Thoughts On the Conference

Well the conference was more orientated towards teachers but that was kind of expected but I still got something out of it.

What caught my attention in the first keynote address was an experiment she talked about with babies. The nurses in a hospital nursery were asked to dress all the babies the same and college students were asked to guess the gender of the babies as the nurses brought the babies up to the nursery window. The college guessed the babies gender correctly 90 percent of the time.

So how did they guess the gender correctly?

By the way the nurses held the babies. The nurses did it subconsciously, cradling the girls and holding the boys.

The next keynote speaker talked about how history has to be looked at individual identity, we have to look at impact individuals choices have on society.

He had us watch this video until 2:15 into the video and then discuss what we thought he would do, help her or just walk away?



The decision that the person made that night on the subway impacted him all through his life and shaped him.

The last keynote speaker talked about how history is told from various biases, usually from a white perspective and how the telling of history creates a learning gap between different socioeconomic groups. How history is presented can make a difference. The history in the history books have been white washed and over simplified. For example we learn the Vasco da Gama was the first to sail around Africa but what we don’t learn is that he committed atrocities in Goa India where he set fire to a ship with 200-400 people on board including women and children, killing them all.

He then asked us what was the cause of the Civil War. Was it Slavery? State’s Rights? The election of Lincoln? Taxes and tariffs?

Wrong. It was that the northern states were ignoring federal laws and not following the Constitution. He said in the South Carolina Declaration of Secession they cite the fact that the northern states were disregarding the Constitution.

The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them.

While he was talking about how history is constantly being rewritten I was think about the Stonewall Uprising and how the gays have written us out of history. On Monday, I was at an outreach at a local community college and one of the speakers said the Stonewall Uprising was the first time the LGBT community rose up against the oppression… WRONG! There were at least two possible three times before that we rose up against the oppression. I was also thinking about when Rep Barney Frank (D-MA) said,

We’d make even more progress if the transgender community was willing to do the hard political work. And not, frankly, think they can just talk a few leaders into handing this to them.

He totally rewrote history and wrote us out of the last fifty years.

Some other thoughts about the conference… even through the conference was on diversity it seems to me that it only focused on sex and race. There were a couple of comments about sexual orientation but I don’t remember any comments about gender identity or expression. At the conference out of over 1100 attendees there was only one trans-person… me. And that got me to thinking, I don’t know of any teachers (K-12) who are trans. I know of some professors who are trans but I don’t know any elementary or secondary school trans-teachers. I know a number of former teachers who were fired when they transitioned but none who are still teaching.

Ironically at lunch I was harassed, I stopped by the local Burger King to grab a sandwich (We had to buy our own lunch, it is a free conference after all) and a coffee for lunch on my way home because I forgot to do something at home before I left for the conference. As I was coming out of Burger King two New Britain high school students were talking next to where I parked and when I walked by them one of them asked me if my car was a plug-in Prius and how many miles per gallon was I getting. I told him yes and I get over 60 miles to the gallon. As I was getting in my car I heard one of them say… “That’s a dude!” and as I was driving off I saw them laughing.

We have come a long ways but there is a longs ways to go.