Life Through a Queer Lens

EP69: The Education Underground; Navigating Dept. of Ed. Dismantling

• Jenene & Kit • Season 2 • Episode 69

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We explore accessible educational alternatives in response to the executive order dismantling the Department of Education, focusing on resources families can use immediately to support learning outside traditional school settings.

• Administration's March 2025 executive order is beginning the dismantling of the Department of Education
• ACLU website details consequences to students' civil rights and access to equal education
• Groups most affected include disabled students, low-income families, BIPOC students, ESL students, and LGBTQ+ students
• Ways to fight back include donating to ACLU, contacting representatives via Five Calls app, signing petitions, and organizing community education programs
• Big History Project offers free learning resources with more in-depth options for educators and students
• World History Project connects past to present with high school AP-level content
• PBS provides extensive free educational content for all ages through PBS News, PBS Kids (508 free games), and parent resources
• "LGBTQ+ History Book by Big Ideas, Explained Simply" offers accessible queer history education
• X-Men movie used real coming out experiences to frame mutant revelation scenes

Follow trans journalist Erin Reed (@ErinInTheMorning) for up-to-date information about gender-affirming care and trans healthcare across the United States.


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Speaker 1:

We are back today with another solo cast. Today we are going to discuss some alternate education options that you can access at home, pretty much right now, whenever you want, and the reason we are doing this is because, well, for one backtrack, this was going to be an episode about access to gender-affirming care for both adults and minors, broken down by state. However, that information is changing literally all the time. Every day, new court cases are being filed against this administration's attack on gender-affirming care and trans health care, and every single day, new you know bullshit is being spewed to try to overwhelm those systems trying to fight these illegal executive orders. So, illegal executive orders, whatever you know what I'm trying to say these inhumane executive orders. There we go. Information is changing way too much and way too frequently for this episode of a podcast to be any form of helpful. By the time this episode goes up, from the day I'm recording it, the laws will probably be different, like there's. There's just it's too. There's too much happening right now to be able to do an episode about something like that without the information being inaccurate by the time the episode's posted. So if you are looking for up-to-date information about these things, I cannot recommend enough following along with the trans journalist, erin Reid. That is her name, erin Reid E-R-I-N-R-E-E-D. She is Erin in the Morning on pretty much every social media app, as far as I understand. I believe if you just look up Erin Reid, you will be able to find her. She is phenomenal and she gives very, very frequent, up-to-date information about what is happening with gender-affirming care and trans health care across the United States as things change so rapidly. So hop on your phones, go give her a follow. If you feel inclined, let her know that we sent you, but for today. Instead, we are going to talk about alternate education options that you and your family can access right now, today, and we are going to let you know exactly which like education range these options are best suited for, so that you're not giving a little something that's a little too much for them and you're not simplifying things for someone who can understand more complex ideas. That's a much better way of putting it. So, yeah, the reason we are doing this is because, on March 20th 2025, this administration is If I can get S's and like CH sounds down by the time I turn 30, miracles, miracles. Maybe I'll believe in a god.

Speaker 1:

On March 20th 2025, this administration issued an executive order beginning the process of totally dismantling the Department of Education. The effects of this are an entire episode unto themselves and can be found at the ACLU website detailing the consequences to students' civil rights and ability to access equal education. So, yeah, check out the ACLU's website In general. Go check them out, go donate to them if you have the expendable funds to do so, because they could use your help right now. But, yeah, if you go to their website, you'll be able to find more details about the actual effects on different student communities that the dismantling of the Department of Education will have Along with detailing what these attacks on education will cause. The ACLU has promised to continue fighting back in courts, which you can help with, if you are able to, by visiting their website and donating now. Please do.

Speaker 1:

Other things we can do now to fight back against these attacks on education are calling and emailing our representatives to demand more of them through the Five Calls app, signing petitions that, with enough signatures, can make it to powerful ears. And organizing with those most likely to be affected to start out-of-school community education programs. That's a big one. Start organizing within your community to provide educational resources to those most likely affected by the dismantling of the Department of Education, and here's a short list of those most likely to be affected. Again, if you would like to read more about how these effects will pertain to most, if not all, of American students, please visit the ACLU website. All of American students please visit the ACLU website. But the predominantly most affected students are disabled students, families and districts below the poverty level, bipoc students, esl students, those held back for any reason, age discrimination protections are among those protected by the Department of Education, and LGBTQIA plus students.

Speaker 1:

So there is a misconception that, like this will only affect a certain number of. No, this is going to affect a massive swath of the student population, like almost a massive swath of the student population. Do not let them deceive you about thinking this isn't going to affect that many people. They're lying. This is going to affect millions of school-age students or just students in general. So today we're going to give a short list of materials you can bring to out-of-school community educational meetings or events or to start using on your own.

Speaker 1:

Everything mentioned in today's episode is available to anyone in the public to learn from and use to teach those in their lives Along the way. I'm going to try to mention the education level for each tool, focusing on reading comprehension, when it's applicable. Some of these programs mentioned also have in-depth options for those working in the education field or students, which we will mention also when applicable. Ok, so let's begin. We're going to start with the Big History Project. The Big History Project has more in-depth options for educational professionals and students with which you can make an account and explore these educational resources far more in depth than the average member of the public. However, there are still options available for free for members of the public.

Speaker 1:

I was on the website messing around. I had a lot of fun with it. According to their homepage, big History examines our past, explains our present and imagines our future. To get to their public site, you just search Big History Project in Google and click Get Started to begin learning. Like it's that simple. Once you get to their homepage, you just click Get Started and you immediately jump into the programming. It's actually fantastic. It's designed for high school learning levels, emphasizes that everyone, high school and beyond, can and should learn something from this program. There's no shame in a refresher. This is more considered like your introduction to world history, kind of. You know what I mean when it comes to programs from this umbrella company, which I'll get into a little bit, but this is more like the introduction type of thing. Next up, we have the World History Project, and the World History Project is ran by the same organization running the Big History Project, known as OER, where students and teachers can make an account. So yeah, if you're a student, if you're an educator, heavily recommend going to that website and checking out the World History Project and the Big History Project and seeing what they offer to educators.

Speaker 1:

According to their homepage, world History Project's goal is to teach a standards-aligned world history course that connects the past to the present with an eye to the future. It is intended for high school history AP course level and is a good follow-up after finishing Big History Project. It has a teach-yourself style where there are videos or written information along with guided questions a teacher would prompt you with. So again, this is more intended for educators to use in a classroom environment, but it is accessible to you just on your own computer. You can use this to run an out-of-school educational program if that's something that interests you and it allows for like a teach-yourself kind of model where you can read the guiding questions as you're watching a video or reading through a reading prompt and basically teach yourself to a certain extent. Now, things like this are much better done when done in a collaborative group, with a group of people, definitely with an educator, but I understand that's not always available or accessible. But this is, I would say, better to be done in a collaborative effort, just because it allows for different viewpoints on the opinions of these historical topics, if that makes sense. These guided questions can sometimes be opinion-based, can be fact-based, and it allows you to learn a lot more when you're learning with a bunch of different people, or even a couple of different people from different backgrounds.

Speaker 1:

For younger kids and for their parents and for their parents, this is something. Honestly. I'm recommending this for any age range. Fuck, just for younger kids. Listen, this is for everyone, but also specifically for younger kids, because there's a kids section. You'll get what I mean in a minute.

Speaker 1:

Pbs, pbs guys, pbs, pbs. Pbs News is fantasticbs news is fantastic. They have their news is great. It's well informed, factual and easy to digest. It's also available online. I believe they have live streams of their news on youtube. They have it on their website, pbs kids. Their website is fantastic. It is one of the last websites left on the internet that hosts free games for kids where you don't have to worry about inappropriate themes being snuck in there, like it's just free games for kids that are age appropriate and consistently age appropriate. They're not online, they're not interacting with us. It's great. They're all educational to a certain extent and are very fun for these kids. It's great. They're all educational to a certain extent and are very fun for these kids. Pbs Kids website has really cool accessibility things and, just like general, helping kids learn things. Whereas they highlight over certain words, it'll read the word aloud to them through the speakers, so they're learning to understand what words sound like just while scrolling the homepage of PBS Kids. It's great.

Speaker 1:

I was a PBS kid, I was a TV kid and I firmly believe that one of the only reasons that being a TV kid at such a young age didn't fry my brain is because I was a PBS TV kid, because my mom always had PBS on Thank you mom. Because my mom always had PBS on Thank you mom. Like PBS is A plus and they have an entire page dedicated to Black History Month for parents, so that the whole family can learn and grow together. So it provides activities, resources, different things like that for parents to take and then teach their kids with, so that we're all learning at the same time, which is really cool. Yeah, pbs's parents website is great. It's filled with educational resources about parenting. It's filled with different developmental stage things with what the average child might be at in certain developmental stages when it comes to emotional health, mathematics, like everything. It's very cool.

Speaker 1:

I recommend checking it out. It's filled with coloring pages to print out for your kids a bunch of different stuff. So, yeah, check out PBS Parenting. So like the PBS site for parents and PBS kids for your talk, for your tots, because a plus, and also you're able donate to them because PBS remains functioning thanks to contributions from viewers like you. Thank you. So do that, if you can do that, if you're able give them a little bit, along with having games on their kids' websites and a bunch of the other stuff I mentioned. Yeah, they have 508 kids' games. It's not just like they have a couple, they have 508 of them. They have a children's podcast starting the characters of Work it Out Wombats too, which I think is so fucking cute. That's precious. Check out PBS. Check it out for adults, check it out for kids, even teens out there Check out their informational things. They have a lot of information, oh my God. And then you know, because I have to throw something a little queer in here. So of course I'm going to add the LGBTQ plus history book by Big Ideas, explained Simply.

Speaker 1:

I've recommended this book on a few occasions. I own it. I cannot recommend it highly enough. It breaks down LGBTQ plus history throughout human history like any other textbook would, using graphics, tables, historical accounts, and it's basically organized and split up in the same way any other informational textbook would be, which makes the information super easy to find, to grasp, to understand. It's great, I thoroughly enjoy it. The table of contents is really helpful for when I just need a bit more information about something that I already know, like the basis of, and I'm able to just scroll through the table of contents find exactly what it is Like. It's great, I really enjoy that book. This book sits around a high school level of reading and understanding, but would work for someone in late middle school to grow into if they show interest in queer history. Like if I got this book in like seventh grade I would have never put it down. Yeah, I own it, I learn from it regularly, I work with it regularly. It's fantastic I didn't write an interesting fact for today.

Speaker 1:

I'm being so real, guys, I am yanking this one from my ass from an interview that I watched maybe a decade and a half ago. At this point Lives in my brain, rent-free kind of thing. Hear me out, hear me out, hear me out. In the second X-Men movie there is a moment where Bobby, the character with ice powers, iceman he's coming out to his parents as a mutant and it is very much framed as a queer coming out Like his mom literally asks if he could just not be a mutant. She asks him for. The second X-Men movie asked Ian McClellan, the actor who played Magneto, who is also openly gay, how he would have broached coming out to his parents. Could he have done that while they were alive and basically used what he said of his side of that conversation to frame Bobby's side of the conversation? Outro Music.