Teaching Bayard Rustin to Kindergarteners: A Collaborative Self-Study into the Planning Process of a Queer Counternarrative

Abstract

The authors of this self-study set out to examine their own process of developing queer counternarrative lesson plans for use in early elementary social studies classrooms. Having designed and tested a set of kindergarten lesson plans about Bayard Rustin and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s, we sought to answer the question: As teacher educators, how might we improve the practice of designing and teaching elementary, social studies curriculum using queer counternarratives for young learners? We explain the current political context for teaching LGBTQ+ history and the specific context of teaching in elementary classrooms. We examine the theoretical underpinnings of both Queer Pedagogy and child development of young learners. Using a critical friends protocol and constant comparative analysis for examining our learning, we determine that this work, rather than controversial, should be viewed as revelatory, steeped in queer pedagogy and centered in queer transgressive capital.