Creating Inclusion and Well-being for Marginalized Students by Linda Goldman

Author:Linda Goldman
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781784502935
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Published: 2017-08-03T04:00:00+00:00

Figure 9.1 Safe Space Kit

The Kit also helps educators understand how best to be an ally to LGBT youth, including important questions to ask one self in understanding bias. Anti-LGBT bias is all around us, yet we tend to overlook the subtle biases—the anti-LGBT jokes, the exclusion of LGBT-related themes in curricula, even anti-LGBT name-calling. Subtle or not, bias has the power to hurt and isolate people. An ally’s work includes recognizing and challenging your own anti-LGBT bias.

A Safe Space is a welcoming, supportive, and safe environment for LGBT students, and we must all play an important role in supporting all students. Sometimes that work is internal before we focus on external forces. Other times, the work is about policies and structures currently in place in our schools. What is important to remember is that, for many students, simply knowing that allies exist can be a source of support. One student’s response appears in an interview on the Safe Space Kit (Berkowitz, 2015):

Walking down the halls of her high school, Val rarely felt safe or secure. At age 14 and in her first year of high school, Val was bullied by her peers for being quiet and often withdrawn. “It was hard, and I was so unhappy,” she says, having shed countless tears that year. “I was figuring out who I was—figuring out that I’m gay—and I was in denial. I hated myself.”

The next year, Val spotted a GLSEN Safe Space sticker on the school social worker’s door and decided to knock. Inside the office, Val finally said the words she had kept secret for so long. High school senior Val at GLSEN’s 25th anniversary celebration explains, “I just blurted out, ‘I’m gay!’ and immediately burst into tears.” By the end of the meeting, Val felt like she was starting over, with the social worker’s support. In addition to the vote of confidence, she learned about her school’s Gay–Straight Alliance club and was connected with a support group at GLSEN’s local chapter.

GLSEN’s Ready, Set, Respect! Toolkit3 is focused on elementary school educators, with the goal of having students feel safe and respected, while also developing respectful attitudes and behaviors towards others. This Toolkit provides educators with help to teach about respect, and includes lesson plans that include seizing teachable moments. The lessons focus on name-calling, bullying and bias, LGBT-inclusive family diversity, gender roles, and diversity, and are designed to be used as either standalone lessons or as part of a school-wide anti-bias or bullying prevention program. The Toolkit was developed in partnership with the National Association of Elementary School Principals and the National Association for the Education of Young Children.

Elementary school is a time of rapid development for children. In addition to gaining knowledge and developing skills, these are the years during which children typically begin to develop an understanding of themselves and the world and people around them.

As such, the social environment of classrooms and schools provides the opportunity for children to initiate and develop relationships, and navigate increasingly complex peer relationships.

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