Willie Edward Taylor Carver, Jr., was named the Kentucky Teacher of the Year and was honored at the White House this spring. But despite the accolades, he may not return to the classroom next fall.
Carver, who teaches high school and college-level French and English at Montgomery County High School in Mount Sterling, Ky., is on sabbatical this school year and is questioning his future as a teacher given the spate of anti-LGBTQ legislation across the country. He spoke to Education Week about teaching as a gay man in rural Kentucky鈥攁nd why recent efforts to restrict rights for LGBTQ students are dangerous. This interview was edited for length and clarity.
I grew up Appalachian. There were moments of extreme poverty: no electricity, no running water. School was a place where we could eat. Having so many issues with violence, dependency, poverty, hopelessness鈥攕chool was not that. School was a place of light and hope. My teachers not only expanded my world, but they injected it with light and love. They gave me shoes [they bought with] their personal money.
I have about 100 first cousins. I was the first to go to college. This whole journey is because teachers pushed me. There was never another [career] option for me鈥攖his is what I want to do with my life.
I have always been as gay as anything could be, but my first year of teaching [upon the completion of a master鈥檚 degree, in 2010], I couldn鈥檛 be. In Kentucky, you have to have an administrator sign off to get a teacher鈥檚 license. And an administrator pulled me into an office and said, 鈥淵ou will be crucified. No one will protect you, including me. You will not get a teaching license if you鈥檙e openly gay.鈥� I moved to New England for a while, but I wanted to come back to the South because I鈥檓 Southern, and I love Kentucky. I鈥檝e done it on my own terms.
You know, we were actually having progress as a country. I鈥檝e been openly gay. For the most part, people have been accepting. And then it kind of changed, both on an individual scale for me and on a national scale for all of us, probably four or five years ago. I鈥檓 not directly saying that [former President Donald] Trump himself caused these things, but I think he became a symbol for people who thought they were reclaiming something that was lost. And I think for them, what was lost is the sense that America is heteronormative and that queerness is bad. Therefore, they felt emboldened.
Things that I thought were in the past were not. The bannings started happening. The effect that this has in real time on the classroom is immediate. Now you鈥檙e in a conundrum when a student says, 鈥淗ey, that poem was beautiful.鈥� And you have to say, 鈥淲ell, when we read it鈥攁nd we鈥檙e going to read it鈥攚e鈥檙e going to have backlash because she is a Black woman talking about unity. And in America for some reason, equality is a bad word now. In America for some reason right now, a Black woman speaking is a bad thing. And that鈥檚 gonna be taken seriously.鈥�
Those students now perceive the world in very different terms than they would have if these things weren鈥檛 happening. What they understand is, 鈥淢y existence is a threat. My existence is somehow immoral.鈥�
This year, I was told twice by administrators, 鈥渘othing racial.鈥� As if that means something. I don鈥檛 know what that means. I don鈥檛 think anyone in Florida knows what 鈥渁ge appropriate鈥� means. [Editor鈥檚 note: A new law in Florida bans classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity for grades K-3 and says that those discussions with older students have to be 鈥渁ge appropriate or developmentally appropriate.鈥漖
[Recently, a Kentucky music teacher], Tyler Clay Morgan, wrote on a board, 鈥淵ou are free to be yourself with me. You matter.鈥� He wrote it in part because he knew some of his students needed that message. And students decorated the board in a delightful way鈥攚ith pride flags, other flags, just everything that sort of represents who they are so they can feel valued. This led to horrific death threats [against Morgan]. His administrators sent an email to parents saying, in pretty ambiguous terms, 鈥淚 was made aware of this incident. ... It is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. ... You can feel free to share this comment if you wish to do so.鈥�
It was unclear what was [considered] unacceptable, [the message on the board or the death threats]. It creates an absolutely unsafe鈥攗nfathomably unsafe鈥攚orking condition for someone whose only goal was to say to students, you matter. [Editor鈥檚 note: Morgan . His district鈥檚 superintendent said in a statement that he didn鈥檛 have an issue with the written message but didn鈥檛 support classroom conversations that 鈥渨ent far beyond the music curriculum.鈥漖
I feel unsafe to return to the classroom. My identity as a human being is a teacher. Whatever I do, and wherever I go, I would be a teacher. ... But I鈥檓 increasingly thinking, why am I in the classroom? Because I think it will change things. I think it will be a force for good. But what is the effect? If I am, every few weeks, having to stop and undergo some sort of investigation over what鈥檚 happening in my class, I鈥檓 not going to be mentally able to do this work. And then what are my students seeing? A stressed-out, unhappy LGBTQ adult. I don鈥檛 think that鈥檚 what they need to see.
The anti-LGBTQ bills are dangerous
I have seen many suicide notes鈥攎essages in the middle of the night saying goodbye鈥攆rom students who did not feel like there was going to be a place for them in this world. We have been able to get intervention both in the immediate moment and in the fullness of time for any student who has contacted me. I have never lost a student, and it鈥檚 something I am very thankful for, given the suicide rate of all young people and especially LGBTQ youth.
We are, in very real terms, telling these students there is no place for you here [in school], where we鈥檙e forcing you to be eight hours a day, 200 days a year鈥攜ou may not exist. People can call it hyperbolic. But if at any point in the day, you have to stop and ask yourself, 鈥淎m I allowed to talk about this part of myself?,鈥� you do not exist.
I couldn鈥檛 count on one hand the number of teachers who have broken down crying over the insurmountable task that is going to be protecting kids that people like Marjorie Taylor Greene [a Georgia Republican congresswoman] are attacking. I don鈥檛 know how we do it other than just ignoring these rules. No one is going to allow a child to be harmed, even if the legislation says that we should.
One of the most beautiful moments I鈥檝e had as a teacher was probably four years ago. I had a group of students in French 1 who, at the end of the day, were like, 鈥淐an you stay behind?鈥� They closed the door, and they had this box. I opened it, and it鈥檚 just a bunch of random young adult novels. I go, 鈥淲hat are these?鈥� And they said, 鈥淢iddle school was so painful because there was nowhere for us to get to be. But our parents don鈥檛 check out the books we鈥檙e looking at.鈥� So they basically traded these books about LGBTQ people so that they could create a space where鈥攊f even for a moment鈥攖hey felt normal.
And they said, 鈥淵ou have created such an important space here that we don鈥檛 feel we need them anymore. So we wanted to give them to you as a reminder that you have made us no longer depend on them.鈥� That鈥檚 how big this is. Especially when we鈥檙e talking about rural places where these kids are terrified to exist at all.
LGBTQ kids are the only kids we knowingly send home to be abused. We know from the American Psychological Association, from the American Medical Association, that the things people are doing to these kids, sometimes even in their own homes, are dangerous. [ LGBTQ young people whose parents tried to change their sexual orientation are about twice as likely to attempt suicide than LGBTQ young people who reported no conversion experiences.] We know these things, yet we still send them there. And if we now make school an unsafe place, where do they get to exist?
Tyler Clay Morgan has been a major moment of trauma鈥攏ot just for LGBTQ people, but for people everywhere in rural Kentucky who are tired of flagrant injustice being ignored. Who鈥檚 the authority figure who comes in and says, 鈥淲e鈥檙e not doing this anymore?鈥� No one鈥檚 coming. No one鈥檚 coming to save Tyler. No one did come to save Tyler. I know probably five LGBTQ people who鈥檝e been fired this year, all seemingly randomly.
I just had this moment when I realized, OK, this is over. I鈥檓 not going back. Or at least, I can鈥檛 go back in the same way that I鈥檝e ever gone back. There was immediate mourning. I was heartbroken, and I wrote [on Twitter] what I was feeling.
I鈥檓 a Kentucky Teacher of the Year because our process starts in an urban area with progressive-minded people who are making the decision. Do I think for a second this accolade would鈥檝e come if it first had to pass through even my building? No. I acknowledge the privilege I have in being in this position of state teacher of the year. I have to use that privilege and leverage it in some way. What I鈥檝e tried to do from the get go is leverage it by being completely authentic, ... by begging anyone who will listen to protect trans kids, protect Black and brown kids, protect English-language learners, because no one is really stepping up to the gate to protect them.
I think [my LGBTQ students] have the feeling that the rest of the world doesn鈥檛 know they exist. That LGBTQ kids in the country are a squeaky-wheel problem for a lot of administrative teams, and completely invisible to the rest of the world. That鈥檚 the message. The politics do not support advocacy on their behalf. The politics do not support acknowledging the pain that they go through. And unless we can acknowledge the pain that they go through, we鈥檙e not going to solve it.
