Maine Art Education Association (MAEA) Interest Group
Origin story… The MAEA LGBTQIA+ Interest Group was birthed out of conversations around supporting Queer students, coworkers, and teachers at the Spring MAEA conference. We had our first meeting in person at the end of the school year in downtown Portland, where we discussed what the group could focus on and enjoyed coloring pages. A major topic of interest at our first meeting was how to be inclusive of MAEA members across the state – not just in the Southern Maine area. An interest in alternating in person meetings with Zoom meetings was established, with a possibility of alternating in-person locations as well to allow for more involvement from rural and Northern educators.
Summer reading… The group decided to host a summer book club with a goal of both entertaining and educating at our own pace. Interest group members collated a list of possible titles, and MAEA membership was polled to choose the top 2 books.
Fall meeting… We had a small but mighty book club Zoom meeting on September 12th where we discussed Elliot Page’s memoir Pageboy and Elvin Mensah’s novel Small Joys. A takeaway we focused on was a greater understanding of the physical and emotional struggles Trans+ youth face, and our desire as educators to have safe spaces for students to figure out who they are. Our other big discussion topic was a desire to balance potentially painful reading/media with uplifting options; two talking points included queer representation in the media used to only end in grief – now that media shows more nuance, let’s include more queer joy and what positive media can we watch/read/listen to include in the classroom, but also to have as recommendations for youth who want something to read?
Looking ahead… Going to Haystack this weekend?
You are invited to keep an ear out for a small mealtime gathering to establish more goals and possible meeting times and to socialize. If you are interested in joining, or curious what we are up to, please join us! You can check in with Cory Bucknam or Philippa Adam for more information. If you won’t be at Haystack but are interested, please email Cory Bucknam or Philippa Adams.
Established at our September meeting
- We want to be both a social group and a support group where folks can get creative problem solving support.
- We want to share our struggles but also our joys of educating and supporting LGBTQIA+ students.
- We are interested in getting nerdy and developing/curating resources for lesson plans and inclusivity in the art room.
- We are interested in action and other tangible steps – we just don’t fully know what that might include yet.
- We want to be inclusive of MAEA members across the state in how we structure and schedule meetings.
Thanks to Phillippa Adam, visual art teacher, Mount Desert Island High School, for writing this blog post.
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