All the time in middle school and high school, I’ve heard, for example, “My girlfriend doesn’t like that I do X” or “My wife and I did X this weekend”, and since the teacher is a man, it’s seen as acceptable.
Would casually mentioning having a girlfriend cause angry emails from parents, even if I’m not discussing forms of romantic attraction in schools? These kids are like 11-14 anyway, parents’ job to teach orientation (which I’ve heard argued) or not.
Also, we learn relationship descriptions in middle school Spanish if you choose to take it, which includes words like novio, novia, esposo, and esposa. (Shouldn’t matter, especially if the school I teach in is at a non-Conservative community)
Why even mention it? Just say it hypothetically as you’re teaching.
Yeah this is the way. Don’t let students know anything about your private life.
On the other hand, give hypothetical examples of both ways, e.g., “if I was going to the movies with my girlfriend, I would say…”
Or “if I was going see my boyfriend later, I would say…”
On the other hand, there are probably better ways to teach novio/esposo etc without making it about you, even hypothetically.
Does Spanish have a super generic term like “significant other” or “partner” that doesn’t convey anything useful?
Side note, the types of parents you would be concerned about are probably also the type that get super racist about teaching Spanish in the first place.
Throw the kids under the bus if a parent complains. “I said novio not novia. This is why Braydon has a C.”
For my answer I’m going to assume - because it wasn’t all that clear to me - that you are also female and you’ll be teaching somewhere in the United States of America. If I’m mistaken, stop reading here.
Kids don’t care. If you tell them this person loves that person and that’s why they’re together, that generally settles that. The problem here is their parents or other influential grownups in their lives … if they’re a-holes or just always have something negative to say about LGBT+, or worse. If news filters through to them and they’re fond of the MAGA hat, I would not be surprised if at the very least you’d be heavily discussed in a text thread of like minded parents.
I would like to say “eff it, it’s 2025, you do you! Shout it from the rooftops. You have nothing to fear in reprisals.” But I’m thinking “sh!t, it’s 2025 in America, there is a chance that you will have to deal with a ton of it if you’re unlucky.” So the question becomes one of your inner fortitude: do you think you can do this job while facing sh!t every day? This ranges from hushed chatter to outright questioning and condemning you for your identity, from kids to parents and possibly to the faculty? Do you want to risk putting quite a heavy load on your shoulders on top of what teachers carry in general? If you say yes, or you can find other work when it gets too much, go for it. If not, I’d be cautious to make it about you. You can talk in general about how relationships are described in Spanish without casually mentioning where you stand.
Personally, I want all of us to live in a world where any of these considerations seem laughable. My gut feeling tells me that we have been closer to that ideal in the past decade than we are today.
Why even take the risk? Just talk about something else.
I’d second this… IMO it’s probably good for the students to moderately hear about… but it just takes one curious student to ask follow up questions, and one super conservative triggered parent to blow everything sky high, and tank your career. So IMO… probably not, unless you are looking to get out of teaching and want to do some good on the way out.
