Year 8: Week 8 – Progress

This week I started teaching my 3rd graders “Simple Gifts.” In order to help them understand the importance of this song in our culture, I show them different performances of this song.

This year I decided to start with the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles’ performance:


I introduced the video by telling my kids about how sometimes we enjoy hanging out with people that reflect parts of our identity. Sometimes, it’s nice to hang out with only boys, and I told them that sometimes I like being around only people who are Asian American. I explained to them that this is okay, as long as this isn’t the way that we live our lives all the time, because as much as it is important to be with people who share parts of your identity, we should also value spending time to be with people who are different than us.

I talked about how this choir was made up of people who identify as gay and/or homosexual and that this organization was a way for people in that community to spend time with each other. None of the students changed their expressions at all when I said the words “gay,” or “homosexual.” Theses words didn’t phase them at all. One student raised his hand as asked what I meant by “gay.” Immediately, almost every other student in the class raised their hand to answer this question.

I took a chance and called on people. Every single answer was positive and accepting. Students talked about having two dads or two moms, that people had partners who were sometimes the same gender as them, and that gay people simply loved people as their husbands or wives who were the same gender as them.

“Well, then why aren’t there any women in that choir? Women can be gay, right?”

I explained that he was right and that, there are times that gay people, men and women sing together, but that sometimes gay people like to be in different groups to do activities, and that was okay.

I’ve shown this video every year and this was the most explicit I’ve ever been about talking about sexuality, identity, and the importance and affinity groups to my 3rd graders. It went really well.  Kids took pride in their positive and inclusive language. In years past kids have giggled when discussion this video, and students have never had expressed so openly an understanding of what it meant to be homosexual.

I don’t credit for this sucess. This is society as a whole making progress, parents teaching about diversity, and my school going beyond tolerance to truly celebrated diversity.

A class full of eight year olds talking about sexual orientation, with knowledge, respect, and love, trumps hate.