heart of heartlands lessons

Since 2005, LGBT+ History Month, has been celebrated widely in schools, to varying degrees. Just as October is home to Black History Month, February has become a time when schools devote time to educating students on the history of LGBT+ rights in the UK and the challenges that these groups still face. It isn’t hard to make the case for devoting time in schools to promoting diversity and celebrating equality. It fits in quite naturally with work surrounding bullying and the safety of students. However, while we might assume that these values are naturally at the core of education in the modern day, they are often overlooked, and it takes the energy and enthusiasm of teachers and members of staff to engage students with these topics.

Throughout February we have tried to engage our students in a range of different activities. We invited a core group of students to attend a workshop by the organisation Diversity Role Models, around developing student voice on issues relating to equality. We ordered six hundred rainbow badges, and asked students to write an “equality pledge” in exchange for a badge. We delivered sessions during tutor time, outlining the timeline of activism for LGBT+ rights and highlighting the different ethnic and religious groups that have come together to campaign on these issues. In preparation for an assembly on equality, we conducted a survey of all students in the school, asking them about their experiences of racist, sexist and homophobic language being used in school but also about how confident they felt challenging it. We received hundreds of responses, with some students writing paragraphs, expressing their frustration at the lack of LGBT+ education that they receive at school.

All of these activities have succeeded in raising the profile of LGBT+ History month, and the concept of equality more generally. Some students have worn their badges with pride; engaged in discussions about the future of LGBT+ issues in the UK and been keen to participate in assemblies.

But there is something more important at the heart of this. LGBT+ History Month will not change the views of all of the students in a school. It will not mean that every student understands exactly how it feels to be gay. Some students will hold onto strongly held beliefs about the morality of sexuality. But with guidance, they may develop an understanding of the importance of tolerance, and of ensuring that their fellow students feel safe and respected. This is one goal of celebrating LGBT+ History Month.

The second goal is perhaps more complex. The way students treat each other can be easier to combat that the apathy that we are often greeted with when we raise any issue of inequality, injustice or prejudice - whether it be LGBT+ related or not. Our students often take their rights for granted and are not confident, comfortable or interested in making a stand and challenging injustice. They are happy to sit and be told that homophobia is wrong - whether they believe it or not - but will they stand up and challenge something, anything, in society that they know is wrong?

For this reason, in planning an assembly to end LGBT+ History Month, we focused on the more general topic of equality. Rather than spend twenty minutes telling students not to use the term “gay” in a derogatory way, we shared with them examples of times, in the past and present day, when people have challenged inequality and prejudice. We spoke about The Suffragettes, alongside the Black Lives Matter movement and the campaign for equal marriage in the UK. We wanted to show students that although these people came from different times and places, and had different goals, the value at the core of what they did was equality, and the challenging of inequality wherever and whenever they saw it.

It is important in the current social and political climate, more than ever, that we do not only tell students what not to say and do, but that we empower them to make change. Promoting equality is not only about ensuring that our students do not use racist, sexist and homophobic language towards each other, but about equipping them with the tools to be comfortable and confident in challenging inequality and injustice whether it be in school or in wider society. We need to create active citizens, who do not accept the status quo or blindly follow the rules, but stand up for the rights that they know have been hard won, both for themselves and others.