An ISU student shared this screenshot of what she called "drag pedagogy" being taught at the university. | Provided
An ISU student shared this screenshot of what she called "drag pedagogy" being taught at the university. | Provided
Illinois State University (ISU) is teaching students “drag pedagogy,” according to class materials shared by a student.
The student, Nicole, said the class is reading the text “Drag pedagogy: The playful practice of queer imagination in early childhood.” The text is an academic advocacy piece on introducing cross-dressing to children.
“We were assigned this article to read for the week and had a 30-minute whole-class discussion about how this is a good idea to do, and if people don’t like it, oh well, it’s not their classroom,” Nicole said in a text obtained by McLean County Times.
The paper advocates for Drag Queen Story Hour.
“In this article, we explore the pedagogical contributions of a program called Drag Queen Story Hour as a form of queer imagining in an early childhood context,” the paper reads. “Through this program, drag artists have channeled their penchant for playfully ‘reading each other to filth’ into a form of literacy, promoting storytelling as integral to queer and trans communities, as well as positioning queer and trans cultural forms as valuable components of early childhood education.”
The program has been controversial with Missouri lawmakers, who last year proposed bills to end the practice. However, authors say the opposition is limited to “far-right conservative organizations and media personalities.”
“This backlash gestures towards the fright nature of connecting kids to overtly queer content, particularly in politically conservative regions,” the paper reads.
With 41 education majors, ISU produces teachers to be deployed to classrooms across the state.
As the COVID-19 pandemic pushed learning online, many teachers have been outed politically biased behavior. A teacher at Geneva High School recently resigned after going on a TikTok rant over a maskless grandmother.
The complaint is a familiar one, given the recent controversy over Attorney General Merrick Garland — whose son-in-law has an interest in a company making millions providing support to left-wing education efforts, including in Illinois — asking the FBI to tag concerned parents as “domestic terrorists.”
The Illinois Association of School Boards condemned the National Association of School Boards for contributing to Garland’s actions.
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