This guide aims to help people in school settings handle moments of everyday bias—when and how to speak up. But if all we do is speak up after the fact, we will forever be responding to the problem. So, at the outset, we want to put in a plug for prevention.
This work starts in preschool and kindergarten and carries right on through to high school graduation. It also begins on or before day one of any school year, when you consider how to build community within your classroom and how to develop ground rules or guidelines for communication.
Ask yourself, “What climate do I want in my classroom and my school?” Then ask yourself, “What can I do to promote that kind of atmosphere?”
Consider these ideas:
LANGUAGE AND CONTEXT
Students at all grade levels need language and context to help them become people who speak up against bias. Share with them the ready responses from the previous chapter. Or, better yet, brainstorm to come up with a list of their own, then keep that list posted in the classroom. It’s something you can refer to during the year.
In age-appropriate ways, discuss why some words hurt. Building context (historical, psychological, literary and so on) around such words helps students better understand their power to hurt.
Teachers who provide such language and context tell us that it often spreads outward from the classroom, into the halls and cafeteria, where they overhear students using language developed in the classroom to speak up against intolerant remarks.
CLASSROOM COMMUNITY
Seasoned teachers tell us that classroom community is at the heart of anti-bias work. Help students build meaningful relationships within the classroom, and they will be ready and able to speak up against intolerance for themselves.
Develop ground rules for communication, with student input, at the outset of the school year. Post the rules prominently, and use them as a touchstone when an issue arises. By creating language together (“We want everyone to feel safe in our classroom.”) when a put-down is heard, you have that language ready: “I’m betting not everyone feels safe in this classroom when you say something like that, Marcus.”
Teachers who do this work at the beginning of the school year say that it pays off all year long in improved classroom behavior.
It pays off in other ways, too. Researchers have found the single best way to eliminate bias is by having students of different races, ethnicities, abilities and socioeconomic backgrounds work together on successful projects. So by creating classrooms in which that happens, you are doing the upstream work of preventing future incidents.
MODELING BEHAVIOR FOR YOUR STUDENTS
Dan Rubin, a high school language arts teacher in Las Cruces,
N.M., encourages teachers to respond quickly and unequivocally
when a student seeks help with a moment of bias—especially one
in which the student felt powerless to respond.
Rubin shares an example from a time when he served as advisor to the Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) at his high school.
At the beginning of the year, he asked GSA members whether they had any issues or concerns to share. One student described a moment that had occurred near the end of the previous school year. He told Rubin that one of his teachers had pulled him aside as the class was leaving, when the room was nearly empty. The teacher had told him, “I know a church that can help you with your ‘situation.’”
The student told Rubin that he felt stymied, uncertain how to respond, so he had said nothing.
Rubin immediately informed the principal via email. The next morning, the principal sent out an all-staff email reminding teachers that it was against district policy to discriminate against any student based on his or her sexual orientation. The text of the specifi c policy was included in the email.
The email concluded: “Let me give you fair warning—whatever your views may be, telling a student this is absolutely STRICTLY prohibited in our educational setting.”
GETTING STUDENTS IN THE FRAME OF MIND
Students who want to speak up face the same issues that you confronted
as you prepared. When you encourage them to speak up, remember to