PEORIA – Gay and transgendered people have made great contributions to society throughout history, but their stories are rarely told.
That will change this fall when teachers at Peoria Public Schools start using curriculum created by The Legacy Project, a Chicago-based non-profit dedicated to researching and promoting the contributions lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people have made to world history and culture.
Students will have the opportunity to learn about Albert D.J. Cashier, who was named Jennie Hodgers at birth. He emigrated to the US from Ireland as a teenager and enlisted in the 95th Illinois Infantry in 1862 and fought in about 40 battles in the Civil War. They could also learn about the author of “America the Beautiful,” a Wellesley College English teacher named Katharine Lee Bates who had a 25-year relationship with another professor, a woman. And they will also have the opportunity to learn about George Washington Carver, an agricultural scientist and inventor who developed hundreds of products from peanuts, sweet potatoes and soybeans. Carver’s life partner was a man, a fellow researcher.
Stories like these not only provide a much richer look at history than has traditionally been provided, they will also help children struggling with their identities see that there are many paths they can choose, and that they are all OK, said Deric Kimler, executive director of Central Illinois Friends.
“We are trying to make healthier options, where it’s OK that I’m gay — I don’t know if I am, but it’s OK to have these thoughts right now. And it’s OK to be straight, and to understand my friend is gay and I don’t have to be gay just to be cool, I don’t need to go down that path with my friend,” said Kimler, who is on the committee developing the curriculum at Peoria Public Schools.
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LGBTQ curriculum in grades K-12 was mandated when Gov. JB Pritzker signed HB 246 into law in 2019. Illinois is only the third state to mandate that public schools teach LGBTQ history, following California and New Jersey. While private schools are not bound by state mandates, public schools are, said Beth Crider, superintendent of the Peoria Regional Office of Education. Meeting the mandate will not require the purchase of a new textbook or the creation of a new course, however.
“Most districts will weave this information into already standing courses,” Crider said.
There were many good reasons for mandating LGBTQ education, Becca Mathis said when she and Kimler gave a presentation about the new curriculum during a PPS school board meeting May 10.
The statistics are startling: LGBTQ students are 33% more likely to be bullied and 35% more likely to be physically assaulted, 63% more likely to feel sad or hopeless, and 48% more likely to have seriously considered suicide than non-LGBTQ students.
“There is a lot of data that shows children in these communities experience very significant health disparities in all regions related to health, no just related to social emotional health, but also physical health,” Mathis told the board. “The goal of implementing more inclusive curriculum is to make sure that students feel they are learning in a very safe environment, and they also feel like they are connected and a part of their schools.”
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As a preliminary step to introducing the curriculum, teachers and school staff are currently receiving Safe Zone Training, Kimler said.
“It’s training for LGBTQ language and how to handle adolescents who are LGBTQ, different situations and what to say, what not to say, how to help when someone is coming out, and what that means,” Kimler said.
Teachers and district staff are also being given resources to help them deal with situations as they arise.
“Central Illinois Friends, Hult Center for Healthy Living, and Peoria Proud will be available for staff to refer those hard cases out. It could be bullying, it could be internal identity, a friend’s identity, it could be parental identity, or it could be a son or daughters’ identity,” Kimler said.
Meetings are happening now between committee members and principals, a first step toward getting teachers trained in implementing the curriculum.
“It’s really important for these principals to have buy-in, because they are the ones who are going to hear it from the teacher, because the teachers are going to hear it from the parents,” Kimler said.
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So far complaints from parents and teachers have been minimal, she said. Many who have spoken up simply needed more information.
“It’s not something that’s going to be tested on, there’s no teeth in this where teachers are being forced to do it. It’s just a tool that parents, children and staff members and educators will be able to utilize with the hopes that, if one kid is having a horrible time trying to figure out who they are, one parent or teacher or student doesn’t say something that leads them to take their own lives,” Kimler said.
History lessons about LGBTQ individuals will happen in middle and high schools. The focus in K-12 will be on using inclusive language, she said.
“It is hard for adults to understand the concept of what questions kids have, but you may be surprised just how easy it is when you are talking about daddies and daddies – and that’s OK – or mommies and mommies – and that’s OK. And that not everyone is like you, and that’s OK, and we celebrate everyone differently and uniquely. So it’s as simple as that. It’s LGBTQ books that don’t put a binary construction on an individual, so having a Tom, but referring to them as they. Little introductions like that is where we start in the elementary. It’s not saying ‘George Washington Carver created multiple ways to use a peanut, and oh, by the way, he was gay.’ That’s not the conversation we are having in first grade,” said Kimler.
The implementation of LGBTQ curriculum is a personal mission for Kimler, who grew up in Williamsfield and graduated with a class of 23 kids in 2007. He’d always been told he would have a girlfriend when he grew up, and was completely unprepared when he started having feelings for other boys in junior high school.
“I couldn’t pay attention in school, I was getting in trouble all the time, and I honestly think that if I had had representation, I wouldn’t have had that struggle,” said Kimler. “My struggles were based on the fact that I hated myself, and I hated going to school, this world wasn’t for me and I tried to take my life multiple times. I wouldn’t have had to go through that if I’d just known — even though I didn’t know in junior high if I was gay or not — that it was OK if I was.”
Leslie Renken can be reached at 270-8503 or lrenken@pjstar.com. Follow her on Facebook.com/leslie.renken.
