I’m that thing. But at the same time as being able to say it’s more relevant here. And so therefore, I’m going to make it clearer that this is something that I am or I stand for or that’s important and in another way it’s less important here. So this is just an added layer of who I am. And I think, you know, co-writer to co-writer in that sexual orientation chapter. It was something I also wanted to make clear from a different perspective. You’re identity when added to, if we’re talking about intersectionality, the way how sexual orientation is seen by structures that be, it’s already hard. And then as you just said, you tack on gender, and being a woman. And then what’s expected of how women show up in certain spaces and you tack on race and then again, how certain races are expected to show up in certain spaces it’s very complicated. I feel like, you know, I said your chapter was really clear from the get go about having a good sense of self means that whatever circumstance you are in, you can say I’m here and I belong here. Or, you know, it’s not for me but I’m not changing.

00:12:17:28 – 00:13:51:28
Amy
Yeah, absolutely. Because you will just exhaust yourself if you, like we were just saying, trying to do the whole square peg round whole thing. It’s not going to work, think about the British education system really as a whole, trying to fit all these people into the same shaped whole when we are all so different, isn’t going to work. If you’re trying to do that all the time, you’re quieting yourself, you will start listening to that voice that is telling you to be quiet and then you will spend years trying to unpick that and to uncover yourself and to find yourself where, you know, you could be responsible for dimming your light. To diminish you shine. Just find somewhere. There are places, you know, I worked in loads of schools, very different schools, some schools that are very welcoming, open and everything else. And worked a lots of schools where everybody is, you know, out there and great and having a lovely time And then you go to some schools where people are still very quiet about how they identify, and they can be and that’s fine. And it’s private and it’s cool but it’s different if you don’t feel safe. So that is where the difference is. If you don’t feel safe in school, why? Why? What are you doing? There are other jobs. Go somewhere else, you know? I mean, if you’re not comfortable, are you, you’re not safe. But yeah, I definitely resonate with a few of those things that you’re saying.

00:13:52:00 – 00:14:30:18
Jess
Again, I think it’s huge that you’re saying what sounds like really obvious things to us, but saying to a new trainee, if you don’t feel safe somewhere, move, that’s okay because you know, when you’re in a school and school community then you feel like that is it. That is the world and that is the right and wrong. You don’t know there’s options, you know. And so reflecting back on your chapter, then, when you were trying to challenge your readers, I really enjoyed how you drew on talking about history in Section 28. But how did you, what were the challenges that you really wanted your readers to understand when you were writing this chapter?

00:14:31:03 – 00:15:28:17
Amy
I want, so talking specifically about the Section 28 thing, I think that people don’t, people don’t realise that it was even there, like I’ve done assemblies about it at school, and people who are my age didn’t even realise it was there. And I think the challenge for me is unpicking the hangover of that section 28 and getting people to think, you know, this is why we didn’t, when we were at school, talk about gay people and people didn’t even realise it existed. And that’s a challenge, really. I think I really wanted people to think about the fact that they were, their learning was constricted about people, not constricted is that the right word, or a whole section of people, group of people were basically wiped from our education to even acknowledge that they exist.

00:15:29:14 – 00:15:33:20
Jess
But it was strategic, it was on purpose.

00:15:33:20 – 00:16:59:18
Amy
Exactly, and it was on purpose, and to get people to realise that their thoughts and feelings may be that they attached to LGBT+, that group of people are very much coloured by the lack of education that they received in school and then being able to raise a question and ask about any LGBT+, anything, you wouldn’t do that. And you weren’t able to for years and conversations were shut down. And I wanted people to to reflect on that and how much it impacts. Also the, you know, not only do people not know that gay people exist in the world because of Section 28, but how gay people live with the hangover of it. And, you know, you get ECTs saying, you know, am I allowed to talk about being gay, am I allowed to mention, and I work in a Catholic school as well, a very open, very great Catholic school, very diverse community. But genuine questions around am I allowed to talk about it at school whether or not they’re gay or not. And it’s just, it’s still a challenge. It still feels taboo. And it’s 2023, you know, this piece of legislation is, we’re not that long gone, but it is long gone. So we’re still living with the hangover of the thing and that’s important to think about.

00:16:59:20 – 00:19:10:28
Mahlon
It is important to think about. I kind of want to stay on the same topic, if that’s okay, because your takeaways in your chapter, they’re really insightful for the individual, right? So you’ve written – authenticity is key in our profession, when we bring our whole selves, students connect better with us and we are role models. And I want to stay on that. But I also really want to spotlight, because your chapter was amazing and I’m gushing about it. The idea of like what you’ve just said then and what you were just speaking about. The idea that, put it this way, the energy given to banning or while implementing Section 28, let’s go that way. The energy given to implementing it was not the same energy given to repealing it. And it’s almost as though when you’re talking about the hangovers of everyone involved, that it kind of makes sense as to why those questions around am I okay to be gay? Because I know that, like the law sounded heavier about I can’t say this, but it sounds a bit tepid with regards to, oh, you can be this. So I know the law says that like, you know, or has said in my day, you shouldn’t be this and you can’t promote this. And you know all of the negatives. You can’t, you shouldn’t, you mustn’t, etc., etc., etc.. And it doesn’t feel equally in the same way that you must, you should, imperative, go about doing it. It’s almost written in a way that says, if you want, we’re not going to persecute you for doing it, but we’re not going to necessarily promote you for doing it. And I think that in your takeaway is the idea of, you know, being yourself, promoting yourself, advocating for yourself, pushing for yourself. It ends up being, unfortunately at this stage in the game, more on the individual because institutionally we’re still dealing with the hangover of is it okay, can I like? And I just wonder how that perhaps connection from how your takeaways were written to thinking about how Section 28 how the hangover for everybody involved might work with some of our listeners thinking about what they should be doing or could be doing with regards to their own identities.

00:19:11:04 – 00:20:39:09
Amy
Yeah, I’ll go back to the idea of safety. If you feel safe enough and you want to share your identity, your sexual identity, orientation. If you want to share that, you feel safe enough to do that. It holds so much weight with the children because they will feel seen whether or not they are LGBT. If you feel safe, do it. If you don’t, don’t. That’s not me saying definitely move. I mean, if you feel safe, it holds so much weight with the children. It really, really does. If you can show up and be your authentic self it doesn’t have to be like, I say this all the time, it doesn’t have to be wearing a rainbow suit and come to school waving a flag and throwing confetti in the air with ten drag queens behind you. You could do that if you wanted to and it would be brilliant. And I’m thinking about that for later on in the term. You know, just being being you and even having a rainbow badge or a trans bad. Something as simple as that or having a rainbow sticker and saying that it’s a safe place. Not shutting conversations down around sexuality. If you feel safe enough to, if you feel that you have got, you know, some people might feel like they haven’t got the skills to have the conversation about it. Well then, don’t talk, just listen. Have your ears open. It’s all you’ve got to do, to me it’s about safety to be authentic. Authentic at school, and it’s up to you how much you share.

00:20:39:11 – 00:21:57:20
Mahlon
And that listening part is super important, right? Like you will hear things in the margins if you listen. And it’s as you said, it’s probably no surprise that so many kids have come out to you in one way, shape or form because they probably notice you listening or like they see that, you know, your body language about when something comes up isn’t bristling or trying to close the silence or trying to move the conversation along. There’s things that just kind of demonstrate that you’re a safe place to be. Demonstrating that you’re a safe place to be, then they’re more likely to come to you with stuff about, I’m thinking about this or I’m questioning about that. In a random way, I remember a kid kind of asked me if I was gay in a, his words were: Sir, you don’t really like football do you? No. I said no and his response was I thought not. Now to me the classiest way. But it stuck with me, right? [All laughing] Because it was, I feel that you don’t align in the same way as some of the other male identified teachers in our school. And so something about you is slightly different. And I wonder if it’s this thing. Let me ask in a way that’s not head on. Very savvy. So, like you were saying, by being your authentic self, allows for space for kids to do the same thing.

00:21:57:22 – 00:22:22:06
Amy
Absolutely. Absolutely, don’t, and again, it’s about how much you shared. You don’t have to do everything. And it can be like you saying those little nuggets of information. My wife does, or you know, my boyfriend or however you talk about it or, you know, just saying partner, partner can be enough, can’t it. You can see the kids, what do you mean partner, you see their eyebrows going up.

00:22:22:06 – 00:22:24:17
Mahlon
100%

00:22:24:19 – 00:22:56:16
Amy
And even that’s enough. Whatever you are comfortable with. Whatever you are confident with. However you feel that your truth needs to be shared in a safe way. If you are safe to do so, please do it. It can tell you, I can impress enough how much the children, they need it. They need people who who are confident in who they are and whatever that confidence or identity needs to be, they need to see safe, secure, adults.

00:22:57:29 – 00:23:27:20
Jess
I love how you, you’re already really singing like key messages in every way, which I love. And so when you were writing this and you were writing to an audience, what would you hope would like galvanise the action from the reader? Because it sounds like you’re speaking to other teachers and about their identity. But I’m just curious, like how you, what actions do you want your readers to take away from reading your chapter and listening to you now?

00:23:28:08 – 00:25:20:17
Amy
I want them to appreciate, but don’t think we do as teachers, we get so bogged down in the day to day, the marking, the duty, the 25 different lessons, however many lessons you are teaching, I think that you forget how much impact you can have on a child’s life. And I’d like, if there’s nothing else, just to think you might be a person that a child, just from being you in the classroom, from being yourself in the classroom, that child who’s probably never said anything to you, it means a lot to them. And it’s recognising that how much power that has for good and change in a young person, you just showing up and being authentically yourself in whatever way that is. Like, you know, we were saying about the curly hair thing, how much, how lovely that would be for black girls who are going home and have their hair straightened within an inch of their life. Actually coming in with my hair out, Miss is doing it, I could do it or, you know, wearing your rainbow badge. These things are so significant. The children are signposted that you are a safe person for them and you might be the only safe person that they know, they have or that you might be the person that they come to. It’s really I think for me, don’t underestimate, if I was to galvanise anything would be, don’t underestimate the power that your identity in you showing up authentically would have. Don’t dismiss it. Being you is more valuable than ticking, flicking books to the kids. It really is.

00:25:21:03 – 00:25:26:28
Jess
It’s just me. I’m getting real goosebumps. I’m like, can we just have Amy on a billboard?

00:25:27:01 – 00:25:30:07
Amy
No, I don’t need any more platforming.

00:25:33:12 – 00:26:05:08
Jess
How am I signposting that I’m a safe person? It’s a good one. Yeah, your phrasing. You’ve got so many nuggets. And my favourite line in the book that you said, no pressure, was the real magic you talked about. But the real magic happens in schools where your values and things that are important to you fit with the vision, ethos and values of the school. And I love that you frame that as magic because I get it. And can you elaborate on that point a bit more like the marriage of your identity and the school’s values?

00:26:05:29 – 00:27:05:09
Amy
Yeah, I think, I remember doing some senior leadership training course about 365 thing and then it shows you what your, pulls your values out. And then I’ve just used that really as you know, when you are looking at schools, look at their values, what their values statements are and what their, some schools have like and list of words and my school is like nurturing, inclusion, accountability, responsibility, growth, all those kinds of things. Those are the things that, how I would like, how I would have liked my senior school I went to, my secondary school as a teenager to have nurtured me and to enable me to grow. And it’s those kind of things, you know, doing that and I don’t even know what that test is called. It’s like a values based test and then your values come together and then you…

00:27:05:09 – 00:27:08:00
Jess
We’ve all done them.

00:27:08:03 – 00:29:45:04
Amy
Yeah. And then when you are in the school, can you feel those values when you go for your interview, can you feel them. That quote about lived not laminated. The values are in everything that they do in that school. It should be obvious from the moment you meet the receptionist to greet you in, to the children that you have the interactions with, to talking to the headteacher, head of governors, all of those kinds of things. And it is magic when it aligns because you get that sense of safety, you get that sense of belonging, you get that they are about community and they want the same things for the children that you do. And it’s not all and I’m not poo pooing the system about achievement and qualification and all of that. But it’s all very well having ten great A*, you know, nine GCSEs but your mental health has taken a pounding and you don’t know, all you know is by rote learning. Better to feel included isn’t it, and being somewhere you belong and you’ve had enriching experiences, you’ve made connections with others. Those things are all really, really important. It’s definitely, I’ve taught a schools where I thought, I knew on the interview day, this wasn’t the right place, but I accepted the job anyway. And then came a cropper later on. You know, oh, my values don’t align or, you know. I’m the only one of these people here. So that’s why I think it’s important, that’s why you think that thing is important because you are one of those people. Okay, then here’s my notice. So. So yeah, it does feel magical. And then that feeds into the sense of safety. And then you can just go in and be yourself every single day. You don’t have to try, to put a, you do have to try, obviously, I don’t mean not try at all, like mark your books of course. You don’t have to put on a front every day. You can just go in and be you and the sense of enjoyment, the relationships with the kids, it’s just great. Makes it worth it. You see those, I always see those cheddar cheese get into teaching advert, but so much of it is what it is about. It is about that connection with the children and that is that’s magic. And it comes from the sense of safety that you being able to do that you’re not going to be able to give yourself to the job or to the children if you haven’t got that sense of alignment.

00:29:45:06 – 00:31:48:09
Mahlon
I think a reason why we’re not stopping to say anything is because what you say is profound and I genuinely mean that, I genuinely mean that. I feel like this is probably an episode I want people to listen back to a few times because the things will hit differently the more you hear it. And in your chapter, like there’s a part where, you know, I’m just going to read it out real quick. You talk about the relationships we have with the young people in our classrooms, impacts not only the engagement in the subjects and perhaps results, also more importantly, these relationships have a lasting impact on how the young people see themselves and how they see themselves in the world. And everything that you’re speaking to engagement, relationships, it comes up time and time and time again in both what you are speaking to here. But I think Jess and I would be on the same page. I know Jess will be on the same page with regards to the idea about relationships matter more in terms of what your experience at school does for your ability to be a lifelong learner, to enjoy being curious, right? Like the idea of, you know, you could pass history in a pub quiz, like maybe that’s where you remember some facts and figures and some dates and a pub quiz, and that’s great but the level of curiosity about, you know what, like I actually want to know more about that thing also bleeds into wanting to learn more about, as you said, those people. So you are one of those people. What makes you one of those people and why do I put myself as different to one of you? So we no longer have this them and us? It’s actually, you know what, like we all are people in this school. So if you talk about the idea of community and inclusion. Those people, then you’re saying that I don’t belong here because I’m one of our people, it‘s our people, it’s our school. So I can’t be one of those if I’m one of our space. And so, yeah, in all of that, my question is, I keep getting profound reflections on what you’re saying, in an ideal world, and I think perhaps maybe from how your chapter has been written, it sounds like you’re speaking to a post something world.

00:31:48:11 – 00:32:13:04
Mahlon
So maybe if I were to rephrase the question in so far as in a post Section 28 world, what changes would you like to see continue to happen in the school system regarding the protective characteristic that you write about? So sexual orientation, but beyond that, like because what helps one helps all so I just wonder what else you would think the school system could do with regards to keep on the keeping on.

00:32:13:04 – 00:33:59:15
Amy
For me it’s don’t be afraid to, if a child starts talking about something that is, you know, is particularly around an LGBT issue, don’t shut the conversation down. I know it might not be appropriate to talk about it right there in maths, you know what I mean, but don’t shut it down too quickly, or giving it the space appropriately with it, you know, within the context of maths, let’s say, don’t shut it down and move on. Keep those conversations going. Because if you shut it down, it might have been that child’s only chance to say that, they felt comfortable in that moment to say it. And whether you gave it 90 seconds might just be enough for them to feel seen, to feel heard, even though it may feel like a short, that might be a short amount of time. But it’s a big moment for them. For me it’s keep having the conversations, especially around things that are uncomfortable because, you know, there’s that old thing about the only way of getting comfortable is being uncomfortable for a bit and you don’t have to be, you know, a guru or a scholar in LGBT+ history to have a conversation with a child about about being LGBT+. So I think you don’t have to be an expert in it to talk about it. Don’t shut the conversation down too soon, give the child the space, give the class the space. You can always come back to what you were doing, you can always come back to it, don’t rush off, give them the space. I feel like I’m repeating myself. I don’t even know if that was answering the question.

00:33:59:18 – 00:34:29:23
Jess
Totally, you really have, I’ve said this already. You really seem to have honed your message of that, your authentic message to you as a person and as you articulate. So, yes, I just want to say thank you for articulating safety and authenticity so well, it’s really powerful. And like Marlon said, I’d really recommend that people listen back there’s a few headlines I think could really change people’s thinking. So thank you.

00:34:30:17 – 00:34:58:26
Amy
It doesn’t have to be a huge change. You don’t have to do a huge coming out assembly. You don’t have to do those things. I know people do. It is great. And you know, we don’t have to, it could be a small thing so that the kids feel safe around you, that they can trust you. And that comes from listening and small things like badges and those kinds of things having not been afraid to have those conversations, don’t shy away from it.

00:34:58:28 – 00:34:59:27
Jess
Love it.

00:34:59:29 – 00:35:26:10
Mahlon
I have nothing more to add because we will start a whole new conversation. I love it. I’m here for it. It could be a recurring event. So with all that said, we’ve been Mahlon Evans-Sinclair and Jess Boyd, the co-hosts of season two of Diverse Ed podcast and massive massive massive thanks to Amy our guest today. See you all soon.

00:35:26:13 – 00:35:28:02
Amy
Thanks for having me. Thank you.

00:35:28:05 – 00:35:32:09
Jess
No worries. Bye.

00:35:32:12 – 00:35:47:00
Hannah
[Outro Music] Thank you for joining us for this episode of Diverse Ed Podcast. Check out the show notes for the recommendations of today’s guest. We’d love to hear what you think, so do leave us a review. We’ll be back soon with another author from our book Diverse Educators: A Manifesto.