Leveraging NCTE’s Position Statements to Support Teachers’ Curricular Inclusion of Sexual and Gender Diversity

By Dr. Katie Cramer

As a teacher educator, I have been preparing future middle and high school English teachers—first in Georgia and now in Kansas—for more than a decade.  Since 2007, I have used position statements from the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) to support my professional practice, particularly my decision to center sexual and gender diversity in my curriculum.  

When NCTE passed the Resolution on Strengthening Teacher Knowledge of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Issues in 2007, I was able to further defend my curricular inclusion of sexual and gender diversity in my English methods class against resistance from a small but vocal minority of my teacher candidates who argued that … 

• a three-hour class meeting was too much time devoted to LGBTQ+ issues (in the entirety of their English Education program), 
• they were adults and could determine their own stance on LGBTQ+ identities without my “interference,” and 
• they would “love the sinner but hate the sin” in their future English language arts classrooms.

Aside from expressing my dismay at each of these claims (and my absolute horror at the last one)—as well as my relief that I’ve not heard teacher candidates express these views in the past 10 years—I will not belabor them. In fact, I have written about these challenges before, including in Kansas English (Mason & Harrell, 2012) and more recently in a chapter in Incorporating LGBTQ+ Identities in K-12 Curriculum and Policy (Cramer, 2020).  

Instead, in this piece, I want to remind all of us that we can be even more powerful in our teaching for social justice when we seek out support from our professional organizations at the state and national levels.

What are position statements?
For the past 50 years, NCTE has published position statements on a number of issues that guide and support our professional practice. According to NCTE, position statements “bring the latest thinking and research together to help define best practices, offer guidance for navigating challenges, and provide an expert voice to back up the thoughtful decisions teachers must make each day” (NCTE Position Statements). They begin as resolutions, crafted and submitted by a group of at least five NCTE members and reviewed by the NCTE Committee on Resolutions before being discussed and voted on at the Annual Convention and later ratified by NCTE membership.  NCTE notes the value of both the process and the product on its resolutions page:

“When a resolution is ratified it signals to members and the wider education community that these issues are top concerns. Most resolutions also come with research about and suggested solutions to the problem. As such, a resolution is a tool you can use as an educator to advocate for these issues, knowing you have the backing of a national organization in your stance.” (NCTE Resolutions)

The oldest position statements NCTE lists on its website were discussed and voted on at the NCTE Annual Business Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1970 and include fascinating and still relevant resolutions on … 

• behavioral objectives, 
• educational voucher systems, 
• media literacy, 
• NCTE’s relationship to its affiliates, 
• teacher and student involvement in decisions about accountability,
• teacher competence in Black literature, 
• the report of the President’s Commission on Campus Unrest
• the report of the President’s Commission on Obscenity and Pornography

 
More recently, NCTE membership has ratified statements that center sexual and gender diversity. During LGBTQ Pride Month, let’s turn our attention to two position statements that support our efforts to recognize and affirm sexual and gender diversity in our schools and curriculums. 

Resolution on Strengthening Teacher Knowledge of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Issues (2007)
NCTE’s Resolution on Strengthening Teacher Knowledge of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Issues was ratified in November 2007 at the beginning of my career in teacher education, and it has provided the support I needed to center sexual and gender diversity in my teacher preparation curriculum. It states that “effective teacher preparation programs help teachers understand and meet their professional responsibilities, even when their personal beliefs seem in conflict with concepts of social justice” (NCTE, 2007). It advocates for the inclusion of LGBTQ+ studies in teacher education programs, even going so far as to advocate that accrediting bodies recognize the importance of the study of LGBTQ+ issues in such programs. This resolution/position statement not only strengthened individual faculty members’ rationales for the inclusion of sexual and gender diversity in their coursework, it also led to positive changes within the NCTE. Less than two years later in March 2009, English Journal published its first themed issue on sexual and gender diversity, and more recently, the NCTE formed the LGBTQ Advisory Committee on which I am currently serving my second term.

Statement on Gender and Language (2018)
In 2018, NCTE members ratified the Statement on Gender and Language, which evolved out of NCTE’s previous position statements on gender and language from 1978, 1985, and 2002. The most current iteration of this statement “builds on contemporary understandings of gender that include identities and expressions beyond a woman/man binary” (NCTE, 2018).  This 12-page document—one of the longest NCTE position statements I’ve encountered—features a plethora of information to guide teachers’ understanding of gender diversity. It defines gender-expansive terminology; describes research-based recommendations for working with students, colleagues, and the broader professional community; and includes an annotated bibliography of resources to help us “use language to reflect the reality of gender diversity and support gender diverse students” (NCTE, 2018).

Stay Tuned … 
This summer, I was invited by the NCTE Presidential Team to collaborate with colleagues across the U.S. to revise three statements on gender and gender diversity.  Two of the statements are 25 and 30 years old, respectively, and they need considerable updating as conceptions of gender and sexuality—and the language we use to describe them—have evolved (and continue to evolve). This committee, under the leadership of Dr. Mollie Blackburn, is currently planning to address both sexual and gender diversity in curriculum design in our revisions, and we hope to have one or more statements ready for discussion and vote at the 2020 NCTE Convention, which will take place virtually this year.  

Your Next Steps
I invite you to take some time this summer, as you reflect on your curriculum design and prepare for the next academic year, to engage in the following activities:

1. Explore NCTE’s full list of position statements, which are searchable by key words and type of statement (e.g., assessment, curriculum, diversity).
2. Take note of statements that support the work you want to do in your curriculum and classroom. Review them, and make note of resources that provide further support for your pedagogical work.  More recent position statements follow this format:
   1. Title that explains the statement’s content
   2. Date of original publication, plus dates of revisions
   3. Overview that explains the purpose, key take aways, and explanation of the expertise that went into creating it
   4. Body of the statement that describes the problem, recommended solutions, and research basis for those solutions, as well as links to other pertinent NCTE statements
   5. Author’s attribution
3. Share those statements with colleagues and administrators to build consensus and support for your classroom pedagogy.
4. If you notice an area or issue that has not been addressed adequately or at all, consider submitting a resolution. 

Alongside our state affiliate the Kansas Association of Teachers of English (KATE), NCTE’s vision is to empower English language arts teachers at all levels to “advance access, power, agency, affiliation, and impact for all learners” (NCTE About Us). NCTE’s position statements are just one of the many ways the organization enacts that vision.

References
Cramer, K.M. (2020). Addressing sexual and gender diversity in an English education teacher preparation program. In A. Sanders, L. Isbell & K. Dixon (Eds.), Incorporating LGBTQ+ identities in K-12 curriculum and policy (pp. 66-111). IGI Global.

Mason, K. & Harrell, C. (2012). Searching for common ground: Two teachers discuss their support for and concerns about the inclusion of LGBTQ issues in English methods courses.” Kansas English, 95(1), 22-36.

NCTE (n.d.). About us. https://ncte.org/about/

NCTE. (n.d.). Position statements. https://ncte.org/resources/position-statements/

NCTE. (n.d.). Resolutions.  https://ncte.org/resources/position-statements/resolutions/

NCTE. (2007, November 30). Resolution on strengthening teacher knowledge of lesbian,  gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) issues.
https://ncte.org/statement/teacherknowledgelgbt/ 

NCTE. (2018, October 25). Statement on gender and language.
https://ncte.org/statement/genderfairuseoflang/​
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About the Author
​Katherine Mason Cramer is a former middle school English teacher and a professor of English Education at Wichita State University. She has been a KATE member since 2010 and an NCTE member since 2000.  She serves on the KATE Executive Board, and has served as Editor of Kansas English since 2017. She can be reached at [email protected]. 

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