Adrianna Murphy wrote the article I decided to read and discuss for this week's blog post. It is called "Rethinking the Day of Silence." Murphy was a teacher for 7th and 8th graders in a rural school in Maryland and she wrote this piece about her experience (and her students' experience) moving from a day of silence to a day of action. A day of silence was to show solidarity with members of the LGBTQ community who often have their voices silenced. Murphy discussed that this was difficult to accomplish because of course, middle schoolers do not do well staying quiet for exceedingly long. More importantly, students did not understand how staying silent would help their friends in the LGBTQ community. After two years of trying for a day of silence, they gave it up and decided as a collective to take a more active approach to making change. The third year they started a day of action.
The students wanted to know how they could do more for their peers who did not feel safe being out. They mentioned especially that there were kids who were out at school and felt safe there, but they did not feel the same way at home. This brought up a memory of another class I took recently. We were talking about how schools are not allowed to disclose to families that their children identify as anything other than their biological gender if the family is not aware. There was a woman in my class who felt very strongly that this was wrong and that she was very against this. Several of us in the class spoke up and tried to get her to understand that they did not feel safe being their authentic self at home.
The day of action at Green Acres school brought several workshops for students to engage in. This included Being an Ally, How Words Can Hurt and What You Can Do About It, Discrimination in the Workplace, Coming Out: Teen Issues, Being a Bisexual Mom, Coming Out Being a Gay Dad, Marriage Equality in the News, and Supporting a Lesbian Daughter. The most inspiring events of the day were teenagers coming to the school to discuss issues of bullying and discrimination as well as coming out and acceptance.
The last part of Murphy's article is about educating parents as well. She discussed how there was push back from some parents."We saw the students addressing moral and ethical issues—how to treat others with respect, how to support peers who may be LGBTQ, how to use inclusive language, and how to stand up against bullying and/or discrimination—but the adults who were most concerned feared that we would focus on the physical aspects of sexuality, namely sex. Of course, nothing was further from the truth, nor would it have been appropriate.” Murphy goes on to say that they should have given parents more notice so they could better understand what was going to be happening on the Day of Action. The following year they included families more by including help from the Family Diversity Project and by holding an Evening of Action session for parents.
I absolutely love the idea of a day of action for students to better understand and empathize with members of the LGBTQ community. Being silent to stand in solidarity is an okay concept but it does nothing to help anyone.
Hi Molly! I love that the students chose a Day of Action over a Day of Silence. I am a busy person who gets frustrated by inaction, and this would have made me such a happy student. I appreciated that they included an update about the following year; that they sent more information home for parents to understand the focus of the discussions. I think that parents are more and more suspicious about "what we are teaching the kids" these days. There doesn't seem to be a standard of trust in the teachers or curriculum. I have never worked with a teacher who pushed a political agenda, but I think it is more common that schools have to defend themselves from these accusations. I am impressed that this school pushed through the questions about the Day of Action and didn't let it halt the program.
ReplyDeleteHi Molly great article as it pertains to so many school children throughout the nation. I am not going to lie, I did find it concerning at first that the school could hold that information from a parent of a minor. I feel like if it was my child I would like to know what is going on at school. After thinking more into this I guess if the child does not feel safe speaking openly about their identity at home then that is more concerning. I hope that I can show my children that it is safe to be open with their identity.
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