73. What Schools Lose by Politicizing Critical Race Theory and Queer Educators

Have you ever wondered how a queer educator’s personal experiences shape their approach to teaching and advocacy?

In this episode, Dr. Landon Wood (he/him), a seasoned educator with a rich background in arts and education, shares how growing up in a small, conservative town influenced his path in education and advocacy. As a queer individual, Dr. Wood reveals the profound impact of his personal struggles and triumphs on his professional life, particularly in creating inclusive and empathetic learning environments.

Through our conversation you will discover:

• How ​​inclusive curriculum and diverse voices in the classroom promote empathy and understanding.
• The transformative role of arts in personal identity and empathy building, and how these lessons are applied in educational settings.
• Practical strategies for confronting anti-queer behavior and fostering inclusivity in the classroom.

Don’t miss out on learning how authenticity can revolutionize your teaching approach—listen to the full episode now!

Transcript

Bryan (he/they): [00:00:00] Hi Landon, how are you doing today? 

Landon (he/him): It is just a wonderful another merry gay day here in Iowa. 

Bryan (he/they): Oh, I love merry gay days 

Can 

you share a little bit about yourself with those who are listening? . 

Landon (he/him): Yeah. So my name is Dr. Landon Wood. I use the pronouns. He, him, his, I am based out of Iowa and I'm an educator with, over 10 years of experience and a proud queer educator at that too.

Bryan (he/they): I love that. I love that you're coming to us from Iowa.

 let's talk a little bit about your experience growing up.

What was life like for you as a queer student? 

Landon (he/him): Yeah, so I grew up in a very small town. I think the population was about 83 in the town where I actually lived, but the town where I did all of my schooling and my formative years It was about 4, 000. So again, Small rural town in Northeast Iowa. And of course what comes along with that is a lot of conservative views and, a lot of religious [00:01:00] beliefs I grew up on a dairy farm, so I'm that farm boy through and through. It's always very surprising to people when I meet them as an adult, they're like, You limp-wrist little boy, grew up on a dairy farm and I'm like, yeah. And they're like, I just cannot imagine it. I was like I did. I grew up on a dairy farm and I had to do, everything that is involved with being on a dairy farm and doing all of that work.

But for me, school was, What was most important for me in school was, just getting out there and excelling in the arts. And that's what I was really into in school. And as I was thinking about, some of the questions that you had sent me, I think the arts really helped me to cope with being queer because I didn't come out when I was in high school.

I didn't come out until I was in college. I do think that the arts were a way for me to be creative and a way for me to, act, out these different identities and personalities because my true identity had to be hidden For lack of a better terms just because of the surrounding area in the community where I live, so I definitely feel that the arts were very [00:02:00] formative in helping me explore more of my queer identity identify as a gay man, cisgender, gay man, and it was just, amazing to be able to explore the arts and, explore all these different identities and just live your life as these characters, out loud.

Because, in my real life, I had to stifle it and put away who I was just in order to conform and fit in with my surrounding community and the kind of majority and consensus at large. 

Bryan (he/they): That is one of the reasons that I love theater so much. One, it's called play for a reason. You get to play, and you get to put on this character for a little bit, and then you get to take it off and try something new next week.

And that's one of the things I love about it. I really think that there should be some sort of actual study done about how theater generates empathy in people. Absolutely. Because of the fact that you are taking on these roles, and you basically get to, for a very short period of time, live someone else's circumstances.

Landon (he/him): Yeah. [00:03:00] And you have to dig, you have to dig deep into those emotions and, all of their reasoning behind the actions that they're doing. And I really think that it helps, every individual to, like you said, tap into that empathy, into the empathetic portion of, all that we all have some of us have more of it than others as human beings.

But I definitely think that the arts really contribute to that. And, I think that's why you see a lot of queer people gravitate towards the arts. 

Bryan (he/they): Absolutely. I agree with that 100%. How do you think those experiences have influenced or informed your work in education now? 

Landon (he/him): Yeah, so I think the biggest thing, that it has showed me now is that I can truly authentically be myself.

In the classroom I don't have to play a part, and by truly authentically being myself in the classroom, I'm allowing others to see the possibility for themselves, right? Others who may identify under the queer umbrella as well, within the LGBTQ+ spectrum. And I think that's super important.

Something else that I didn't [00:04:00] have growing up was representation, like in school curriculum, right? So that's something that I've striven really hard to put into all the work that I do. I teach Spanish and English language learners. And most recently when I was a Spanish teacher, I'm between roles right now, switching back to English language learners.

But when I was a Spanish educator, I would make sure that I incorporated diverse voices, not just from the LGBTQ+ community, but Afro Latinos and all these different identities because it's super important to have representation. And then while I was working on my doctorate, I stepped away from the classroom just because that dissertation life got so crazy.

It was everything that I was doing and I was like, I cannot be teaching Spanish, grading papers. fielding emails and writing my dissertation and still have a regular work life balance. So I stepped away from the classroom and I started working at a textbook company. And while I was working at this particular textbook company, one of my main goals was to make sure that diversity, equity, and inclusion, and accessibility, and belonging was prevalent throughout the product that [00:05:00] we were creating.

And when I was doing my research, a lot of my research centered on queer theory and critical theory. And I merged it together to call it queertical theory. Yeah. And my dissertation chair was like, you have to run with that because he's that could be a thing. I haven't done it yet, but I still, it's on the back burner of something to do, but that was all about, centering diverse voices in your classroom and looking at, curriculum and saying, okay, there's something wrong with this curriculum.

It's. It's very, whitewashed. It's very, heteronormative. How can we propel this curriculum forward and put these diverse voices and these diverse lived experiences in this curriculum to help all students feel valued, centered, like they belong as opposed to, the traditional textbook that we see mainly focuses on heteronormativity and white heteronormativity at that and systems of oppression.

And a lot of times they gloss over those systems of oppression because they don't want to talk about that. So that's something that I've been really striving to do as well. [00:06:00] within all my work is just normalize the queer community and let individuals know that, hey, if you have a gay teacher, it's fine.

If you have a gay colleague, it's fine. If you have friends who are gay, it's fine. And the way that I tackled that in my Spanish classroom is I would talk about, weekend chat with my students and I would talk about things we would do on the weekends. And I would talk about things my fiancé that he and I would be doing.

And they became more obsessed with him than they were with me, my students. They were like what's he doing? You haven't given us an update on him in a while. What's up with him? And I'm like, okay, I'm your teacher. You see me every day. 

We want to know more about him. But it became this normalized thing for them, and it was okay to have a gay teacher. They, some of the students really celebrated it. Like when I had an open house, and I don't hide it at all. I had students come in and they were like, Oh my gosh, you're going to be my first gay teacher.

I'm so excited. And some people may be offended by that. But for me, that's just very, the enthusiasm is very heartwarming. And it's just exciting to see [00:07:00] students excited about, the breaking heteronormativity and the fact that, queer teachers exist and are out there. 

Bryan (he/they): Absolutely. I love what you were talking about because your dissertation and my MFA, because I work in the arts, I went the MFA route.

I did not have to write a dissertation, but I did a lot of writing because I love research and my focus was on pedagogy. So doing a, Performance or building a set for something and calling it my master's final was not a thing that I was gonna do But a lot of my research centered on Queer theater so queer theory is in there with a queer theater and then culturally responsive pedagogy which Critical theory and culturally responsive pedagogy are like twins And so I love what you're talking about because it really is about all students And that's the frustrating part for me is it's like when people hear critical race theory or they hear culturally responsive pedagogy They're like, oh, this is about making things like affirmative action better Like this is about dealing with this one group of people, but really it's [00:08:00] about Making sure everybody is included in what we're talking about and I think about like English language learners.

How the heck are you supposed to teach English language learners the English language if you don't connect to stories that connect to them? Stories that are written by immigrants. Stories that are written in English that deal with folk tales that they may have grown up with. Things that they know and that they're interested in.

How are you supposed to teach them? Because reading a bunch of stories written by white, straight dudes, from a hundred years ago is not going to be appealing to the modern day English language learner. And I think a lot of ESL programs Struggle 

It 

Landon (he/him): has changed a lot. It's always evolving. 

Bryan (he/they): Yeah. I think a lot of programs struggle with that because there is a lack of diversity in the curriculum and therefore 

the language is not being acquired as quickly as, the standards would want you to.

Landon (he/him): Absolutely. 

Bryan (he/they): So [00:09:00] we're going to shift gears completely right now, even though I would love to stick on this because I could probably talk about it for three and a half hours. But there's a lot of turbulence happening right now in society. What are some practical things that you do when you're confronted with anti queer behavior?

Landon (he/him): I think the biggest thing I do is confront it. Just like you said, I make sure that especially if it's a student maybe exhibiting some anti queer behavior. I let them know that's, not acceptable or a tolerant behavior in my classroom. And then in this classroom, that sticker on my door that says safe place means it is a safe place for all.

And it means that this, classroom, within these four walls. And it should be within, these building and within, the entire town and vicinity that we live in the world that language is not appropriate and you cannot be bringing that kind of hate into my classroom.

And I have had instances with that with educators, with students. And when it's a student, I'm a bit more willing [00:10:00] to forgive because they are young. They are learning. That's why we're there. We're the educators to help them. But when it is coming from a colleague or, a parent or a guardian.

That's where I have a hard time letting it go, and forgiving, especially even if they try to, make the, The error, the egregious error, right? At the end of the day, I have a really hard time letting it go because you are an adult, you know better. So one of the examples I can think of at my most recent job was we had a professional development day where the Gay Student Alliance, came to the professional development and they were actually tasked with presenting the entire PD for us and it was probably hands down the best professional development I've ever had in my 10 years of teaching because it was so meaningful.

Those students worked really hard to make sure that we knew what they wanted us to know. They told us what we were doing well. They told us how we could improve. And they just basically told us that they wanted to be valued and seen and heard, especially [00:11:00] the trans and non binary students that we had.

And it was phenomenal. But unfortunately there was that one dissenting voice. And I was working in a Spanish department at the time. This one dissenting voice stood up and said, I love you students and all, but non binary people will never belong in a Spanish classroom because the language is so binary.

And at that moment I saw red, but I knew I had to remain professional because those students were on the stage. And I was in the room of all my colleagues. So what I did in that moment to combat the anti queer rhetoric was I stood up and we were in the auditorium. So the seats like flip and it made a really loud thwack noise when it stood up and I marched out of that auditorium.

And that was my way of combating that letting. The administrators who were in the room, the other educators who were in the room, the students in the room know that this made me royally pissed off and that I was not going to stand there and listen to that. So I walked out and I sat in the lobby, for [00:12:00] a while.

And, a few individuals came and checked on me, not a single administrator came and checked on me. A few other colleagues and friends came and checked on me. And then I told them, I said, let me know when this is just about done because I want to come back in. Because this was during the question and answer panel.

And first of all, to that colleague, I was like, where is the question in that? That's not a question. Saying that queer people don't belong in the Spanish classroom? That's not a question. You're just Being a bigot, you're being, spreading hateful rhetoric. So anyway, when it was done, I wanted to make sure that the students knew why I left.

So I asked an individual to inform me when it was done. And so I scurried back in there, down to the front of the stage, and I said, Hey, students, I need you all gather around me right here. I said, you as a student at this school belong in any classroom, whether you are gay, straight, whether you use He, him, she, her, they pronouns.

You belong anywhere. There is room for anyone in this and I pointed directly at the individual who was still in the room and [00:13:00] I said, and don't you let anyone tell you otherwise, especially people who spread hate like that. after that I just. I was new to the district, so I still saw this outpouring of love from the LGBTQ+ community of students, and they would, even if I didn't have them as a student, they would stop by my classroom.

I had always taught gender neutral language in Spanish, but after that I vamped it up so much more just to further stick it to this individual. This same individual, I had to go to HR about them several times. We were within the same department, and her classroom was actually right next door to mine.

And at one point in time, I had the pride flag hanging up in my classroom by the American flag. And she came into my classroom and proceeded to tell me that the pride flag is cultural appropriation, because it's originally, the flag of the Incan empire. And I said, Oh, really? I didn't know that. And she said, yeah, but that flag has more colors.

So I said, you're telling me it's different. And, but she cornered me in my own classroom to tell me [00:14:00] that my pride flag is cultural appropriation and it doesn't belong to me. In the classroom, which again doesn't make any sense because even if it was I'm a Spanish teacher. So I'm allowed to, even if it was, the Incan empire's flag, I'm allowed to have that in my classroom because it goes with the content that I teach, but she just made these undercutting comments like, Hey, yeah, and then that man made that flag and decided that it represented your community.

And I was just like, you really have the nerve, the gall, the audacity. The gumption, right? To come into my classroom and treat me like that. I made sure that I was loud and proud about who I was ever since that. And I made sure that I reported her to HR several times. And years following, she's gotten several more complaints and somehow she still works there.

And that's just disheartening as well. And I contribute that to these turbulent times that we're living in. It's [00:15:00] just really sad to see. That, I am standing up for the right thing and advocating for all students. But this bigot is being protected and I had to leave the district by my own choice because it was either stay and work with that individual another year or leave the district.

So I chose to leave the district. And it's such a loss to, districts and schools and communities when educators feel forced out because we're protecting the people who are bigots and spreading hate just because they've, been there the longest and they have tenure and to me that doesn't matter.

What matters is, do you have good people who are willing to stand up for all of your students and be a representative and be supportive for all your students and really, truly embrace everything that is, DEI because that's the district touted that the entire time is that, we embrace everything DEI.

With that individual still employed by that district, you're not embracing DEI because they are actively telling students they don't belong. You gotta [00:16:00] confront it no matter how uncomfortable it may be.

You just really have to make sure that as an educator, you're showing students who are looking up to you because I think teachers did used to be put on a pedestal, right? I think our pedestal's definitely been knocked down quite a bit. But I do still think there's students out there who look at the teacher as this individual who has high authority and who they respect and that they look up to.

So I think as educators, we have to model how we combat anti queer, anti anything really, anti, just any kind of rhetoric that is hateful. We really need to model and step up and show students how they can, continue doing what we're modeling and push it into their lives as well. 

Bryan (he/they): Absolutely.

There's, I, we have. Parallel story in the sense that the woman who was, straight explaining to me about pronouns was my principal. And so then by the end of that year, after several different instances [00:17:00] is she was new to the school, but she has a gay brother, so it's okay. Yeah, 

Landon (he/him): of course. 

Bryan (he/they): And she was one of the deciding factors because I had gone, that school, The district was in disarray, honestly.

the culture changed so quickly. After the election, I was in Texas. And in the four years that I was working at that school, which happened to coincide with, someone's presidency, the culture of the district just changed and went backwards, it had been working towards equity and inclusion.

We even had an equity audit. In which they literally buried all the information about queer people. After inviting us to be a part of the audit. Texas doesn't have tenure. You can be fired every single year for nothing.

And yet we're still going to protect people who are being bigoted over the people who are fighting for the rights of the students. 

Landon (he/him): Yeah, and that's I think the hardest part is we always hear, we got to keep our kids safe. We [00:18:00] can't be letting these educators indoctrinate and we got to keep our kids safe.

The very kids that you want to keep safe is that's exactly what I'm trying to do. There's so much research and data that shows that just One queer representative in a queer student's life will help relieve the ideations of suicide. that their, chances of living a life are astronomically, increased.

Because they have someone that they can look to and see, Oh, I see this individual, they're excelling in life, they're succeeding in life. Maybe I could do that too. And I think that's what's so important. And I don't understand why some people don't see that is that, that the representation just matters.

Period. End of story. Like it helps students. It literally saves students lives. 

Bryan (he/they): Quite literally, there is statistical data that shows there's a significant increase in the life of queer children just by having one person who [00:19:00] is there to support them.

And if I am that one person and I have saved one child's life, I have done my job.

Thinking about that and how turbulent things are, what kind of advice would you give to someone who's worried about showing up authentically at work? I would say you just have to, trudge through it. Even if you have those feelings of fear and worry, you gotta push through. Because going through my education program, especially being, a child of the 80s, so being that millennial, going through the education program, in the early 2000s, I think that we were really told, your queer identity is very taboo, you should not talk about it, your personal life should never be talked about with your students, yada yada, et cetera.

Landon (he/him): The list goes on and on about, how my very being was wrong for this profession, yet somehow I still stayed in the profession. So I think that you just have to put all of those worries aside and just be your true authentic self because students will start to notice if you're putting on [00:20:00] what I call teacher drag, right?

You drag yourself out because we're all born naked and the rest is drag, right? So we're putting on our teacher drag trying to fit into this mold of a heteronormative educator because that's what the oppressive system and the patriarchy set up, right? But if you just take off that teacher drag and live your authentic self, you will be able to connect with students so much more.

Students will be able to learn from you, not only the LGBTQ+ students, but any student. Especially students who don't identify as queer or under the queer umbrella, they'll be able to, learn from an identity that is outside of their own, because that's not an experience. My lived experience is different from your lived experience and different from my students lived experiences.

sharing all of our lived experiences is another way that we're learning and building relationships and becoming more of a global society and more of a society that connects.

I think that it's just so important [00:21:00] to continue to embrace who you are, wholly, authentically, and just bring that to everything that you do in the classroom and center, various identities and voices in the classroom, so that everyone has that opportunity to, feel valued, seen, heard, and just above all else, like respected in the classroom.

And I think that's super crucial to get any student on board. If I'm going into any work environment, and I don't feel like I'm valued or seen or heard or respected, I'm not going to stay there. I'm not going to motivate myself. So I think when we're not doing that, we're doing a disservice to all of our students because, we're not allowing them to be truly authentically themselves.

Bryan (he/they): Yeah, you got me thinking about something that's probably going to be controversial if it gets turned into a soundbite, but here we are. It's funny, I think rather ironic that critical race theory is truly [00:22:00] akin to the idea of the words, all lives matter. Yeah, because it really is about. Making sure every single person in the room is included.

And yet those same people who are shouting all lives matter are also shouting Hey, critical race theory. Critical race theory is divisive and it's ruining our children and they're teaching it in school. They're not teaching it in schools. It's beyond. And most of those people 

Landon (he/him): can't even define critical race theory.

No. They have no idea. I've seen countless interviews where they ask individuals, can you explain to me what critical race theory is? And then it's just like deer in the headlights moment, slack jaw, drool coming out their mouth. I just imagine one of 

Bryan (he/they): them being like, it's the idea that race is critical.

Cool. We've circled when we're talking about the different things we've talked about at the moment, we've circled this question and I'm interested, given your [00:23:00] dissertation, what your response is. So in general, what do you think the education community can do to be more inclusive of queer people?

Landon (he/him): Yeah, I think that we need to start getting rid of our whitewash curriculum. We need to embrace DEI, bring diverse voices to the center. It doesn't all have to be stories about mommy and daddy, right? It can be as simple as, making a mention that maybe a character has dads.

Just adding that S, is so impactful, so powerful. And you don't have to spend, So much time on it. You don't have to be like, they're dads and they're gay and gay means two men who love each other and they're gonna get married and you don't have to go into in depth detail about it. Just saying dads or moms.

or parents if they're non binary individuals, is super powerful and it connects with those students who maybe do have parents, that identify [00:24:00] on that LGBTQ+ spectrum and they're able to feel like they're a part of this, story or curriculum. And same thing goes with various identities.

One of my biggest tasks when I've been working at the textbook company I'm at now. is diversity as far as our imagery goes. And I was very intentional, not just about LGBTQ+ individuals. And of course, race is always like the biggest one as well, and ethnicity. But there's a lot of different ways that we can put, diversely abled individuals and individuals who are fuller bodied.

And I also always thought about these textbooks. that show all of these like beautiful models and they're just like beautiful skin and just perfect and long, tall, skinny, dark, handsome, all of the above, right? But when you look at our student demographic, we're all made up differently. And I think one of the biggest things I think about when I think about, high school students is all of the things that they may struggle with, like acne and different things like that.

And so my biggest thing was like putting the students. in the book who looked [00:25:00] like them. Because I think, again, that's helping with the representation. It may make some students day to see someone, in a book who maybe has blemishes on their face, or maybe someone in a book who has a colloquial implant, or maybe someone in the book who, is, who represents a non binary individual.

One of our biggest individuals that I put in the book and I'm super proud of was, MJ Rodriguez. We're, celebrating her Afro Latino heritage, and we made sure that we put them in there. Now, unfortunately, getting back to these turbulent times, there's been some states that we're trying to get into that are probably going to make us have to take it out for that particular state.

But in some versions of our book, we have, Es una mujer trans, like this is a trans woman. And just saying that this person is a trans woman is nothing to, be stigmatized. It's just a fact and it's something to celebrate and, they are living their true authentic self. And I think, like I said, the more representation that we can have in our curriculum [00:26:00] and in our classrooms, the more empathetic and just global citizens we're going to have.

We're going to be able to, continue to build this strong community of love and support. And then that's what the LGBTQ+ community is all about. We get villainized and vilified into being, these pedophiles. And, the media always just construes it into something that is completely made up by the media.

Whereas while we want to do is make sure that kids are living their most authentic life and doing just that living. That's what we want to do. We want to make sure we show up for students. And make sure that they're living. 

Bryan (he/they): 100%. I Love all of that. I am particularly, I love what the idea of just the inclusion and that you can teach a phrase, a simple phrase in Spanish that is just another identifier.

I thought back to your comment and, the comment from the, other teacher. [00:27:00] And it's bonkers to me because I know several languages that are said to be very binary. Except for all of them include a gender neutral letter, because it's the difference between O, A, I, and E, and if you fluctuate between Italian and Spanish or any language that kind of circles on that, you can insert an I for Italian, you can insert an E for Spanish.

I'm speaking in English, but you'll get the neutral phrase. So the fact that someone would be like, there's a binary here and you can't participate, like it's there. It's in the language 

Landon (he/him): already. And there, these individuals in this linguistic world always go back to the, Royal Academy of Spanish located in Spain who dictates the language.

I'm sure Italy has their own version of it as well. And they just go to the fact [00:28:00] that they dictate it and binary is not allowed. It's, or binary is all that's allowed, right? We can't have anything that's breaking outside of the binary, but they fail to remember that this academy was established by people.

People dictate language. So the academy is always lagging behind, right? So people are using this more in social movements, these gender neutral E's and I's and whatnot, and the academy just hasn't caught up yet. So they need to, catch up and, count this as being accepted within the language because the people dictate it.

The people decide what language is going to be used. So I believe in the near future there will be a day when the Real Academia Española does accept it, but they're still dragging their feet on it, which again is unfortunate and has to do even, outside of the U. S. There's still systems set in place that are limiting LGBTQ+ individuals and other marginalized identities.

from, having their true representation be at the forefront of [00:29:00] everything. 

Bryan (he/they): And you know what I think is real fun that a lot of people don't realize is that English does not have a governing body explaining exactly what English is and dictating the rules of the language. And because of that, people who are like, oh, you need to learn standard English or you need to learn academic English are just idiots.

Landon (he/him): Yeah, 

Bryan (he/they): they just have no idea what they're talking about because there isn't an official thing that says that these are what these things are. It's just the opinion of someone who's reading something It's limiting for your students who are learning the language. It's limiting for students who aren't even learning English as a second language, who are just trying to get through work, and their vernacular is not being accepted because, it's not quote unquote standard English, except for standard English doesn't exist.

Let's wrap this up. We've got a question from one of our listeners, and this one comes [00:30:00] from Kevin, and Kevin asks, Why did you choose to work in education? 

Landon (he/him): I always go, I don't think I chose to work in education, it chose me. Because I originally thought, Shocker here that I was going to be like a big Broadway star, right?

I know I excelled in the arts and my little high school, and maybe I didn't really excel, maybe I was just in a little high school, but I always thought that I was going to, go and major in theater and then go see my name up in lights and the marquees of, big Broadway theaters. And then I got to my institution that I went to and I started doing the theater program and I was like, Oh my gosh, you have to live.

Eat, breathe, sleep theater. And I don't know if I was prepared for that. I switched to Spanish as a major because I always loved Spanish in high school. And then I put theater as my minor. And then while going through the Spanish program, a lot of the professors were like, you would be a phenomenal teacher.

You need to be a [00:31:00] teacher. You need to be a teacher. I just kept hearing it over and over again. 

Bryan (he/they): So what you're saying is that they were 

indoctrinating 

you. 

Landon (he/him): Yes. So then I somehow got into the world. I don't remember how it happened, but ELL as well. And that's one of my closest, friends and mentors.

It was one of my professors, Dr. Tammy Gregerson. If you're listening, shout out to Dr. Tammy. She's phenomenal. We love her. I actually came out to her when I was on a trip in Italy and it was just like, so empowering and just a beautiful time to come out here. Anyway, that's besides the story that I'm telling.

But she, again, just embraced this idea that I should be an educator. So I ended up dropping my theater minor and I was like, if I got it. I can go be on a Broadway stage any day. And I dove deep into teaching and, like I said, I don't think I really ever intended to be a teacher. It just happened, just the way that these educators saw my personality and saw the way that, I presented, essays or presentations in class.

And, a lot of the classes [00:32:00] that I took entailed, teaching. They put us in charge of, teaching various sections and they were like, you need to get on over to the education department. So I don't think it was motivated by myself. It was motivated by others, but I always end up gravitating back to it.

So I do think it's just my calling in life. I've worked in higher education doing student services, which is education in a certain sense, just a little bit different. I've also worked as an admissions counselor. Right now I'm working as a textbook editor.

Again, they're all kind of education adjacent though. So as much as I've been trying to venture out and do new things. I think it's, I'm like Moana in the sea, right? It's always calling to me and I always end up back there. And my end goal would eventually to be in, to work in a teacher preparation program, because I think we see in these turbulent times, teacher shortages and just all this dissent and divisiveness within the world, we need strong educators in those preparatory programs in order to make teaching, [00:33:00] enticing and make it seem something like students should be doing because if we're not, putting great quality candidates in there, then we're just not going to have great quality Because if we're having poor educators preparing teachers, we really have to do a whole revamp of our entire education system.

And again, include queer voices. Because I don't think queer individuals were mentioned at all during my teacher education program. And now that was, like I said, in the early 2000s. Times have changed, right? But I still, even during my research back in 2022-2023, found out that a lot of students in their teacher education program still hear very little about LGBTQ+ individuals during their teacher education program.

They focus on, special education, ELL students, low income students and whatnot, but the LGBTQ+ community is still always. It's left out and not included in our teacher [00:34:00] education programs, and I think that's something that I would love to do is to bring that lens and that perspective in front of pre service teachers so that they have, the lived experience to understand these are identities that I will encounter.

When I'm teaching and I'm going to have queer students in my classroom, it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. And those teachers need to be prepared for how to best support them, especially, like I said, if times continue to be as turbulent as they are right now. We need to make sure that our educators are prepared to, love our little LGBTQ+ students and our little gaybies out there.

Bryan (he/they): Yes. It's not a matter of if, it is a matter of when. Thank you, Kevin, for your question. And if you would like your question heard on the show, you can click the ask a queer educator link on any of the podcast thingies. I just want to thank you so much for your time. I've really enjoyed our conversation.

We [00:35:00] align on so much when it comes to our own education and our own educational experiences. So I appreciate that you took time out of your evening to speak with me today and for sharing your story with everybody who's listening. 

Landon (he/him): No, it was an absolute honor to be here and I just really appreciate you for doing all of this work and, letting LGBTQ+ educators know that they're not on an island because I think the longest time I felt that I was like the only one and it's just so refreshing to see individuals out there advocating and showing other educators like, hey, it's okay to be gay and you should be loud and proud about it, even though there's other loud voices telling us that we shouldn't be proud about it.

So thank you for all the work that you 

do.