LIVONIA, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – An anonymous post on a Livonia Public School Facebook forum from a person claiming to be the parent of a seventh-grade middle school student said the district had an “emotional learning” teacher discuss issues of sex and gender with the students.

The “Identity Wheel.”

The person posted a study sheet of the “Identity Wheel”, which is an educational tool supported by the University of Michigan’s “Equitable Teaching” division.

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The “Identity Wheel” is a round dartboard type chart that lists topics such as race, ethnicity, socio-economic states, gender, sex, sex orientation, national origin, first language, physical emotional developmental ability or disability, age, religious or spiritual affiliation.

It then asks the student to rate how often they think about each subject.

“The Social Identity Wheel worksheet is an activity that encourages students to identify social identities and reflect on the various ways those identities become visible or more keenly felt at different times, and how those identities impact the ways others perceive or treat them,” the University of Michigan website states.

U of M backs the “identity wheel.”

The U-M website stated one of the goals of the activity is “to illuminate how privilege operates to normalize some identities over others. For example, a student who speaks English as their first language can reflect on why they rarely need to think about their language as an aspect of their identity while some of their peers may identity language as the aspect of their identity they feel most keenly in the classroom.”

In 2023-24, 52% of the district’s seventh graders were rated proficient or better in English Language Arts in the Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress testing, or M-STEP. ELA is generally described as their reading ability.

The Livonia Public Schools didn’t respond to an email seeking confirmation that the “Identity Wheel” was being taught within the district.