As educators, we never know how many lives we’ve affected over the years. In Erin Kenny’s case, the number of educators, children, families, and community members affected by her presence in this world is immeasurable.

Last year, I had the privilege of spending a week with International Play Iceland and more than thirty early years educators from around the world. One of the most amazing people in attendance was from right here in the Pacific Northwest, Erin Kenny.

Iceland is a magical place and Erin was a magical person.

• She was a cutthroat Jenga player.
• She was a great roommate in one of the most beautiful places on Earth, where the sea met the mountains.
• She was someone whom I didn’t mind being stranded with at the Reykjavik airport for over eight hours.
• She enjoyed a good IPA.
• She was a passionate play advocate, champion of children engaging in sensorial experiences in nature, and a heroine of the forest.
• She was an intelligent, strong, and fierce woman.

Knowing she was slowly dying of cancer, I sent her a snail-mail card nearly three weeks ago. I hope she got it and knew what a special person she was to me, and everyone who knew her. The card was designed by a local artist, Katie Daisy and it read, “She smelled of sun and daisies with a hint of river water.” This embodies what it was like to be in Erin’s presence. She will be missed.

“Children cannot bounce off the walls if we take away the walls.”

(source: Erin Kenny)

Seventeen years ago, next month, I left my husband because I knew in my heart I was attracted to women. Yet, I’m still not ‘out’ in academia.

I own a preschool and live above the school with my wife. When I originally opened the preschool, I was advised to keep my gayness on the down-low. I desperately wanted people to enroll in my program and they certainly did not need to know I am a lesbian. Neither did I feel comfortable having books in my school library related to LGBTQ themes (even though I owned them) – Heather Has Two Mommies or And Tango Makes Three.

Visiting families might ask, “Is your husband background checked?” or “What does your husband do?” Then I would share that my wife is background checked as part of our licensing requirement. My sexual orientation also makes for a great filter of potential families. If you don’t feel comfortable with your child having a teacher in a same-sex relationship, then you’ll likely not feel comfortable with other aspects of our program. The tours either quickly ended or parents were delighted to find such diversity in our town. In some ways it became easier once same-sex marriage was federally legalized. “I live upstairs with my wife.”

This past year has been a journey. Our program supported a family as their preschooler publicly transitioned genders. While sexual orientation and gender identity are two entirely different concepts, they are often merged together through our ever-expanding alphabet-soup acronym – LGBTQIA. If a family had issue with our support of a child transitioning gender, what did they think of me? While our journey of celebration and support for our preschooler who is transgender will be the topic of a future blog post, it’s influenced my thoughts on the importance of visibility moving forward.

In my college classes, I’ve always been somewhat closeted. When I first starting teaching in the early-2000s, I recall going to the director of the preschool I was working in (it was a lab school on a University campus) and sharing that I had begun dating women. I wanted her to hear it from me, instead of from a concerned family.

When I moved to another University several years later, a few of my mentor teachers were closeted. I assumed that was just what you did. Don’t ask, don’t tell. Granted, the campus was fairly conservative. I was also hindered by my own youth on a college campus where the average student age when I started was 32. I was nowhere near my thirties! I didn’t need yet another reason for students to discredit my teaching. I was mindful to use gender-neutral language when referring to my life. “We went camping this weekend” or “My partner and I bought a house.” A handful of students knew I was in a same-sex relationship – those in leadership positions in the Human Development Club that I advised and a handful of teaching assistants. Students who spent way too much time in my office to continue to bother with the façade.

Then I briefly stepped away from academia when I moved back to my hometown to open a progressive preschool. A hometown that has not always been LGBTQ-friendly. A hometown where I didn’t feel comfortable walking down the street holding hands with my wife. A hometown where I was verbally assaulted for being a lesbian long before I ever knew I was attracted to women. There was no question in my mind that my gayness had to be on the back-burner.

Before long, I was teaching at our local community college and another four-year University. Again, I was using gender-neutral, closeted language. A handful of out LGBTQ students have found me, not to be fooled by my clever use of words.

I’m tired. I’m tired of using gender-neutral language to refer to someone who is legally my wife. I’m tired of avoiding authentic, organic conversations with my college students before and after class about our personal lives. I can be out to 4-year-olds and their families, but not to my college students. I recently had a college intern at my preschool refer to my wife as the “woman who works upstairs.” While my preschool library now has books like Jacob’s New Dress and Introducing Teddy, I somehow can’t bring myself to be out in academia.

Enough is enough. I’m done.

My college students need to see me as an out lesbian who works with young children. And that it’s okay… And that my preschool families embrace us… Is my program the right fit for everyone? Of course not. But for a large portion of the population, my sexual orientation is irrelevant and may even serve to strengthen my awareness of issues related to gender, sexual orientation, and a multitude of other non-majority groups.

This is why when an email came through last week from our University’s new diversity coordinator to volunteer to staff a booth at our local Pride festival, I volunteered. Sign me up. Growing up in this town, there was no Pride festival. If one future or current college student sees me on that day, and I can change one life by simply being visible and proud, then it will be worth it. I look forward to the journey ahead….

You can’t be what you can’t see…

(M.W. Edelman)

Perhaps I’m just sensitive from those days in elementary school where the teachers likely wanted us to learn math skills like sorting and classification.

“Everyone with blue eyes stand over here on the right. Everyone with brown eyes, stand over here on the left. Now let’s count!”

You see, I have Iris Nevus which means my eyes are two different colors. One is all blue and the other is half-blue and half-brown. Where do I stand? Where do I fit in?

Teachers do this daily in classrooms across the world – boys on one side and girls on the other. What if you don’t fit into that arbitrary binary?

It’s also common practice to address the class, “Okay boys and girls, let’s get ready for lunch.” Or, “Girls, it’s time to wash hands.” “Boys, putting the paints away.”

Why do we address children by their gender groups anyway? It’s just a demographic label. We don’t address them in the following ways (or I hope we don’t anyway):

• “Okay neurotypical and non-neurotypical children, time to line up!”
• “Black, Latino, Asian, & Caucasian students, it’s time to go outside!”
• “Wealthy, middle-class, and poor, time for snack!”

We would be horrified in a classroom where children were spoken to in those categorized ways. So why is addressing the class by gender labels okay? Why do young children constantly need to be reminded of their gender?

When we label children in this way, it highlights to them that gender is important… That being a boy or a girl is so important, it is how adults address the entire classroom community.

How about, “time to go outside everyone?”

We’re all human after all; let’s start there…

I have been sharing information on the importance of encouragement with young children for nearly 20 years. Some Early Childhood Education instructors might call it “process-praise” or “effort-based praise.”

In the ECE classes I teach, we practice how to encourage children, learn to identify empty praise, and study the research behind best practice. We know that encouragement fosters intrinsic motivation and a sense of self-approval.

It is rare to hear a “good job” in my preschool program, unless it slips from the mouths of children acknowledging one another, like they so often have been recognized outside of school.

I’ve also been known to use “encouraging language” with my spouse, but it’s not always a huge success. But the problem could lie in the sarcastic tone I don’t use with young learners. “I see you emptied the dishwasher.” “It looks like you paid the bills.” Somehow this is not as effective…

I enrolled in a botanical illustration course through our local community college – four nights and I’ll learn to illustrate nature! Class started off with copying basic shapes and working on shading with HB pencils. Then came illustrating peppers. I don’t even like peppers, which likely put me in a mood.

The instructor went around the room, commenting on people’s work, guiding them toward improvement, and telling some of the students “good job.” Note some meant not me. I am under no false assumptions that I am a gifted artist, but I wanted MY “good job.”

I looked around the room sheepishly trying to determine WHO was doing such great work. What did it look like? What did the instructor like about it? I no longer even liked this person who I still hadn’t identified, this botanical illustration protégée.

In addition, I doubted my skills (consistent with the research on praise), which I wasn’t feeling confident in from the beginning. Why aren’t I a ‘good’ artist? Why do I suck at illustrating peppers? I would have loved a, “You’re working hard on your pepper” or a “I see you have made multiple shades with your pencil.”

And this is how young children feel when we offer their siblings and peers empty praise. When teachers tell their classroom of unfocused preschoolers, “I like the way Moe is sitting.” It’s not about Moe! It’s about everyone else who needs to get their shit together and do what Moe is doing. And Moe is singled out, and may feel good in the short-term, but in the long-term, she’ll just want to blend in. And Moe’s classmates? Not a fan of this brown-nosing, rule follower. These techniques may ‘work’ on 3-year-olds who care about pleasing adults, but try this technique with older students… Or a 40-something-year-old preschool teacher in art class. It doesn’t work.