This Teacher Wonders How To Talk To Students About Her Polyamory. The Answer Is–You Don’t.

First of all, I don’t appreciate that this teacher brags about the fact that “one of the things I’m very open about is my sexuality.” I’m sorry, but that really doesn’t have any place in the classroom. It simply doesn’t. I never even knew if my teachers were married, let alone who they were married to or what gender they believed they were.

Then she brags about having “a trans flag, a bi flag, a non binary flag, all on my desk at my work.” Again, this has no place in the classroom and no place in schools. It simply doesn’t. Your students don’t need to know that you promote or support certain gender identities. And I promise that if there was a heterosexuality flag, teachers would NOT be allowed to have it on their desk.

But then she goes on to detail a situation where students were interviewing her for a project to learn how to write a profile on a person. One student apparently asked if she had a partner, to which she responded yes. But her issue is that she is in a polyamorous relationship, which means she actually has more than one partner. So this video is of her debating how she should handle this conversation. She says,

“I don’t know how to handle that conversation because while I know that the kids are more accepting of things like homosexuality, bisexuality, all of that, polyamory is not in the conversation. It’s not something that is talked about. And I worry not only would this be something that might lead to rumors that I am cheating on my partner or that I am a swinger or something like that, but would also just totally derail the class.”

She explains that her first instinct was to not talk about it. And that was the correct answer. A conversation about having multiple romantic and sexual partners has no place in a classroom or a school. Similarly, a teacher shouldn’t be talking about the dates they went on or the one night stands they had over the weekend, regardless of their sexual preferences or identity. It should not be discussed in a classroom. But this teacher says that “that feels wrong.”

No. It’s not wrong. That is the correct way to handle this situation, and it’s not wrong to keep your private sexual life private. If a student was doing a profile on me and asked me a private personal question like what bra size I wear or even what I like to sleep in, I would simply tell them that wasn’t an appropriate question for this setting and to choose another interview question. If you don’t make it a big deal, then it won’t be a big deal. Just move on.

She says she doesn’t “like lying to my students” or “telling them falsehoods.” So instead she wants to discuss her polyamorous preferences with her students? That’s ridiculous. This stuff does not belong in schools. Ultimately, she plans to tell them she won’t discuss it in a classroom setting, but will advise them that she would be willing to discuss it with them during lunch or in their after-school “GSA club,” perhaps where students are attending behind their parents’ backs. Which is certainly no better.