77. Strategies for Being Your Authentic Queer Self in Religious Schools

Are you curious about how teaching LGBTI+ topics in primary schools can transform the educational landscape in a country like Ireland? 

In this episode, Adam Barrett (he/him) and I discuss how bring authentic self into the classroom makes it more inclusive for your students. 

Through our conversation you will:

• Learn strategies for being your authentic queer self in religious schools.
• Discover how to create an inclusive classroom that respects diverse identities.
• Gain new approaches to teaching empathy to young students.

Tune in now to hear Adam Barrett share transformative ideas and personal experiences that could reshape how we approach education in diverse and inclusive ways.

Connect with Adam on Instagram at @mister_muinteoir_.

Transcript

Bryan (he/they): [00:00:00] Hi. How are you doing today? 

Adam (he/him): Hi, Bryan. I'm good. Thank you. How are you doing? 

Bryan (he/they): I'm doing fantastic. Can you introduce yourself to everybody at home? 

Adam (he/him): Of course. Hi everyone. My name is Adam Barrett. I am a primary school teacher from Ireland. I'm very happy to be the first Irish guest on this podcast.

And I have been a primary school teacher for five years. I suppose a primary school teacher would be the equivalent probably to elementary school in the States. So we teach kids from five to about twelve. So I suppose that probably aligns somewhat with elementary school. For the last two years, I have been teaching what we call junior infants, which is the first year of primary education in Ireland.

It's probably, they're four to five years old. So it's probably equivalent to maybe pre K in the States. But I've been teaching them for the past two years and [00:01:00] I'll be teaching that age group again come September when, the school year begins once again. I suppose I, in terms of, my identity, I identify as a gay man.

I use he, him pronouns. But I am very liberal with how people address me once they're respectful. I am. Relatively relaxed about that kind of thing. But I am very excited to come on today to, talk about the Irish perspective on education and the Irish perspective on LGBTI+ education.

It's a topic very close to my heart. I completed a master's in education. Thesis last year, and I actually wrote it on teachers perspectives on teaching LGBTI+ education in Irish primary schools. It's something that I've put a lot of work into over the last couple of years. So I'm very excited to talk about that and other, few things today.

Bryan (he/they): Absolutely. I'm excited that you get to share your research. I know as somebody who's done a lot of research, it's nice when you get to talk about it. 

So it'll be nice to, talk with people who have some understanding of what your research is on. [00:02:00] Absolutely. 

Adam (he/him): Absolutely. 

Bryan (he/they): Awesome. First of all, you've mentioned something that I'm just intrigued by, and it really is about the differences between the US, and the Irish, educational systems.

And so you said that right now you're teaching the young kids. Did you always, or is it like here in the elementary schools here, which are pretty equivalent to your primary schools, I think that it would be considered like, transitional kindergarten or pre kindergarten to sixth grade, here. And our elementary teachers get shuffled around where some years they're teaching third grade and some years they're teaching, pre k and whatnot.

And does that same kind of thing happen with you all? 

Adam (he/him): Yeah, pretty much it does. So my qualification is a bachelor's degree, a bachelor's of education, and that qualifies me to teach what we call junior infants to 6th class, which probably equates with pre K to [00:03:00] 6th grade, with you guys in the States.

I suppose when you begin teaching like I did, you're going and taking maternity leaves and short term leaves and any contract that you can get your hands on pretty much to get yourself in the door of a school, so you'll take any role that you're given. So for the first couple of years of teaching, I was doing like substitute work, and I was also working as what we call a special education teacher.

So basically, it's like an additional teacher who may take students out of the classroom to give them additional support, usually in literacy or numeracy. Or social and emotional skills, depending on their needs that they have in their reports, or any needs that crop up as a result of assessments and things like that.

So I was working in that setting for a few years. Then I moved, when I moved schools, because I was taking contracts wherever I could get them, I was teaching, second class, which is Pretty equivalent to second grade with you guys, and then eventually the school I'm in now, I have a permanent [00:04:00] contract there, which in theory means a contract for life, which is very nice to have that reassurance that I have a job there.

And so since I've gone into that school, I've been teaching junior infants or pre k, and usually what happens in our school is that you would teach the same grade or the same level for three years and then give your preferences to the principal about where you would like to move to and where possible he will accommodate those needs depending on the needs of the school.

Some schools in Ireland have it that the same teacher stays in the same grade for 20 years because if it ain't broke don't fix it sort of thing. But in the school I'm in it's a big school we're a big school by Irish standards. This might not sound big, for you guys in the States, but we have three of each level, so three of each grade, which is considered relatively big for an Irish primary school.

And so as a result, we have a lot of staff, so there is a lot of movement. Especially amongst the staff that aren't necessarily permanent fixtures in the school, those who, like [00:05:00] me, who are permanent in the school, I suppose every three years, can decide, at least we can give our suggestions of where we would like to go next, whether that's to completely change, go up to like sixth grade or something, or even just go a few levels up, or go into the special education teaching, which is what I mentioned earlier, the kind of additional support that you give to students.

Bryan (he/they): Absolutely. That is, it's so interesting. I think what's wild about the U. S. is that every state has to run its own, education programs, and so there are 50 different ways of running education, which is just bonkers. We gotta get working on that, U. S. Anyway, let's not digress into educational politics just yet.

Let's talk a little bit about your life growing up. What was life like for you as a queer student? 

Adam (he/him): I suppose the big thing for me was that I wasn't a quote unquote. I suppose I wasn't a queer student in the sense that I didn't come out until I was finished college. So I was like 23 when I came out.

And [00:06:00] to be honest, during my schooling, it wasn't something that I was aware of or exploring yet. It wasn't until I got to college that I suppose I Started to question things, started to question my sexuality or my preferences or my identity. I suppose as a student, I had a very typical upbringing.

I'm a very sporty person. So maybe that masked a lot of things when I was younger, given the very outdated stereotype that queer people don't play sports. But I suppose as a student growing up, I was very much the same as everyone else. Like looking back, I suppose you can see things and I'm like, Oh, that might've been a bit of a giveaway, Adam.

And maybe I was the last one to see what was going on. But I suppose when I was growing up, I had a very typical upbringing as a student. My secondary school, which for us would be, it would go primary into secondary. So it would be like from 13 to 18. I went to an all boys [00:07:00] secondary school, and it was a very sporty school, so I was very much at home there.

Looking back I can see how that wouldn't have necessarily been the best environment for me if I was an out queer student just because of like the rhetoric around like homophobia and just slurs being thrown around willy nilly and the fact that I suppose at that stage the school probably hadn't been exposed to many queer male students at that time so probably wouldn't have known what to do with me anyway if I had said anything.

It's interesting to look back on it now and see, oh, I wonder how I would have settled into school there if I was an out queer student, but I suppose my upbringing as a result was pretty mundane, pretty normal, because, I suppose I wasn't questioning anything regarding my sexuality or anything at that time.

Bryan (he/they): That's fair, and I think that it's interesting because there's a lot of societal pressure in the US, at least, that I know of, where it's like boys do this, girls do this, and so we get to those [00:08:00] stereotypes, right? Athleticism and all of that, and I played baseball for several years, It seems like there was also a lot of pressure here about Oh, do you have a girlfriend?

And, Oh, do you have this? Like my dentist, every time I went to the dentist was like, so what's your girlfriend's name? And I'm like, girlfriend, I don't have no girlfriend. And so it's interesting that culturally maybe there just was less of an emphasis on that side of things. And so it may have made things probably less of something that you needed to worry about in that moment.

Adam (he/him): Yeah, I would say that like any student going through school that would have had, girlfriends or partners or whatever. But at the time, I suppose I didn't question it because everyone was dating and everyone had girlfriends. And especially in my school where it was all boys, we were all trying to date someone from the girls school and that was just the way of it.

So at that stage, I suppose I didn't really question anything. And because I played sports, if there [00:09:00] was anything that seemed overtly queer coming out of me, because I played sports, that kind of gave me a free pass with, anyone that might have anything not so nice to say because I was playing sports and because I was on the school teams, I suppose that kind of, gave me a pass when it came to any of the bigotry or any of the, slurs or anything else that were getting thrown around.

Bryan (he/they): Fair enough. How do you think your experiences growing up or even coming out at 23 have informed your work in education? 

Adam (he/him): I've always been someone who would prefer to stay on the right side of the rules and toe the line, and I suppose that has helped to inform my teaching in that.

It is important, that there are structures in place to allow everyone to be in a setting where they can be themselves. I'm very lucky. The school I'm in at the moment is a school which is very ethnically diverse. There's a lot of cultures, a lot of different religions coming together. And I suppose in Ireland, a lot of the schools [00:10:00] are still run by the Catholic Church, which makes them quite, one note in the sense that you have a lot of smaller, Schools where the main race is white, a lot of them are Catholic, Irish, whereas the school I'm in isn't run by the Catholic Church, so I suppose we're not, Under that rule in terms of teaching religion.

And as a result, we do get a lot of children from different religious backgrounds and different ethnic backgrounds. And as a result, we have to teach a lot about, diversity and respect and tolerance. And that, thankfully, has come into my teaching. Just from seeing what could have been, for my schooling I was lucky that I had a very nice upbringing and lovely schooling, but I suppose looking back now I can see, oh, that could have been hell on earth for me if I was out and if I wasn't getting the support I needed from My teachers, if they, just because they might not have known what to do with me pretty much, but I suppose in that sense, then I'm very wary of ensuring that all of the children [00:11:00] leave my classroom with an element of respect.

And it's not a case of changing their beliefs because we do have a lot of students whose beliefs might be contradictory to each other. Even regarding we have, for example, a lot of, huge, Muslim community, and naturally, some of them might have choice words to say about the LGBTI+ community, and I'm not trying to change their beliefs necessarily, because they are more than entitled to be a devout Muslim.

I suppose everything that comes with that, but I suppose I want the kids to come away from my classroom knowing that there are other people, that there are different people, and that we don't necessarily have to agree with them, but we simply have to respect their mere existence, and that's something that I put into my classroom from day one as someone who has kids that are in their first year of formal primary education in my classroom, it's very important that we instill that in them straight away because as they get older they're going to form opinions and beliefs based on the adults around them and if I am that adult around them [00:12:00] in that formative year I want them to go away from my classroom knowing, okay, some of the children in my class are different because of their religion.

Maybe they're neurodivergent. Maybe they have a different skin color. But that's okay. I can respect that. And I can see that's fine, even when it comes to families. They'll be saying, oh, this child has two mothers, or this child has two fathers. And that's okay. That's not what I've been told about, but I can respect that, and I can understand that we can all coexist in the same universe.

Bryan (he/they): Yeah, we absolutely can, and quite honestly, if people stopped politicizing it, we would. What are some things that you do if you are confronted with anti queer behavior? 

Adam (he/him): I suppose when it comes to children engaging in anti queer behaviour, a lot of the time, it doesn't stem from their own beliefs.

It stems from the beliefs of their parents or their wider family. Or just the experiences they've had thus far. [00:13:00] So I know for the most part, I know pretty much for a fact that children aren't inherently homophobic or racist or transphobic or just generally mean people and as a result it's important I suppose for us to educate the children on look what you just said there is actually quite offensive I understand that's probably not why you said it you probably said it because you heard someone else say it and you wanted to test the waters but In my school, we're very big on restorative practice and the importance of taking or fights or disagreements as a teaching moment and, I suppose an opportunity to learn from mistakes that were made, not to punish necessarily, And to look at repairing the relationship between the child who has, said the thing or done the thing that might be considered anti queer behavior and the child who has been subject to it.

So we would use a lot of restorative practice in our school to ensure that the children understand, look, what has been said is [00:14:00] not acceptable. We're not necessarily blaming you for saying it because you probably didn't say it with the intent is. But it's important to understand that this is not tolerated, and we need to rebuild that relationship.

I think going down the route of punishment and arguments just doesn't work because it's not fair on the children. I suppose if you're dealing with adults, it's probably a different ballgame completely. But when you're dealing with kids, they're Experiences form their opinions. And if you can, as an educator, especially with kids, as young as I have, which are four or five years of age that you can jump in there and say, look, what you've said there is actually quite offensive.

And, but here is what we can do to repair the relationship with the other child or the other friends are with me or whoever it is. They've said it too. And. Going forward, then we just won't use that. And then I can communicate with the parents and say, look, this was said today. I don't know where they picked it up from.

We've discussed it. It's fine. No one's in trouble, but just monitor it, please. And [00:15:00] I think that restorative practice, like making things a teaching moment and the rebuilding of the relationships is the way to go because otherwise you're Punishing the kids for, yes they've said it, but they've not pulled it out of thin air.

And realistically, by punishing them with timeouts or, detentions or whatever you're going to punish them with, are they actually going to learn from that mistake? Are they going to do it again? Or are they going to realise, okay, what I've done is offensive, I didn't really mean it, I hurt my friend's feelings, and now I want to repair that relationship, and I just think that's the better route to go down.

for longevity purposes. Yes, a detention can solve a problem for a day, but it's not going to solve a problem after that day, realistically. 

Bryan (he/they): Honestly, and it's building empathy for other people. And I think that's key because once you've been able to build empathy for your friends and the people in your circle and maybe classmates, if they're not even friends, they're just in your class, then that can expand to other people.

[00:16:00] Other people you interact in the world as you get older. So I think you're right on track with that. What advice would you give to someone who is going into education and they're worried about being authentically queer? 

Adam (he/him): That is firstly, I'd say that it's a very valid concern. As someone who came out during my first year of teaching at the time, I was teaching in a Catholic ethos school.

And naturally I was very concerned about what repercussions that would have because up to about 15 years ago in Ireland, you could technically be sacked or dismissed from your teaching post in a Catholic school because you weren't upholding the ethos of the school by being LGBTI+. You can still have that happen here in the US.

Yeah. It's lucky that it's gone. It's been outlawed since. I suppose it was never an explicit rule, but In our contracts, it [00:17:00] says, if you do not uphold the ethos of the school, that can be a sackable offence. And as being an LGBTI+ person would, in a roundabout way, mean that you're not upholding the ethos of the school because you're going against the teachings of the Bible.

Luckily, I then moved to what we call like a multi denominational ethos school, which basically means it's not run by one Particular patronage is not run by the Catholic church or by a Muslim church or anything like that. It basically is just an independent multi denominational patronage.

And that allows us to teach, all of the religions, instead of teaching just Catholicism or just Islam. And that just allows the children to, experience all the faiths. And we're not necessarily teaching the children how to pray. Or anything like that. It's more just building up the respect with the different religions and different belief groups.

But I suppose what I would say to someone who wants to show up authentically at work is, especially as a new [00:18:00] teacher, a newly qualified teacher. I was very lucky to do a lot of substitute work initially. And originally I thought that wasn't a good thing because it meant I didn't have a proper job. But in the end, it actually gave me a lot of experiences and it made me realize what schools I'd be welcome in and what schools I probably wouldn't be.

If you feel that a school, if you just get an inkling that school might not Be there for you. If you show up authentically, I would trust your gut and run a mile to be honest with you. I know it's very hard in the beginning of your teaching career. You want to take the first job possible. You don't really want to burn bridges necessarily with other schools, especially if the school is quite big or has quite a big reputation in the locality.

But your performance as a teacher, and I don't even mean necessarily the grades of your students, but your performance just as being a good educator for your students, is based on your own comforter, being comfortable in your classroom and in your school. And I think that without [00:19:00] that you're not going to be able to put yourself, best self forward.

So I would be very careful when you're going into your first job If you can just do substitute work where you're working between a few schools, I don't know if it's the same in the States with being able to call in a substitute for a day here and a day there and they just float around everywhere.

But I would be very wary of not just jumping into the first job you get. You could be very lucky and go into a school where you are welcome and you're looked after. We're in the digital age now where it's quite easy to look up a school, see if they've done any events during pride month, or maybe they have a pride flag outside their school.

Like I was lucky that my principal allowed me to get our first pride flag for our school last year. We were lucky that the, our teachers union. We're giving free flags, free pride flags to any school that wanted it. Basically, all you had to do was apply and by having that flag up during June and then it's up in [00:20:00] our staff room, our staff canteen during the year, it shows very clearly for any teacher coming in that we are a safe space for LGBTI+ teachers and For LGBTI+ students as well.

So I suppose to a teacher who's concerned that they can't show up authentically at work, I would just be careful when you're looking for your first job in your first school. Make sure you're in a place where you can be yourself because your best teacher self will be your best personal self and you are a person first and a teacher second.

So it's very important to look after yourself as a person first and then worry about the teaching. 

Bryan (he/they): I love that so much. I repeat it every time someone brings it up. You are a person first and a teacher second, because I do feel like societally especially in the U S I can't speak for Ireland, but societally teachers are treated like a commodity as opposed to a person.

And it's you do the job that I tell you to do and you do the job regardless [00:21:00] of how you're feeling. And so it's a great reminder that you are a person, you are a human being first, and then you are a teacher second. 

Adam (he/him): Absolutely. It would be similar here. It's definitely changing. I definitely think that pre COVID teachers were, not exactly respected as much as they should have been.

We were a lot of people who weren't in education, but consider us glorified babysitters and all the usual cliches. But I think when we were teaching online during COVID and we did have to do it a lot less than you guys. I know that much, but even the few months that we had to do it, that was enough for us.

And most parents came out of that being like, I could barely look at, get my child to sit in front of a laptop. I don't know how you get 30 children or maybe more, maybe less to cooperate with you all day. So I think respect for teachers did go up post pandemic because people realize that we actually have a job to do, and it's not about just teaching ABCs and one, two threes and keeping them in a chair all day.[00:22:00] 

Bryan (he/they): Absolutely. And it's funny because that happened here with some people. And then, with other folks, we had the exact opposite happen, where it became more you're just a glorified babysitter now. It's wild. It's a wild time to be living in. And this last question might actually touch more on what your thesis is about, so I'm excited to hear your answer.

what do you think the educational community can do to be more inclusive of queer people? And that includes students and teachers. 

Adam (he/him): So I suppose my thesis looked at teachers perspectives on teaching LGBTI+ education, and the main thing that came out of that was that teachers just feel like they're not supported enough.

to teach that in schools and that the only teachers that were confident enough to teach those kind of topics were teachers that had that were themselves queer or had queer experiences whereby they had queer siblings or queer parents or queer friends [00:23:00] and it shouldn't be a case where just because Your experiences lend itself to one thing, and that's great.

Obviously, don't get me wrong. We all have experiences that we bring to the classroom, which makes us, more confident in certain areas. I'm quite sporty, so I would really enjoy teaching physical education, and I know some teachers would rather, Do anything but teach physical education, and that's so fine, but I suppose with this kind of thing, it's not a case of, oh, it's a topic in the curriculum, it's the children in front of you, or it's the staff members beside you, that it's not a case of if it's a chapter in a book that you don't like teaching.

With real identities that are different to yours, but something that we definitely need to support our students and our staff with a lot more. I know the people in my thesis were looking for a lot more training. Even just to understand the terminology because as we well know, I think it's even hard for LGBTI+ students.

People at times to keep up with evolving terminology and [00:24:00] people in the end, then just get frustrated and start arguing with each other. When there's arguments about people in sports or pronouns or whatever it is, people just end up arguing about it because they get frustrated. And I think it's important for, policy makers or training providers that they would provide the education.

And I understand that it's evolving. So maybe. The right people aren't in those positions to help us at the moment. Maybe we don't have queer people or queer adjacent people who would have the knowledge to make changes in policy or to provide the training to us, especially in Ireland. It's such a small country.

I suppose we're not as exposed to, As much of a range of people as you guys would have in the States. With regards to queer identities and things like that. And we were lucky that we'll say in our schools, every school teaches religion depending on their patronage. And as I said, because my school is multi denominational, we touch base [00:25:00] with all of them.

And our curriculum for that is called Learn Together. And it got revised last September. And for the first time in Ireland, it. explicitly mentioned LGBTI+ in a curriculum document. We have a curriculum document for every subject that we teach, and we teach 12 subjects. And this is the first time ever that LGBTI+ has been explicitly mentioned in a curriculum document.

So we're going in the right direction. However, the multi denominational schools, which I'm in, make up less than 5 percent of the schools in the country. So while we're going in the right direction, There's still 90 plus percent of schools that there is no explicit place for LGBTI+ education in schools.

And that's why teachers are finding it so hard, because most of them want to teach these topics and make their students feel comfortable, but they don't have the tools to do it. They don't have the resources. They don't know what to do, basically. And I [00:26:00] think In order for educational, for the educational community, in regards to training providers or policy makers, I think it's just important to find a place for LGBTI+ education in schools.

Train the teachers, because we are the ones doing the job. You will train us when there's new, a new maths program, or you'll train us when there's a new literacy program. There needs to be something equivalent here because, like I said, it's not necessarily just another chapter in a book. It is the students that are in front of us.

And we have to be very careful to mind these students so that they can show up and be authentically themselves because they will not thrive as people and they won't thrive as academics. If they don't feel comfortable in their settings. So I think it's so important. And that goes for the staff as well.

I'm very privileged and very lucky that I'm in a school where I have come in the door queer. And I, there's been no questions asked basically. And there's multiple [00:27:00] queer members of staff in my school. We went to a lesbian wedding last year and no questions were asked. The students were all excited when we were all talking about it in school.

And I know that's. Unfortunately, probably the minority rather than the majority, but I think that in order for queer people, whether that be staff or students to feel authentically themselves and comfortable in schools, there needs to be more done from the top down in order for I suppose students to be comfortable and staff to feel comfortable teaching about those kind of topics.

Bryan (he/they): I agree with you entirely, wherever you are in the world, that it really does need to come from leadership and there needs to be either legislation put in place or there needs to be some policies that just are inclusive of the queer community. And I honestly, you enlightened me a little bit because I don't know a lot about the educational structures around the world, but I didn't realize that [00:28:00] Ireland's schools were all religious.

In the sense that like either Catholic or multi denominational, it's not like here where we have public schools where you're not allowed to teach religion, except for Christians are fighting for the people to teach religion in it right now. But yeah the basis is freedom of religion. 

Adam (he/him): Yeah, like our schools have always been religious, whether that was when we were under the British rule and we were Protestant or when we became independent and we went back to Catholicism, schools have always been run by the Catholic church for the most part.

And then in the last, 40 years, there's been a move towards, as I say, multi denominational schools whereby we in, We'll say in Catholic schools, religion has to be taught for two and a half hours per week. So that's 30 minutes per day. And so obviously that time needs to be filled in schools that are in Catholic.

So we would teach our multi denominational religious education, or MDRE, [00:29:00] and where we would teach about morality and spirituality. We teach about ethics and the environment. We would teach about world religion. So either the predominant religion, so Catholicism in Ireland, or the religions that are present in our classrooms.

Up and down the school, we would celebrate different holidays. We would do the same holidays every year. Each year band would do different holidays. So one year band might look at Christmas. Another might look at Ramadan. Another one might look at Eid. It could be any sort of holidays, depending on the time of year.

Of course, generally a lot of them come up in December. A lot of them come up around April, May time as well. But we teach all of the holidays, which is great. But like I said, the Catholic church still. Is the patron body for 90%? At least 90 percent of schools in Ireland, which is mad because Ireland now is not the Ireland of years and years ago, where it was at least 90 percent Catholic.

We have a lot of students now, especially in urban areas that are not maybe [00:30:00] weren't born here themselves, or their parents are immigrants here, or, They're just not Catholic. They come from a country where their Catholicism isn't the main religion. I know there's been talks for years, or there's been a want for years to decentralize religion and education.

Or make an avenue whereby those who want religious education can get it, and those who do not want it. Do not have to do it. Whereas at the moment it's pretty central especially in the catholic school. Which can be tricky if you're someone like me who is queer, and while I'm not anti religion, I'm not anti racist.

Very religious. So trying to teach something that you're not very devoted to is tricky, naturally, like anything. It's like any subject area, if you're not really into it, it's hard to teach it with enough gusto and enough passion. So I know there's been a lot of movement towards decentralizing religion in Ireland, but I don't see that changing any time soon, just because the Catholic Church has such a I suppose a strong hold on the education system at the moment, and [00:31:00] maybe it'll change in a few generations time, because it seems that is the way that people aren't as devoutly religious now as they were maybe 50, 60 years ago.

But yeah, that is the state of play at the moment anyway, whereby most schools are under some sort of religious patronage, and even the ones that aren't, like my school, which is a multi denomination school, and you'll Dublin generally would have the most diversity. Schools because it's the capital and it's the, it's got a, about a quarter of the population live in Dublin where you might have a Jewish school, you might have a Muslim school, you might have a Sikh school, whereas outside of Dublin it's pretty much Catholicism all the way and then a dash of multi denominational schools here, there and everywhere.

Bryan (he/they): That's wild. That's so interesting to think about and I'm intrigued now and I will follow that journey at least through my lifetime because what's wild to me is that I'll be 40 soon so what you're telling me is that in my lifetime there have been, 10 percent different [00:32:00] schools coming into play, since I was born.

And that's just, that's wild to me. Yeah, 

Adam (he/him): I believe it was the late eighties when the first non Catholic schools, and they were pretty much referred to as non Catholic at the time. Whereas at least now we've moved from the. Because originally they were seen as anti Catholic, and that's not the rhetoric we're going for at all.

We're not anti rhetoric, we're not anti religion either. We are just pro choice, and pro diversity, and pro respect, and pro seeing the world for what it is, which is not one religion. 

Bryan (he/they): Absolutely. We're gonna get ready to wrap up, and I have a question from one of the listeners. Today's question comes from Louie, and Louie asks, What qualities do you think a good educator needs to be successful?

Adam (he/him): That is a great question. That is a great question. How long do we have? I suppose within the [00:33:00] realm of especially teaching as a queer teacher, teaching queer students, I think. Like inclusion and being inclusive is so important and I think people take it for granted that we all are inclusive educators until we figure out that we're not as inclusive as think we are and that's not a slight or a dig at anybody.

It's just the fact that we are inclusive of what's in front of us, and then we got put, we got something else put in front of us, and we're oh, I don't know how to be inclusive of that. For example, I have been doing a course over the to improve my physical education teaching, and a lot of it has looked at disability teaching, and how do you support a child who might be in a wheelchair, for example.

In a physical education setting and you realize pretty quickly how not inclusive you have been all this time. So I think it's so so important that a teacher in order to succeed is inclusive and is open to more inclusiveness [00:34:00] and is open to direction and open to learning. You are never the finished product realistically.

You won't be the finished product even after you retire. However long away that is. I think it's very important to understand that a teacher is A teacher is still a learner. And I think that's a very important quality to know. And we were told it in college, and we were like yeah, once we get out of here and we get into our classroom, that's it.

But it's just not. You learn something new every day, and it's so cliché. It's really cliché. But, it's To be a good educator, you have to be willing to learn and grow as much as your students do. There's often times I will take things away from my students that I didn't know before I went in there and I was like, you know what, I wouldn't have known that if I hadn't had that discussion with the students today or if I didn't meet that student in the corridor.

So I think being inclusive, being open to learning, being a learner as a teacher, and as well I just think being respectful is just [00:35:00] so important to being an educator. Because You need to respect what's in front of you. The students in front of you all come in with different stories, different backgrounds.

 no idea what a child is going through outside of school. So I think it's so important to be respectful of who they are and who they present as in school. And you probably realise as well that the three things I mentioned there, inclusion, being a learner, and respect, don't necessarily have anything to do with actually teaching academics.

Because Academics are a lot less important than we actually realize because if we can't bring forward students that are, proficient learners, yes, but also solidly, nice, respectful, inclusive human beings, that is way more important, so much more important than anything. I would say, there are so many qualities, don't get me wrong, but I think being inclusive Being a learner as a teacher and being respectful would be my three main qualities that I hope I have and definitely would like to see in [00:36:00] teachers as they come into the profession.

Bryan (he/they): Absolutely. And I love that you were saying that it's, these are things that are not necessarily going to make you better at teaching academics. They just make you better at connecting with your students. And that's important. That connection is what allows you an entryway to be able to teach your students, whatever the academics are.

Thank you, Louie, for that question. And if you would like your question heard on the podcast, you can text it in using the Ask a Queer Educator link on any of the podcast listening apps. Adam, thank you so much for providing so much knowledge for me because I had. With regard to the educational structures and how things are in Ireland.

And I just thoroughly enjoyed learning from you and your experiences. So thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. 

Adam (he/him): Thank you so much for having me, Bryan. It is really fun to have this. Kind of cultural exchange nearly [00:37:00] about different education systems. We, we do learn a lot from the states.

A lot of the resources that we find online are coming from the states and it is very, it's very nice to see the people behind that a lot of the time, because we usually just get these reams and reams of paper and try and figure out how we can make this work into their context. It's really fun to, have that exchange and that's why I love, Teaching.

And that's why I loved, sharing my teaching journey online as well. I do share a little bit, I suppose that's where I found out about, this podcast was through Instagram and through the teaching community on Instagram. So I do dabble here and there. In the teaching Instagram community.

It's relatively big here in Ireland. It blew up during COVID. I've been doing it for about five years now, and this is the fun part. Cause I'll be telling username, but my username is an Irish. So this is where I'm going to be using phonetics to help everybody through this. 

Bryan (he/they): Love it.

So I'll link to it in the episode also. 

Adam (he/him): Yeah, we'll put it, we'll [00:38:00] put it in writing too. So my username on Instagram is Mr. The word, as you would expect it, M I S T E R. Muinteoir. So moontour is the Irish word for teacher. So its pronounced like moon, like the moon in the sky. Tour, like you're going on a tour of a park or something.

Yeah. That's where you'll find me, on Instagram. As I say, that's phonetic, so that might be harder to find me, but like Bryan said, hopefully it'll be somewhere below where you can find me if you want to ask any more about teaching in Ireland, or just want to connect with me talk about teaching.

I'm, I always love talking about it.