Classroom Caffeine
Classroom Caffeine
A Conversation with Judith Dunkerly-Bean
Dr. Judith Dunkerly-Bean talks to us about advocacy, representation, blind spots, and preparing preservice teachers for what could be seen as difficult conversations. Judith is known for her work in the areas of critical literacies, young adult literature, social justice, and human rights education. She is a fierce advocate for women, girls, and people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. Dr. Dunkerly-Bean is an Associate Professor of Literacy in the Department of Teaching and Learning at Old Dominion University.
To cite this episode:
Persohn, L. (Host). (2021, June 22). A conversation with Judith Dunkerly-Bean. (Season 2, No. 3) [Audio podcast episode]. In Classroom Caffeine Podcast series. https://www.classroomcaffeine.com/guests. DOI: 10.5240/A668-B10D-DD30-45E0-00F3-Q
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In education research has a problem. The work of brilliant education researchers often doesn't reach the practice of brilliant teachers. But the questions and challenges from teachers practice sometimes don't become the work of education researchers. Classroom caffeine is here to help. In a new episode every other week, I talk with an education researcher or a classroom teacher about what they have learned from their work in education, and what questions they still pursue. This week, Dr. Judith Dunkerley-Bean talks to us about advocacy representation, blind spots and preparing pre service teachers for what could be seen as difficult conversations. Judith is known for her work in the areas of critical literacies young adult literature, social justice and human rights education. She's a fierce advocate for women, girls and people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. Dr. Dunkerley-Bean is an associate professor of literacy in the department of teaching and learning at Old Dominion University. For more information about our guest, stay tuned to the end of this episode. So pour a cup of your favorite morning drink. And join me your host, Lindsay Persohn. For classroom caffeine research to energize your teaching practice. Judith, thank you for joining me. Welcome to the show.
Judith Dunkerly-Bean:Thank you so much. Lindsay is pleasure to be here.
Lindsay Persohn:From your own experiences and education. Will you share with us one or two moments that inform your thinking now?
Judith Dunkerly-Bean:Yes, absolutely. I think one of the key moments that has informed me from the beginning of my teaching career up until the present day occurred when I was a new literacy specialists working in a K five public school in a southwestern part of the country. And one of the things that was occurring at the time was the advent and enforcement of scripted reading programs. And the particular one we were using, and I won't name names, we were supposed to be following it with fidelity. And all of those great buzzwords that were flying around at the time. Well, the students that I had with me were doing a pull up model at the time, were five children in third grade who were learning English as an additional language. And the story that came up was one and there's an I'll just give our listeners some background, there was no illustrations that accompany these passages, it was just a straight passage, with no other way for them to gather any sort of context whatsoever. So the story that we were going to be reading that day was about a butter cow. Now, some of your listeners in the Midwest, might be familiar with these from state fairs where it's a sculpture made out of butter of a cow. Yeah. So for the students for these five little ones, they had absolutely no idea what this was. This was a very confusing concept. Now in my former life, before I became a teacher, and now a professor, I was a member of a family band, which is probably a story for another time. But we had played the Ohio State Fair, and at the Ohio State Fair, there was in fact, a butter cow. So I pulled up some images on the computer. And I was showing the kids that it was not actually a living cow, but it was a sculpture was a statue of a cow, but it was made out of butter that you could eat. Well, at that exact moment that I was totally off script and showing photos of the butter cow, the district scripted Reading Program Official came in to do an unannounced observation. And I was totally rebuked for being off script and using my computer and augmenting the instruction. But the thing that marks that for me is that yes, I you know, I was using some of what my very loosely be referred to as the science of reading that was supposedly going to get these children up to speed and reading out of the you know, quote unquote, danger zone. But I was also engaged in the art of teaching, which was recognizing the moment as that happened, using my resources to augment instruction to illustrate a point. And to me that that resistance to the colonization of instruction, and the idea that teachers are only tools in a system as opposed to artists and scientists of their own making has stuck with me. And so I try to every time I teach and Methods course, or when I'm talking to teachers, I'm talking to the researchers to really think about the way that we meet children where they are and every teacher knows this. I'm not saying anything brand new. We meet them where they are. And we use what we have around us to make the most sense and to make meaning when they're trying to read or what if they're trying to learn whatever the content area is, um, so that one from way back has really stuck with me. And I hope my those little ones who are probably well into their 20s now have seen the butter cow person. But in any case, the second event is more recent, it's in the last couple of years, and involve my child excuse me my son cam, who identifies as transgender cam is a transgender now 17 year old boy. And two or three years ago, he was in a private school because we thought that was the best setting for him at the time. And he was in a social studies class, and they were learning about the Holocaust. And the teacher made a comment that while most people did not deserve to die in the Holocaust, some did.
Unknown:And I am in no, we're going to teach your bash at this moment. It was one of those moments that will I'm going to talk about in greater detail in a moment where personal beliefs and attitudes and opinions started to influence how instruction was proceeding. What happened once when she made that comment is, other children in this in this social studies class, became a little bit more verbal around saying things like, yes, you know, trans people are weird trans people should be shot trans people are not, it's not natural. Meanwhile, my trans child who has not come out yet, in this particular environment, is sitting there becoming very fearful. And he came home and shared that with me. And you know, I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt to the teacher. And this moment has informed my thinking and my research to this, because I don't know that she wasn't a bad person, she was just simply unprepared to handle the situation and an escalated as things with, you know, teenagers are sometimes going to do, where the conversation got out of hand, and she didn't have the tools or wasn't prepared to, to direct that conversation into a more open minded democratic discussion. So he left the school because he reported the teacher and then the administration was not comfortable having him there anymore. So he left we went to public school, he was able to come out and be fully himself in a public space. So so that particular experience led Cam my son and I to we wrote about this actually in the English journal in a column called Beyond binary gender identities, where he discussed what it was like to be othered. And to not feel prepared to deal with the reactions that people would have to him, just trying to live his own life, just trying to be who he was, who he authentically was. And so for me, that really led me to think about using my positionality and my privilege, and I admit full privilege to be in a white cisgender female academic, now with tenure, so it gives me some freedom to say things that maybe other people cannot, but led me to think about, what what sorts of instruction, what sorts of experiences can we put in place for our pre service teachers, or teacher candidates to help them facilitate LGBTQIA plus advocacy in their classrooms when they're when they encounter it, as they most certainly will. So we, I started to really think about what that would look like from where I sat, and what that might look like for teachers who would be in Cam's, teachers position in the future, what to say what to do, what to how to respond. My caveat to this is I do need to say that, up until the time that I had a trans child, or until the time cam came out, I was certainly an advocate and allied to the LGBTQIA community, but I was not well versed. And so I don't want to pass myself off as an expert in this field. If anything, I'm coming at this from the role of a scholar, mother, mother scholar position. For those who are really interested in doing a deep dive into queer theory and queer theory in the classroom. Molly Blackburn, Rob Simon, Wayne Martino. There's a lot of other scholars, but I want to share just these personal experiences that led to this research and to and to what I'm doing now, because the problem is, as far as I can see, is that teacher education looks at other issues of diversity, and societal injustice like racism, xenophobia, ableism, but we resist this topic of LGBTQIA diversity in the curriculum, and so it leaves teachers unprepared so that's really where those two moments sort of coming together the the moment where I needed to step out of the box and instruct my children who are learning English, as well as you know, this idea of How do we prepare teachers to be advocates for LGBTQIA children and families,
Lindsay Persohn:as you're describing both of these kind of points in your, in your career and in your life, Judith, if it makes me it, you know, the word that keeps coming back to my mind is background. It all has to do with our backgrounds and what we know, and what we don't know, and how we relate to what we know, or sometimes what we think we know about the world, and how much you know, our own identity shapes, how we see things and how we see others, and certainly how we how we approach texts, like in the case of the butter cow, or how we approach people, in the case of Cam's teacher you described, and I I get the feeling that your work has a lot to do with that this idea of backgrounds and identities and, and how that all informs who we are and how we how we teach and how we learn.
Unknown:Yes, I mean, absolutely. I mean, I'll quote Bettina Love here, and like you can't, you can't teach children you don't love. Right, you have to know your children know your background and know your own positionality identity and blind spots. And be able to able and willing to address those as I know many, many teachers do. I know that teachers are right, they're doing this every day researchers are right. They're doing this every day. But it is I think you hit the nail on the head, it's critical to understand backgrounds, both of your own and children or teens, adults that you might be teaching
Lindsay Persohn:That concept of blind spots, I think is so important for anyone who either is just starting to do this work of understanding people who don't look or live like we do, or people who've been doing this work for a long time. I think we all have blind spots. I think we all have things we either don't know were thinking with or sometimes things we're we're thinking without. So uncovering those things. I think they're just such growth points for us as educators and as humans.
Unknown:Absolutely. And I think framing it as a growth point in a really show really highlights the idea that a growth mindset is really important. I know that, you know, when Cam first came out, I had a lot of blind spots. You know, I was generally supportive, of course, because a lot of my work is in critical literacies and working with people that might have been shoved to the margins by the dominant discourse in society or education. But he would sit there and quiz me in the car, like what does this acronym mean? What does this mean? And he would, you know, experience experiment with different names that he wanted to be called. So it was all of this really trying to grow and learn and admit that I don't? I don't know. And I think sometimes that can be very difficult for teachers and researchers to admit like, I don't know, I don't know what you're saying to me. But let me take a moment. Let me learn about that.
Lindsay Persohn:Yeah, and what a what a important perspective in the world to always be looking to grow and learn something new. I think so. So what else would you like listeners to know about your work, Judith?
Judith Dunkerly-Bean:You know, I think as I mentioned briefly before, teachers, especially, and other community activists, other people working with communities, a lot of people have always been who might not have gotten the recognition have always been on the frontlines of social justice. And I'll say teachers have especially right, whether they wanted to or not, they're going to be right there on the frontlines opening doors and making sure that children are welcome into educational spaces, because they're required to be there. And that's part of part of the argument that I'm going to make now is if children are required to be there, we need to make sure that those spaces are open, accepting and welcoming to everyone, or, you know, in a community center wherever the case might be. But I think that perhaps mirroring the way that white people have been taught to have been conditioned to avoid talking about race, to deny inherent structural racism, straight cisgender people have been almost imbued to expect hetero heterosexuality, and that heteronormativity comes out through that. So when we, when we accept that, again, as maybe a blind spot, we see that we're perpetuating a rigid, socially constructed definition of gender and sexuality that oppresses those who might identify outside of a binary right, and we're coming to learn more and more that the gender as historically defined is really starting to be an outmoded binary that doesn't address you know, a wide range of experiences and a wide range of, of identities. And to me that this is important. It should be important to me because I'm a human being, but it's really important to me because I'm a mom, that, you know, many LGBTQIA plus students feel unsafe in schools, and I know that we've seen this quite a bit in GLSENs research in middle schools and high schools. But now Children are coming out younger and younger, preschool, kindergarten and so forth. But we already know that over 85% of children experience of LGBTQIA students experience verbal harassment. 27% experienced physical harassment 13% have experienced physical assault. Right? So it's I think it's important for us to think about that, and especially as teachers and people or people working in spaces involving children, you know, how do we go about that? So one of the things I'd want listeners to know about my research is that when we saw this happening at my current institution at ODU, where pre service teachers just were not prepared, a interdisciplinary group of faculty that included Dr. Julia poplin, at Minnesota State Morehead, Minnesota State University at Morehead, who was, at the time a doctoral student, Dr. Valerie Taylor, who's now at ODU. And Dr. Helen Crompton, and Katherine Rhodes at ODU. We tried to come up with a way to address this in our methods classes. And so we originally designed we designed a study to let Teacher candidates explore issues and topics related to LGBTQI experiences, and then create multimodal digital picturebooks. So we had members of the LGBT Center on campus and from the community come in and talk to our to our students across four or five sections, instructional technology classes, literacy methods, classes, and so forth, coming in and talk and then we asked our students to go explore these issues, because what we really want to do is create a digital repository of text that can be shared K5, with teachers who were trying to find materials to use in their classroom, we did that we did do that. But what we found was that many of the books centered on general issues such as bullying, or belonging in a way that was not particular to the LGBTQIA plus community. And in fact, many took almost a colorblind approach or approach that was analogous to a colorblind approach, which we know now does not work when we're talking about race and culture. But they took that sort of someone, let's all just be friends, all the crayons in the box are friends, and so forth. But what emerged, even more importantly, than trying to create this repository of books, is that the need for teacher candidates and the need for Well, anybody in the community really, to have a space and a place to talk about thoughts, they have around LGBTQI issues, but also how to support children and families identifying as such, right, what to say when to say it, where to say it, you know, a lot of our students, and we had over the course of the year of the study, around 90, 90 students, so they wanted to be advocates, but they really didn't know what that looked like. And they were afraid a lot of teachers, a lot of teacher candidates were just really afraid of what to say how to say it. They didn't know how to deal with their own ambiguity, ambiguity around the issue, like how do I address it in my classroom? Will I get in trouble? Will parents be upset? Well, my administration be upset. So we're seeing this this range of responses from fully disengaged, where this will never come up in my classroom, to teacher candidates and students who wants to go volunteer almost immediately, they were there to second you know, I either have family or this really resonates with me. But what we noted was as we work through some of these issues and created a space, because you know, it doesn't do any good to shut somebody down. And to shame them for beliefs that are opposite of yours or against what you're feeling. And I've got, I've got to be honest, as as a mother of a trans child, it was really hard not to go full Mama Bear sometimes, right? It's like, you know, and to really keep that idea that discussion is what leads to growth and keeping these spaces open. But what we noticed across the sections, and across the year, was that there was a change in attitudes and a reduction in the reticence around being able to talk openly and freely and be welcoming, when we talked about viewing LGBTQIA plus rights as civil rights and as human rights. And again, this isn't going to surprise many of your listeners that when we frame it this way. It gives a broader view. So we talk more about that background, that idea that when you think of something as a civil right, and when you think of something as a human right, it really brings the human to the forefront. And this was really clear for us when Cam was brave enough to come into my class and answer your questions, because a lot of them said, Well, I don't know what I would do with a trans child. And so I came home and I was I was I was sort of, you know, talking and venting a bit and cams like well, I'll come in I'll talk to them. I'm a trans child. And so he came in and they asked him questions. He was very open about it. And what that what it did was it humanize the experience and just in the ways that we've talked about humanizing research, humanizing teaching, Thinking about who's silenced who's left out, the idea that, you know, behind whatever figment of our imagination or stereotype might exist. The human, the humanity of everyone needs to be, you know, obviously forefront. And what was also important was for our teachers was distinguishing between, you know, sexual practice, which one might not want to ever discuss in a classroom of kindergarteners. Right. And that's that we could think all agree that would be, should remain private. So distinguishing between sexual practice and sexual gender identities which need to be identified, which need to be recognized and honored. So that what once we made some of those distinctions, even the more reticent of our teachers began to see. Oh, okay, yeah, it's like having, you know, in some ways, having a black child and then in a classroom during the Civil Rights Movement, right, and we're talking about inclusion. And we talked about segregation, that these are all human rights issues, or civil rights issues. And it's really about much like my beginning idea about the children who didn't know what a butter cow was, it's about making that connection for children to understand that which they have no familiarity with. It's about normalizing experiences, and why we can't normalize a butter cow. Right, we can certainly normalize the experiences, the identity and the existence of children who identify as LGBTQIA, and especially our trans children. Because over the course of this research, and over the course of the study, most of the students were fine, had really no issue discussing or advocating for lesbian, for gay for bisexual, for intersex children, for asexual people, but the idea of a transgender individual really threw them. And so I think when we think about our backgrounds, and we think about those blind spots, being able to think about what can I do, either in a school or in the community, or wherever I happen to be to create a safe space for transgender children and adults.
Lindsay Persohn:Everything you're saying Judith really resonates with me. And it reminds me of some of the experiences and conversations I've had in the past. Of course, this isn't an area of my research, but anecdotally, I can say that, that so often, I think whenever we when we come in contact with people who are resistant to thinking or even considering people who are transgender, I find that they they typically don't know anyone who is transgender. Right, if for them, it's an idea. It's not a person,
Judith Dunkerly-Bean:right? It's an idea. It's not a person. Absolutely.
Lindsay Persohn:And so once we, as you did put that to a human individual, this is a person just like, you or me, it is a different conversation, it becomes more real, it becomes, I think, more pressing. And I think it it's it really does in my in my world, at least these conversations I've had, it does open people to actually considering viewpoints other than their own.
Judith Dunkerly-Bean:Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's, you know, that's true across many spectrums, but especially when, when dealing with something that might be as different to some people as as transgender people might appear. You know, Cam is kind of fond of saying, being transgender is the least interesting thing about me, right, asking me about what I want to do what I, you know, asked me about my dogs asked me about school, being transgender should just be a part of his identity that is, is naturally accepted. But shouldn't be the only thing that is noticed or talked about. And I think that idea of normalizing experiences and normalizing identity gets us past that awkwardness of oh, you know, tell me what it's like to be trans, you know, which, of course nobody wants to answer because like asking, like, tell me about what it's like to be, you know, X, Y or Z, it should not necessarily be the first automatic question. Yeah. So I think that idea of human again, I think comes back to humanizing our experiences in a way that that brings more acceptance,
Lindsay Persohn:and, and maybe making the thing that seems strange to us at first, making that part of our background knowledge that bringing that into who we become and how we move forward. I think, you know, you talk about normalizing I think that's, that's one way we get there is by seeing understanding, getting to know people who like always say look, or live differently than we do. And I think that's so cool. That cam says the least interesting thing about me asked me to have a conversation with me as though I'm just a human. Right? I mean, to me, that's what that really says is, you know, okay, old news, can we can we talk about something else? Yeah.
Judith Dunkerly-Bean:And again, just like you were telling your experiences about being, you know, a cisgender woman, although that's certainly a valid question, but it's not the first thing you would ask me. Right? The same way, right? When we think about normalizing and accepting that it, hopefully will get to a point where it's not the first question that comes to mind.
Lindsay Persohn:Right, agreed. Well, Judith, given the challenges of today's educational climate, what message do you want teachers to hear?
Judith Dunkerly-Bean:No, I, when I first saw that question, Let them know your pronouns. It's a fairly simple step and I think there's so many challenges. And I think, you know, right now, and without dating this podcast too badly, I mean, there's so many anti trans bills being introduced across the country, that really threaten children, like, you know, like my son, other younger children, adults, whatever the case might be, that threaten the humanity and the lived experiences of a lot of people. And that's I've been really mentioning this of, you know, the so called existing, no promo homo bills in six states that restrict teachers from even offering support. Right, it becomes very risky if you're, if your job is on the line, to be supportive to a child. But I think what we need to keep in mind is that even using a child's claim name, using their correct pronouns, reduces suicidal ideation and depression by up to 70%. So I think the important thing to remember is you can be the one person who maybe recognizes and honors a child who comes to you who trusts you, to use to use their pronouns, to talk to call them by the correct name, we've just come are hopefully coming out of a pandemic, I've been so grateful to cams, teachers for taking the small step of switching his name over to cam from Camille on the Zoom screen, because he can't do it himself due to district regulations, but just changing his name to the one that he goes by, has been huge, everywhere, he gets a little smile on his face. Like, you know, his teachers remembered. So just something you know, as just a small, just a small gesture like that. So I guess the message that I would want listeners to hear is that we do need bold advocacy. Absolutely. We need bold advocacy, we need everybody to be to think about what ally ship means to them what that can look like. But we also need small moments of Audacity. And by that, I mean just so small moments, like cams, teachers, which in his name on Zoom, speaks volumes to how they what they believe and what their, their climate they're trying to include in their classroom might be, or in a community center or in the workplace. You know, for teachers especially and again, because I'm a literacy person, and with a great fondness for picture books, it's pretty simple to include picture books like sparkle boy, or Julian is a mermaid, or I am jazz in your classroom library and read them read them as you would any other book. Much like with race and culture representation matters. There's a there's a great graphic, and I wish I had the ability to show it that showed that shows the representation of children's books and 50% of characters are animals, the next highest percentage are white people, right? And it goes down drastically from there for the portrayal of other cultures. And if you get down to trying to portray children who identify as LGBTQIA, it's next to nothing, generally speaking. So if you can find those books, and there, you know, and put them in your classroom and just read them again and the way you would any. Again, this applies more perhaps for teachers or other educators to avoid dividing up your classroom into boys and girls. I mean, it's so simple that if you have a non binary child, or a child who is gender fluid, or who hasn't come out as trans yet, boys and girls raises a whole lot of internals strife. So you're not trying to like preferred pet favorite superhero favorite food? Would you rather questions would you rather go to the park or to the beach, whatever the case might be? little pro tip there for elementary teachers, you can graph that later. Right? You can you can make all kinds of charts and fun things and you haven't. You haven't created a non essential binary in your classroom. Again, as I mentioned before, providing your own your own pronouns and your signature block. Its age of email communication and put your put your pronouns in there. It just again, sends that message when you're meeting with parents or others community stakeholders. especially for elementary schools and other community centers that might deal with with young children, pre kindergarten to fifth grade. We all there's quite a few GSAs and middle schools and high schools, there's not that many in elementary schools. So maybe consider starting a an elementary pride group. You know, just think about those, those small moments of Audacity that you can put in there along with your larger advocacy efforts that just let, especially our youngest, youngest members of our community know that they're accepted, that they're valued, that they're wanted, that they're included, you know, informational rights fighting ignorance with knowledge and exposure. And again, great picture books. It's like, there's nothing like a really great picture book to, to maybe go where you're uncomfortable going by yourself.
Lindsay Persohn:I really appreciate those concrete ideas about how teachers can engage with this in for themselves, first and also for their students. So thank you so much for that.
Judith Dunkerly-Bean:Thanks, Lindsay. And again, um, there are so many wonderful researchers who have done so much more in this field than I have. But I think it's important, again, to use the platforms that we've been given to, you know, facilitate and advocate no matter, you know, where we can when we can, to the extent that we can.
Lindsay Persohn:Absolutely. Well, Judith, I, thank you so much for your time today, and I thank you for your contributions to the field of education.
Judith Dunkerly-Bean:I appreciate that. Thank you so much for this opportunity.
Lindsay Persohn:Thank you. Dr. Judith Dunkerley-Bean is known for her work in the areas of critical literacies young adult literature, social justice and human rights education. Judith research utilizes transnational feminist theories and critical pedagogies to explore issues of literacy and social justice. She's a fierce advocate for women, girls and people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. Her work has appeared in Journal of literacy research, the reading teacher, the Journal of adolescent and adult literacy, language and literacy, current issues and comparative education, critical perspectives on international education and the Journal of Educational controversy, as well as several book chapters in his edited multiple books. Judith was nominated for the Jerry Jon's promising researcher award from the Association of literacy educators and researchers, and is the winner of the John R. Broderick diversity Champion Award from Old Dominion University. Prior to earning her PhD from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, she was a literacy specialist and reading coach and classroom teacher. Judith is also the co director of the literacy Research and Development Center at Old Dominion University that focuses on conducting and disseminating research on social justice for marginalized populations. Dr. Dunkerley-Bean is an associate professor of literacy in the department of teaching and learning at Old Dominion University. For the good of all students, good research should inform good practice and vice versa. listeners are invited to respond to an episode, learn more about our guests, search past episodes, or request a topic or conversation with a specific person through our website at classroom caffeine.com. If you've learned something today, or just enjoyed listening, please be encouraged to talk about what you heard with your colleagues, and subscribe and review this podcast through your podcast provider. As always, I raised my mug to you teachers. Thanks for joining me