you want me to what?

A little while ago, the other GSA advisor was approached by one of my former students to present a session on homophobia at a Western conference they were hosting in town. Originally, my partner in crime had agreed to do it solo - apparently she does the conference thing fairly regularly. Then, slowly - and without my forcing I might add! - she realised we should get our youth involved. Yay! Then she wanted me to present as well. What? I've done the small group session at a conference before, but never the lone person at the front of a huge room. The thought was intimidating to say the least. I mean, sure they are just teenagers, but there was going to be one hundred of them!

By the time we had gotten the youth presenters committed, we only had a week before the conference. So in a very focused planning session over a noon hour, we banged out what we wanted to do. Working with other advisor was interesting as when I work with youth I tend to get them to do everything (Totally a cop out for me, but also the way it should be. Convenient eh?) and other advisor loves to talk cause she doesn't want anything she thinks is important to get missed. Watching her brain acclimatise itself to giving over responsibility was really interesting. Not that she was overly resistant to it or anything, it just made me realise how much work needs to be done in changing the way adults think of working with youth. Her brain just wasn't used to thinking "the kids can do that, and that, and that..."

The conference itself was awesome. The kids did a great job, I didn't talk too fast and just may have pulled off sounding articulate, and other advisor's love of talking came in handy when we had a few extra minutes to fill. The kids in attendance, for the most part, asked intelligent questions and participated as well as could be expected after a full day of conferencing. The reason we were asked to come was very recently one of the youth in Saskatoon's Jewish community came out and they were looking raise awareness and tolerance. I thought this was so fabulous on the part of the organisers - opinions on homosexuality in the Jewish faith are mixed so for them to step up and be over the top accepting is really wonderful.

I'm guessing now that word is out there that we do public presentations there will be more requests, but I'm all for some revisions and letting the kids run it all!

do you? do you really?

My human rights group/Gay Straight Alliance is holding a Day of Silence on Wednesday. This is a national movement that will be occurring on Wednesday in High Schools across Canada.

The students, around 20 in total, have been pre-identfied to their teachers and will also be wearing lanyards so they will be easily identified. These are awesome kids. Most are top students and are actively involved in other extra-curricular activities. I don't think any are struggling academically. On Wednesday, they will also be carrying around cards that say the following:

Please understand my reasons for not speaking today. I am participating in the Day of Silence, a national youth movement protesting the silence faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their allies in schools. My deliberate silence echoes that silence, which is caused by harassment, prejudice, and discrimination. I believe that ending the silence is the first step toward fighting these injustices. Think about the voices you are not hearing today. What are you going to do to end the silence?

There are a few exceptions to the silence. Students with pre-scheduled presentations may not use the Day of Silence as an excuse to not participate. If they need to ask a school related question that can't wait to a teacher, they may.

So you can imagine my surprise when a teacher came to see me today to double check that students had to still talk to teachers. I answered that if absolutely necessary of course they could, but the idea was for them to not talk between the hours of 8:30 until 3:15 when as a GSA we would officially break the silence and debrief about our day. The teacher continued, unsatisfied with my answer. I need to be able to ask those students questions. Do you? Really? Everyday, in your class, you ask EVERY SINGLE STUDENT a question? You evaluate them on their response? There is NO WAY you can go 1 HOUR without talking to those students? In your classes of 30 students, those 2 or 3 must be called upon?

Really? Then I would like you to also stop taking your basketball team to tournaments. They also NEEDED to be in my class for that hour you made them miss. Jerk.