Image via Wikipedia
One of the best decisions I’ve made since starting my current job is that when a nervous senior asked me if I would replace a departing faculty member as the adviser for our Gay-Straight Alliance, I said yes. It’s been a wonderful and rewarding few years, and it’s been just incredible to see the club develop and become a real voice on our campus.
The busy seasons for GSAs tend to be October and April: October for Ally Week and April for the National Day of Silence, the largest student-led day of action in the country. This year, my amazing student president really put a lot of effort into increasing participation and making the day more significant at our school, and as a result, we have a dedicated group of students who will be remaining silent on Friday, as a way to experience the kind of silencing and isolation many GLBTQ teens feel in schools across the country.
I’ve been running around lining up support and collecting participant names and buying ribbon, and it’s only just now that I have a little mental space to think about what it will be like. Will the students be successful? What will it be like for them? When we gather at the end to break the silence, what will they say? I’m nervous and excited to see and hear how it goes.
Related Articles
- I Will Not Be Silent! (rwresources.com)
I LOVE DoS and fully support it in my classroom. While I’m often not silent myself (part of my charm, my kids tell me, is that I refuse to shut up about things I think are important, and they know GLBTQ issues are important to me), I fully support those who do choose to participate.
My daughter’s high school just managed this year , after what she heard from older students was years of trying, to get a GSA club approved on campus. She is in it and they are planning their first DoS.
Pingback: Free As My Hair « A Patchwork Life
Pingback: 2011: Year In Review « A Patchwork Life