✋ Challenging Discrimination
How One Lesson on Alan Turing Helped Challenge Homophobia and Discrimination in the Classroom
👋 Welcome to SEMH Education!
Every week, I share insights, strategies, and tips from my experience working with children and professionals on social, emotional, and mental health (SEMH) in education. This week, we’re exploring discrimination and children’s understanding.
This is a slightly different post this week! It’s an example of how I’ve previously intertwined topics, children’s interests and storytelling to challenge children’s views on a specific topic.
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🤔 But... why would they do that to him?
We don’t always realise how early children start forming views about the world and how powerful social media can be in shaping them. Scrolling through TikTok or YouTube Shorts, young people absorb an endless stream of content that doesn’t just entertain but subtly reinforces ideas about what’s “normal,” acceptable, or worthy of ridicule. Messages about masculinity, femininity, race, sexuality, and gender identity are everywhere, often unfiltered, unchallenged, and algorithmically amplified.
Over time, these narratives settle in. For some pupils, it becomes easy to laugh at, ignore, or fear anyone who doesn’t fit neatly into the box they’ve been handed. That’s why, now more than ever, we have to find powerful, human ways to interrupt that script and show them something different.
🪄 The Power of Unplanned Teaching
There’s a strange power in those unplanned teaching moments. However, I often found that these were the moments in which children retained the most.
The class I’m referring to in this post was a small one of 6. They were in Year 8 and 9. They all had Education Health & Care plans, with their primary need being Social Emotional & Mental Health. Over time, upsettingly, some of these children had developed quite strong views about people who identified as gay. Their views had been influenced heavily by what they consumed on social media. This was something we had to challenge frequently over the year.
This class LOVED gaming. They played on their Xboxes every night. Their favourite games at the time were Fortnite and Minecraft. Anything to do with computers, consoles or VR, they loved! This is important to understand for the remainder of this blog.
I can’t stress this enough. These children had significant attachment needs and struggled to forge relationships with new children and/or staff. However, if you told them you knew what Fortnite was or knew how to craft something in Minecraft, they’d open the door. The barriers would disappear, and they’d start building that relationship.
I wasn’t teaching a lesson on LGBTQ+ rights. I can’t remember exactly what I was teaching. But true to my teaching style, I’d been distracted by a question, and I’d gone off down a bit of a rabbit hole about the origin of computers.
I told them about Alan Turing.
We talked about the war, about codebreaking, about The Enigma Machine. We talked about how his breakthrough enabled them to understand where the next attacks might be coming from. They learned how this man’s ideas led to the machine you’re reading this on. They were hooked. They were proud. They had adopted Alan as a kind of hero.
Then I told them what happened after.
That despite his contributions, Alan Turing was chemically castrated. That shortly after, he died by suicide, cyanide poisoning. The classroom fell quiet again, but this time it was a heavy silence.
“But... why would they do that to him?”
I told them he was gay. That was his "crime."
🗣️ What Happens When the Narrative Breaks?
You could see it in their faces, a visible rewiring of beliefs. Some of these pupils had said things before. Casual homophobia. Throwaway lines at breaktime. Laughter at the expense of someone different. They weren’t unkind at their core. But they’d absorbed messages about masculinity, about identity, about who they were supposed to laugh at or avoid.
Now, those same pupils were angry on Alan’s behalf. Hurt. Confused. You could see the internal conflict taking shape.
“That seems a bit harsh…” one boy said.
Exactly.
The others agreed. This seemed incredibly unfair to punish someone who had done so much for the country and also paved the way for the creation of computers.
This wasn’t a diversity assembly. There were no posters, no buzzwords. Just a powerful moment where cognitive dissonance gave way to empathy.
🤝 Inclusion Isn’t Always What You Think
Inclusion work isn’t always about coloured lanyards or carefully worded policies, though those things matter. Sometimes, it’s about showing pupils that people they admire can also be people they have been taught to reject.
We can draw a straight line between this kind of moment and wider SEMH practice:
Early intervention isn’t just about behaviour; it’s about belief formation.
Relational practice is strongest when it challenges unconscious bias in a safe, structured space.
DfE guidance on RSHE encourages discussions of diversity, identity, and respect, but real change often comes through the stories we tell.
We talk about representation and inclusive curriculums, but this was about narrative disruption. It was about sitting in the tension until something shifted.
And it did.
I’m not going to sit here and lie to you all. I’m not going to tell you they immediately stopped the casual homophobia, because they didn’t.
What happened was the following;
A reduction in the amount of casual homophobia. A realisation that they don’t hate all people who identify as gay. A realisation that they can, in fact, admire those people.
It enabled us to have more in-depth discussions about homosexuality and their views on this.
It was the beginning of a long journey.
The shutters were no longer down and locked. They had unlocked and they had started to rise.
It might seem insignificant, but for these children, it was massive.
✍️ Actionable Takeaways for Educators
If you’re looking to create similar moments in your classroom, here are some ways to do it meaningfully:
🔍 Teach stories sideways – Don’t always introduce inclusion topics head-on. Use stories of artists, scientists, writers, or historical figures who challenge narrow definitions of identity.
📚 Normalise complexity – Let pupils meet people who don’t fit neatly into boxes. Show them the humanity behind the headlines.
🧠 Hold space for discomfort – Internal conflict is not failure. It’s growth. Allow time for questions, silence, and processing.
🧾 Link to wider frameworks – From a safeguarding or SEND perspective, many discriminatory attitudes are early signs of social or emotional need. Reflection and discussion can be part of a preventative, Tier 1 SEMH strategy.
📖 Connect to policy – The Equality Act 2010, the DfE’s Keeping Children Safe in Education, and updated RSHE guidance all call for a proactive stance on challenging prejudice. This kind of work doesn’t just tick boxes, it creates safer, more emotionally literate schools.
🪞 Let the Truth Do the Work
We can’t control every message children encounter online, but we can offer them moments that cut through the noise. Moments that make them pause, reflect, and feel something real. When a lesson becomes a mirror or a window, when it challenges what they thought they knew, it has the power to reshape not just opinions, but values.
That day, Alan Turing’s story did more than teach them history. It reminded them that behind every label is a human being.
🧗♂️ Examples of People to Discuss
Disclaimer: These are only suggestions. Please do independent research for each individual to ensure they are appropriate to introduce to your setting and age group.
Person: Alex Honnold
Achievement: Solo Climbed El Capitan
Discrimination Tackled: Autism – Alex has never been formally diagnosed but openly discusses traits associated with Autism, including emotional regulation differences and intense focus.
How: Introduce Alex during geography lessons on landforms, mountains, or extreme environments; use clips from Free Solo to explore perseverance, risk, and neurodiversity.
Person: Simone Biles
Achievement: World-renowned gymnast, multiple Olympic gold medals
Discrimination Tackled: Mental health stigma, race, gender expectations
How: Link to PE, PSHE, or science lessons about the human body, resilience, or the nervous system. Use her public mental health break to discuss emotional regulation and strength beyond physical performance.
Person: Greta Thunberg
Achievement: Climate activist who mobilised a global youth movement
Discrimination Tackled: Autism, age discrimination, gender
How: Use in geography or science lessons on climate change, or in PSHE to explore activism. Greta has openly embraced her autism diagnosis as her “superpower.”
Person: Malala Yousafzai
Achievement: Nobel Peace Prize winner for advocacy of girls’ education
Discrimination Tackled: Gender, religion, and ethnic stereotyping
How: Introduce in English, history, or PSHE when exploring human rights, global education, or conflict. Her story powerfully disrupts stereotypes about Muslim girls and education.
Person: Frida Kahlo
Achievement: Renowned Mexican painter known for vivid self-portraits and surrealist symbolism
Discrimination Tackled: Disability, gender roles, LGBTQ+ identity
How: Use in art, history, or PSHE. Discuss how chronic illness and physical injury shaped her work, and how she broke boundaries around gender and sexuality in the 20th century.
Person: Lil Nas X
Achievement: Grammy-winning musician who redefined country and rap norms
Discrimination Tackled: Homophobia, racism in the music industry
How: Use in music, media studies, or PSHE to discuss representation, identity, and how expression through art can challenge social norms.
Person: Stephen Hawking
Achievement: Groundbreaking work in theoretical physics, author of A Brief History of Time
Discrimination Tackled: Disability
How: Introduce in science lessons on space, black holes, or time. Highlight how Hawking used assistive technology and defied expectations of ability after his ALS diagnosis.
Person: Michaela Coel
Achievement: Creator of I May Destroy You, an award-winning writer and actress
Discrimination Tackled: Sexual assault stigma, race, class, and gender
How: Use in English, drama, or PSHE lessons to explore storytelling, voice, and reclaiming narrative. Her work opens up complex but vital discussions around consent and power.
Person: Mark Ashton
Achievement: Founder of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM)
Discrimination Tackled: Homophobia, classism
How: Teach through history or citizenship lessons about 1980s Britain, social movements, or the miners’ strike. His story (told in the film Pride) bridges LGBTQ+ solidarity with working-class struggle.
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