So this week, we all met up at the Marriott. Diversity was a major theme of many of the sessions. I attended some interesting sessions, but perhaps the most heart felt and amazing thing was the Panel interview at the end of the Kate conference. It was great to hear about others struggles. There's so many different people that make our school cultures diverse and interesting. Bill Konigsberg spoke on acceptance as well.
Bill brought up some issues that I never thought about for those who are gay. Bill mentioned kiddos being kicked out of their homes. He also talked about the need for kids to be careful when they come out. There are other needs that come first. Those needs include safety and shelter. As a mother, it breaks my heart to picture my kids moving out. They can live with me until they are 30! I can't imagine there would be anything they could do that would make me let them live on the street. He also brought up a point about making sure that kids feel comfortable in our classroom regardless of our own beliefs about their actions / sins. I agree with him.
Another place where we learned about diversity was in the break out session with Dr. Rife. He spoke about the elephant in the room which was race. He showed us some interesting statistics that prove white privilege. I found that inspirational as well as sad. We also got to watch the Key and Peele video about the substitute teacher. As always, it is humorous, but I had never really thought about why. Dr. Rife made us think about why. Though I think the humor is lost now, I am grateful that he had us look at it through another pair of eyes.
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