How to Use LGBTQIA+ Affirming Materials in Your Classroom with Ash Bell

May 5

Using LGBTQIA+ affirming materials in your classroom can help foster more equitable learning environments where everyone feels valued and seen.

By using inclusive literacy texts and teaching tools, such as book lists and lesson plans tailored towards the needs of LGBTQIA+ youth, you can go a long way towards promoting acceptance, tolerance, and understanding among your child or student. In addition, affirming materials can also provide valuable information about LGBTQIA+ identities and experiences, which can help promote critical thinking skills and lead to a deeper understanding of complex social issues.

Using LGBTQIA+ affirming materials in your classroom can help foster more equitable learning environments where everyone feels valued and seen.

By using inclusive literacy texts and teaching tools, such as book lists and lesson plans tailored towards the needs of

LGBTQIA+ youth, you can go a long way towards promoting acceptance, tolerance, and understanding among your child or student. In addition, affirming materials can also provide valuable information about LGBTQIA+ identities and experiences, which can help promote critical thinking skills and lead to a deeper understanding of complex social issues.

Interested in learning how to use LGBTQIA+ affirming materials in your classroom? Our featured guest this week, Ash Bell, is here to help us get started.

Ash (they/them) is a LGBTQIA+ cultural responsiveness trainer, former public school teacher, book aficionado, and parent of 2 kids under 5. They have worked with schools, government agencies, businesses, and parents for over 10 years helping to create LGBTQIA+ affirming spaces, DEI plans, and curriculum that celebrates LGBTQIA+ children and families. When not supporting parents, schools, non-profits, and businesses in their inclusion endeavors, Ash can be found hiking the mountains of Western Massachusetts where they are a recent transplant.

Hanna (00:00):

Hello everyone! Welcome to another episode of My Literacy Space Podcast. Today, I'm talking with Ash Bell from The Rainbow Toolbox, and you will see them on Instagram. You can see them on a website with the same name. I am so grateful Ash that you are here today. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and an area that you are truly passionate about?

Ash (02:07):

Oh, I'm happy too. My name is Ash. I use the pronouns them and they. I have a long history with education. I did AmeriCorps in the schools right at the end of college. Then, I taught high school for a few years and now I have kids of my own, and education has always just been important to me. A big part of that for me is books. I love books. I'm a big reader. I love reading to my kids.

Ash (02:37):

My mom was a big reader and passed that on to me. I’m passionate about LGBTQIA+ representation in books, and there are so many great ones out there and so many good ones for so many different learning units and different everything. And so, I just want to expose as many people as possible to these great books along the way. Give them information about how to use them and about my community.

Hanna:

You created The Rainbow Toolbox, and I want to talk a little about that because I know that you provide some education for families and schools. This is a great space to be able to talk about that because my followers and listeners often look and ask me for that kind of information. I want to put them into the spaces where that's your area of expertise. So, tell us a little bit about The Rainbow Toolbox.

Ash: (3:32)

Yeah, so I had been teaching high school theater after school and the pandemic hit, everything shut down. I had always been doing consulting work on the side. When you are an out non-binary person, you always get elected to talk about the LGBTQIA+ community. I knew that I had all these tools and resources and that people used them, people enjoyed them when I gave them to them. I decided to start doing that more in earnest. I made my website and started doing some in-person and zoom training at the beginning of the pandemic. I took bits and pieces of jobs that I'd had training, doing LGBTQIA+, cultural responsiveness training, and combined all my interests and I get to bring my whole self to work. And I love it.

Hanna (04:45):

There's some sort of vocabulary or terminology that I, I'm not sure, always that people understand. Let's talk about what it means to be culturally responsive. What does that mean when you're presenting or when you're giving information. Tell us a little bit about what that means, and how that impacts the way that you present.

Ash

When I'm talking about being culturally responsive, I'm talking about people having the tools and the awareness and the vocabulary to be able to talk to people in the LGBTQ community and LGBTQIA+ community with confidence and sensitivity. Knowing how to support their children, knowing how to support people in their classrooms so that they can respond appropriately when topics come up, when things get brought up in class or when they encounter LGBTQIA+ topics in books.

Hanna (05:50):

I think that that's important because we know that there are kids in our classrooms. We know that there are kids in our families that will belong to this community and are maybe not out yet, but they need to be able to see people represented in these beautiful, positive, joyful ways. They and people who are not in the LGBTQIA+ community also need to have, that vocabulary, that knowledge, and that information to be able to be kind to people. That's not what this is about. This is about full acceptance and celebration. Many times, we just don't know what to say. That is part of what I love about you and your platform and your toolkit. You are helping people understand and have the tools, books, and conversations to be able to celebrate the kids that we are talking about, and their feelings. We are seeing them, we are having conversations with them, and we want to be able to support them. Your blog post is all about doing a Children's Book Inventory. I want to talk about that because I think that is such a great place to start. Let's talk about why this is important. Let's talk about the publishing numbers. What are they? What do they tell us about books that are being published right now?

Ash (06:52)

Absolutely. If you look at the publishing numbers, and I have some blog posts to this effect on my website, they are slowly getting better, but they're still abysmal. Most of the books that are published are about white people and the category of books that are about animals is bigger than pretty much any other demographic group, other than white people. That's a problem. You can't change what you don't know. That is where the idea of a children's book inventory comes in. Knowledge is so powerful, and we must seek the knowledge out. It doesn't just get dropped into our laps. To seek that knowledge out, sometimes you must take the time to create that knowledge yourself. That is what a Children's Book Inventory is.

Ash (08:27):

I have a blog post about how to do it but in very short. It is pulling all the books you have out that you want to inventory and deciding what you're looking for in those books. Maybe you're looking for LGBTQ IA+ representation. You would take all those books and you would separate them into categories. If you wanted to see where there were LGBTQIA+ folks, simply living their lives, you could make a stack of those. If you wanted to see if you have any books where LGBTQIA+ folks are exemplary, you could make a stack of those. Then you can take a step back after you've done that with all your books and you know what you have, and you know what you don’t have. You can do this with any sort of demographic, any marginalized population. It just gives you the information so that you can move forward with your library checkouts, book purchasing, and knowing where you're spending your dollars. Book collections are an investment. If you don't think they're an investment, don't think too hard about how much you spend on books. If you're investing your money in these tools, in these beautiful, wonderful tools, you should know what you’re buying. What the message is saying to people you're reading the book to.

Hanna

I want to jump in here and talk about the difference between intentionality and tokenism, and how we can think critically about a book. Just because it might have a character that is following one of the demographics we're trying to add more inclusivity and diversity into our picture book collection or middle-grade novels, whatever. What is the difference and how do we check ourselves? Did I just buy that book because it checks off a box on the to-do list or is it because it is a really meaningful book? Not to just throw it out there for my children to read or my students to read. I am going to use this as a teaching tool to enable a conversation.

Ash (10:33) A

I adore that you asked this question. Yes. It's super important to have books with LBGTQIA+ representation in them. There are now a lot of books that have LGBTQIA+ representation in them. Just going to your library and asking the first person, “Hey, can you give me a book that has gay men in it?” is not great. Read the books. I have training where I talk all about how to use LGBTQIA+ materials in your classroom.

Ash (11:35):

Part of that training is how to prepare to use one of these books in your classroom. You must read it first. You shouldn't be reading anything to students or your children that you haven't read first. And so, reading the book, looking at what questions might come up, making a list of those questions, and then checking in with our good friend Google. You can Google those questions. Much of the time, you will find the answers to those questions and good sources. So really being intense. Why am I using this book? What is the point of me using this book? Am I just picking this book because I need a book that has LGBTQIA+ people in it and we haven't read one in a long time?

Ash (12:31):

There is a lot of harm that can come from doing that. Not being intentional with the book. If you're not thinking about what students are going to ask, or what are my children going to have questions about and then preparing those answers or knowing those answers. Then when you don't know those answers, be honest and say, “You know what? I don't know the answer to that question, but I'm going to get you the answer and get back to you tomorrow.” Then actually getting back to them tomorrow because when you don't, students recognize that pattern. And they think they shouldn’t be asking these questions because no one's ever giving the answer to these questions. They think this is something they shouldn't talk about. It ends up doing the opposite of what you want. If you are not being intentional about it, just pick a random tokenizing book, because it happens to be a book that has this type of person or that type of person in it often does the opposite of what you might be hoping to accomplish.

Hanna:

Absolutely. After we have taken this inventory, we realize that there are going to be these big gaps. I think the biggest part is the first part for us. When I know better, I do better. I am going to search out the book lists. I'm going to go to Ashe's website and look at those selections. I know Bookstagang just did a brand-new podcast that I will link in the show notes with some fantastic points about incidental representation. Discussing the point of not just picking the book to make yourself look good, or to pat yourself on the back, and call yourself an ally. You have one of those books in your library, and you plan to be intentional. How do we, now that we have the list, how can we increase representation for others?

Ash (14:31):

We want to, now we're doing our work. We are learning, we are relearning, we are unlearning all those great pieces. Some of the ways that I have suggested to people and jump in if you think of other ways, or you want to. Two thumbs up on that. One is requesting these books from your local library. This shows the publishers, the authors, and other people that these are books people are requesting. We want more books like this. I saw, I can't remember who the author was, it was the other day on Instagram. They said something literally about that. You don't have to just purchase the book to show support for the book. You can request it at your school library, your local small branch library, purchasing books for gifts, for loved ones, for a new baby, for a birthday, whatever kind of special event, occasion, or any others that I am missing. Ways that we can increase representation in our communities.

Hanna:

I was also thinking of little free libraries.

Ash (15:33):

Popping books into a little free library is great. One of the other things that you can do when you pop those books into little free libraries, is if there is a resource, like my Instagram or a book, that helped you figure out how to talk about that book, write it on the inside cover. Books are beautiful, but they are not sacred objects. You and I very firmly believe this. If something doesn't work in that book, it doesn't necessarily mean you have to pitch it. It is not a sacred object. Write on the front cover, “Hey, check out this blog post!” “Hey, check out this idea”. Especially if you're putting something in a free little library because my kids just go up to those things and like whatever.

Ash (16:30):

Those are all super great ideas. Another idea is to visit religious organizations that have libraries. They are in church buildings, in churches, recommend donating some of those because especially with LGBTQIA+ folks that can be, it can be a difficult overlap of identities. When there are affirming churches or synagogues or places of worship in general, getting those books there so that we can start pushing back against that.

Hanna:

Exactly. One of the other blog posts that I loved that you wrote was about showing better diversity in children's picture books. You came up with four categories of how we can introduce and maybe the kinds of books. It leads to those ways that we use them with kids. Let's talk about those four.

I know that you've got some even sort of cautionary pieces to add in as well, but let's chat about those.

Ash (17:36):

The four categories and this is just what I call them. Different people call them different things, but overcoming adversity, exploring identity, being exemplary, and then simply living. Those are the categories that I call them. The overcoming adversity books are the best example of them or the classic bullying books. The kid gets bullied, and the community overcomes bullying in the end. Everything is super awesome and great. Those books do show LGBTQIA+ people, having experiences that unfortunately LGBTQIA+ people often have, or at least sometimes have. You don't want to just readjust those because when you're reading just those books, that's the only view of possibility you're giving. If you're only reading those books, children could walk away thinking “I guess it's okay to bully this other person because like it's part of their journey”.

Ash (18:55):

They are going to overcome it in the end. Which I don't think is I would hope to message anybody is trying to give. Then there are these exploring identity books. These are the books where a character takes their journey of self-discovery and realizes, oh, I'm a lesbian or, oh, I'm trans or whatever the identity may be. Those books are great, but they don't allow LGBTQIA+, people to be fully three-dimensional realized humans. It's either, if we stopped there, we would get two models of possibility. I can be bullied, and we can work through it, and I'll come out in the end. Or I have this journey of self-discovery at which point I realize that I am a member of this community. We also need other kinds of books.

Ash (19:55):

The next category that I talk about are exemplary books. These could be books about real or imagined people being awesome and exemplary. A good example of this might be, find your voice, the Cheri Steinmetz book about congressperson a could be a, a gay superhero, graphic, novel, LGBTQIA+ people being awesome and cool.

Hanna:

Yeah. I love how you said it in your blog post, the models of possibility. That was so cool. Because that's just, that's what you're modeling to kids. This is a possibility and that's amazing. Because I think that we must make sure that if we are going to be reading those books to show a little bit of the struggle or the adversity in it. The cautionary part of that is to make sure that we are not reinforcing that negative behavior or sending the message that we promise it will be alright in the end because many times it is not okay in the end. The caveat always with that is we're going to read this and we're going to talk about how this is not okay to treat people like that. It's not just about kindness. That is not okay. So, what do we do? We can use our voices to speak up. When we see somebody who is being treated unfairly, we can step in and use our space of privilege if that's in that position or that situation and give them the tools to be able to all also support somebody and come alongside them. But also, then I love this, the exploratory. Looking at identity and then those exemplars. So, the last one is I love it. Simply living books.

Ash:

Simply living books in my trading that I do I also call it gay people go to the grocery store so if we stopped just at the first three categories, then we're saying that LBGTQIA+ folks either must struggle or be exemplary. Like those two models of possibilities.

Ash (22:07):

Quite frankly, far, far too many young folks feel like that. We need models of possibilities that are people living, people, having chickens in their backyard, going to the grocery store, or there's a book called my footprints where it's talking all about different animal footprints and the moms in that, that book happened to be two ops. That is where we get to be fully realized. I'm not saying to exclude any of those three. I think all of them have a place, especially if you know how to use them and you're going to use them as a tool and talk about them. But you do need all four. Just picking one, if you're going to just pick one, just pick the simply living ones that would be ok. But I would push you towards not just choosing one category, choose them all.

Ash (23:17):

You will have to book inventory about it and see what you already have. Put them into those four categories and see what you might need more of.

Hanna:

One of the tips that I always give is using post-it notes on the inside book jacket or something like that. So that you can brainstorm ahead of time, and come up with, as you said, come up with the common questions that you expect. You're going to be hearing the, from the kids you're reading with or the points that you wanted to drive home. If you could give three of your top picks that you would, you know, suggest that are the simple living, those incidental representations, it's not about the struggle. It's totally about the joyful representation. Because I think sometimes as you said, if you're going to pick any, those are the kinds of books we could just have an out on a shelf and they might bring a few questions, but we don't have to get into a huge conversation about them. We are just seeing representation.

Ash (24:15):

Absolutely. There is a book called “Bathe the Cat” that is new. So fun, very funny. My kids are four and a half and two and so they are the target audience for that book. Great read-aloud. Super fun. Great bedtime book. So, “Bathe the Cat” is a great book. There's a book called. “We moved together”. That's probably one of my favorite books of all time. It's a disability justice book for children and it has beautiful simply living incidental, LGBTQIA+ representation in it. It also has a lot of depictions of things you normally don't see in children's books. There are people, it's a page about people eating and the people are eating in a variety of different ways, including a person using a feeding tube and a baby being breastfed and just like lots and lots of variety. So “We move together” is picture book perfection as far as I'm concerned.

Ash (25:28):

Oh man, those are the two that immediately spring to mind. “My Footprints”, I already mentioned, is a really fun book, especially for the winter. Especially if it snows where you live, there are a lot of linking activities that you could do with that one. That is just great.

Hanna:

A couple I was thinking about is “Mr. Watson's Chickens”. A very good read-aloud, super silly, and funny. Touching one that came out last year, just at the end of the last year. “Love Violet” is a fantastic book. And the other one I was thinking about was “Granddad's Camper’. There's just four or five that we've, you know, been seeing. Have you thought of another one?

Ash:

I thought of two more. One, one of, one of them I had previously had in my head, and I was like, is this incidental sort of maybe I don't know, it's a hybrid, but I'll get to that in a second.

Ash (26:25):

“A Plan for Pops” is gorgeous. It's a lovely book about a lovely relationship with a grand grandparent. And the other one which is a hybrid book is “When Aiden Became a brother”, which is one of my favorite picture books of all time. It's about a family who's going to have a new child and Aiden who is the brother in this scenario, worries that the baby is going to get miscategorized as he did when he was little. It’s beautiful and it shows empathy. It's a great book for empathy. It's a great book for a new baby who is coming. Also, “Plenty of hugs” is a great one. I could go on forever. “Plenty of hugs” are great for a new baby. If there is a new baby coming around. It's a great first safety book.

Hanna:

Great. Excellent. Okay. We will have all those books in the show notes and on my blog post about the podcast.

Hanna (27:38):

Here might be a loaded question, but here's something that I am asked by parents or educators. What about the teacher who is in the classroom, in states or areas where they don't say the gay bill is being crossed or they are afraid that they are going to get backlash from families or parents? How do educators still try to support the kids in their classrooms? Even, if they are part of the LGBTQIA+ community, how do we reconcile that? How do we do it? What kind of little nuggets do you have?

Ash:

Yeah. So first off, these laws are horrible and there's no real way to reconcile them because they are meant to be harmful period. Like they're meant to be harmful. That's the point. And the biggest, one of the biggest parts of them is to make teachers feel afraid and to make parents feel afraid.

Ash (28:38):

I'm from rural Texas. I understand that fear. I think that there are a few things that you can do. One is I always tell people, what does your classroom look like? Are there pictures on the wall that maybe could be a two-mom family could be an LGBTQIA+ family? You're not saying gay. If you put a picture on a wall and someone interprets it a certain way. So that's one of the things that I can say. I always like to say slide it in, just like slide it under the door; that's one way. Another way is you can start with your family. I know that for me, with my extended family, that's the hardest. And so, I think it depends a lot on your family with my immediate family, me and my spouse and my kids.

Ash (29:30):

Absolutely. with like my cousins and my whole family in rural Texas, it’s hard, it's much harder. You can gift books. So that's always a thing I'm like, maybe you'll throw this away, but maybe you won't. One of my friends who's a teacher in Texas has asked me for a list of simply living books where they don't say the word gay. They just happen to be two dads or there happens to be a family that holds these identities. That can be away, I always recommend it because I am a super anxious person and I know how it feels in these sorts of situations. Talk to your administrator. Say this is what I'm going to do then, you know where the line is. And then you must make a choice. Unfortunately, in a lot of places, that's where we are. I'm not saying it's an easy choice to make. People need to feed their families. But you can talk to your administrator and say, it's important for me to show all of the students in my class that they're valued. I am not trying to flip tables or be a rabble-rouser here. I just want my kids to know that they're valued, and this is what I'm going to do to show them they're valued. Your administrator might say, no, that's not okay. And then you get to make a choice. So that's what I would say. Look for that incidental slash simply living books, what does your classroom look like? You can feature people like historical figures in your classes that are gay without verbally saying this is a gay person.

Ash (31:21):

You can talk about people as people. Even if you can't necessarily say the word gay. It's a hard, hard thing right now. It's a hard place to be. I am here to support anyone who wants to have that conversation and wants to brainstorm those ideas.

Hanna:

I think that those are great things. I think just being able to -when people walk in your classroom, I love that you even said that the signs have meant so much, I've heard this from students where the sign says all are welcome. It is three little words. For some kids, that is super powerful to say that means me. That means me. I think that there are lots of bigger ways that we can contact people, writing some letters letting the people that are in different government positions know this isn't okay.

Hanna (32:20):

Writing, phoning, emails, things like that. I love the small, tangible ways. And I think, again, I'm speaking to the families, this is our responsibility as parents to start having those diverse and inclusive bookshelves, going to the library and borrowing them so that the kids see themselves on the pages know that this is possible for them or for somebody else in the world, a friend that or a trusted person that they might want to go to, or that can tell them about their own identity. Thank you so much.

Ash:

I have one more thing. And my one thing is I understand that everybody is under a lot of pressure right now. Give this five minutes a week. Think about how you can increase LGBTQIA+ representation in your classroom or your home library in five minutes a week.

Hanna (33:14):

Because five minutes a week over a year adds up. There are a lot of great movies as well as books. I never want to make families feel like picture books are all the answers because they are not. There are some real stinkers out there. The books can be a part of our toolkit. I love that the conversations in the books, it's something on the news, a movie, something where we are just starting to have those conversations. That's awesome. Okay. So, we talked about today, just the toolkit that you are presenting, that you do, these consultant pieces, how do people connect with that? What are the kinds of ways that you, is it like just schools? Is it families you could homeschool? How do people connect with that?

Ash (34:07):

I do professional development for schools, but I also do classes. On my website, there's an upcoming classes tab and I have listed all my upcoming classes there. I also do one-on-one consultations. So sometimes parents, of trans kids or just parents, in general, will ask me, “Hey, can I do like a one-hour chat about X, Y, or Z thing that's happening?” And we get in there and I figure out tools and resources for them. I'm a big tool, resources person. That's why my website is called the Rainbow Toolbox. I am a teach a person to fish sort of person. So those are the main ways. Then also just follow me on Instagram. I give out a lot of information there. You can always DM me there and ask me questions. I normally am good about getting back to those. Probably the best way.

Hanna (35:08):

I'm so glad that we were able to chat today, and I love your blog. Everybody who's listening today, go check out Ash’s website. And like they said, follow on Instagram. So, thank you so much, Ash, have a wonderful day.

Ash:

You too.

Connect with Ash

Website: www.therainbowtoolbox.com

Instagram: @therainbowtoolbox

Check out Ash’s pronoun practice tips sheet by signing up for their email list: https://mailchi.mp/0b6855ad8b82/pronoun-tips

Books mentioned in this post

Bathe the Cat