“Transgender students themselves may struggle with a variety of issues in seeking to be authentically seen, including the fear of social rejection and mistreatment or abuse from peers. As a result, many of these students hope to escape notice and to simply survive rather than flourish.” (Orr & Baum, as cited in Kurt, 2017, p. 7)

I found this quote to be important because it not only highlights the social challenges that transgender students, or any students of the LGBTQ community for that matter, may face, but it hints at how these challenges may impact their learning and education as well. We, as teachers, are first and foremost there to help students learn. It is our job and responsibility to provide each and every one of our students with equal education, access to the same resources to enhance their learning, and support their learning in any way that we can.

Helping a student just get by, or “survive,” means that we haven’t achieved our goal. It is our job to help every student thrive and succeed. In order to do that, however, our students need to feel welcomed, safe, understood, and respected within the school community. Thus, it is important that the school as a whole has conversations with students and faculty, has built in support systems that students can use, and is actively aware of each and every student and reports noticings of harassment or social rejection. In order to promote a welcoming and safe environment, the school I am student teaching at has posters hanging in each room with expectations of how the students treat each other, about being respectful to each member of the community, and my cooperating teacher has open dialogues with the students in her class. From what I observe, the student body as a whole is very respectful of each other, and there are many places students can go to or people to talk to if they need more support. Thus, it is our responsibility as teachers to ensure that our classroom environments do not accept any form of mistreatment, social rejection, or abuse towards anyone and by anyone–a supportive, safe learning environment is essential in helping every student thrive and succeed.