Events like this restore my faith in humanity.
When a ninth-grade student at Central Kings Rural High School in Nova Scotia, Canada wore a pink shirt on his first day of school, he was called a homosexual, harassed, and threatened. Twelfth-graders David Shepherd and Travis Price decided to take action. They used the Internet to ask fellow students to wear pink, and even bought 75 pink tank tops for male students to wear (presumably because female students were likely to own pink already). They also brought in pink material for headbands and arm bands.
Shepherd and Price say they figure about half the school’s 830 students wore pink. Since the story broke last Thursday, major media outlets from around the world have asked for their story, and they’ve received a flood of supportive e-mail. Student councils from other schools in the province have been calling for information on holding their own pink day. (Thanks to Strollerderby.)
Coincidentally, Deb Price (no known relation to Travis) of the Detroit News writes today about the need to include anti-bullying legislation in the reworked version of the No Child Left Behind bill, as a way to force schools to stop bullying—of all types. (Thanks to PageOneQ.com.)
If you’re still not convinced that more needs to be done, consider this incident: I wrote a few weeks ago about the GLBT Month hosted by the Young Adult Book Club. YABC founder Kimberley Pauley now tells us on her blog:
I posted to a message board on Teachers.net inviting teachers to come check out GLBT month at YABC and explaining that I had a bunch of books and teacher guides to give away. I wasn’t at all prepared for the torrent of hate and name calling that my post started up.
I was particularly surprised because these people are teachers. These are the people that are out there in our schools teaching our students — many of whom happen to be gay, bi-sexual, lesbian and transgendered. These are the people to which someday I’ll be trusting my own child.
(Thanks to Worth the Trip.)
Legislation to combat bullying and harassment is vital, especially when even the teachers don’t support inclusion. As the students at Central Kings Rural High School have shown us, however, a few committed people with a distaste for hate can make a difference.
There’s a lot of less-than-ideal teachers out there, along with the good ones. A story I remember is of a middle-school teacher who sent a young man…probably with Asperger’s…to find someone on the school’s second floor. Of a one-floor school. People kept leading him on by directing him to the stairwell.
Why? She wanted him out of her class.
I can see how he might frustrate her, but she taught her students that it’s ok to disrespect, make fun of, etc, students who are different, especially ones who have disabilities which annoy us.