Anna quickly entered my freshmen English classroom when the third-period bell rang. She is no longer a freshman. This was a free period. Still, she sat at the desk closest to mine and buried her head in her AP European History textbook.
She knew she was safe here.
This was a daily occurrence for Anna, now a senior. I had already laid the groundwork letting students know that my classroom was a safe space. It is a space where we can talk about passions, dreams and desires.
Earlier in the school year, Anna had brought a sexual harassment charge against a popular student. The majority of her class shunned her for it. They “de-friended” her on social media and isolated her in class. So even though I was her former English teacher and had no official or formal role, I could open my door during the free period and give her the safe space where she could be herself without judgment or anxiety. I’m not sure how many other safe spaces she had.
I had never explicitly told students that they would always be safe in my classroom, yet the message was there in a hundred subtle ways.
Students see my quotation wall, filled with statements about courage, social justice, freedom and identity from Robert F. Kennedy, Toni Morrison, Margaret Meade and others. Posters of Martin Luther King and Albert Einstein become symbols of peace, acceptance and safety.
MLK hung next to my Beatles and Star Wars posters, letting all students know that I had interests outside of the curriculum. Before class started, I would engage in discussions with my students about their music, their TV shows and the interests they had outside of the classroom. In general, those little moments of personal interaction help to give more authenticity and sincerity to my words when the conversations and discussions in class turn directly to issues of diversity and social justice.
When Anna comes to visit, sometimes we talk. Sometimes we sit in silence. I generally wait for her to initiate conversation. It might be about current politics, a favorite reality show or a report about another tense “non-confrontation” she had with a peer.
This day it leaned toward the academic.
“Mr. Elliott, what does John Lennon have to do with The Catcher in the Rye?” Anna wanted to know.
We explored themes of social justice and diversity as we had her freshman year, when we examined the bias and insults in our language. Then, it was our analysis of Sylvia Plath’s poetry and Barbara Kingsolver’s novel, The Bean Trees, explored the concept of feminism (which some of the students would lump in with other “f-words.”)
While the school has mission statements and policies governing student safety, it is those hundreds of little moments in the classroom that make the room a safe space for all.
My students, and especially Anna, remind me to always keep my door open and to make time for the little conversations that truly matter. They create the feeling of safety students need to make it through the school day.
Elliott is a high school English teacher in Texas.
Links:
[1] http://www.tolerance.org/author/peter-j-elliott