Media Guide: Working With Educators

MEDIA GUIDE

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The 2003 National School Climate Survey underscores the importance of supportive teachers in the educational experience of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students. Far too often, when students are bullied and harassed in their hallways and classrooms, teachers are not prepared to respond effectively and appropriately to the incident. To that end GLSEN works very closely with teachers across the country, providing them with resources and training to advance safe learning environments for all students.

GLSEN believes that learning about the diversity of humankind is an essential part of education in a democratic society, so we work to provide a variety of resources to educators, including age-appropriate curriculum guides, lists of research materials or fiction that can be used in the classroom and intensive training for America’s teachers.

Safe Space: GLSEN’s Safe Space program seeks to increase the visible presence of student and adult allies who can help to shape a school culture that is accepting of all people regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity/expression or any other difference. The Safe Space program offers a manual on how to create a Safe Space in secondary schools with detailed instructions on how to train allies, provides strategies for support and intervention when anti-LGBT bias occurs, and suggests ways to publicize the program at the school. Safe Space stickers, for example, not only get the word out about the program, but also serve as a visible affirmation to LGBT students at the school.

Curriculum Guides and Lesson Plans: GLSEN’s curriculum guides provide teachers with suggestions for lessons that can be used in part or in whole to discuss LGBT history and current events. One of GLSEN’s most recent curriculum guides centers on the debate over same-sex marriage. Along with parents and care givers, schools must take a leading role in providing accurate information about same-sex relationships and creating safe spaces in which students can make sense of the various points of view they hear from family, peers, community leaders and the media. Toward this end, At Issue: Marriage, Exploring the Debate Over Marriage Rights for Same-Sex Couples offers educators six lesson plans for high-school-aged students that challenge them to explore the range of complex issues reflected in the marriage debate. BookLink: The BookLink is GLSEN’s online link to the highest-quality resources for students, educators, families and community allies working to end anti-LGBT bias in K-12 schools. GLSEN’s catalogue of resources not only gives suggestions for age-appropriate books to use in the classroom but also provides training guides, manuals and GLSEN educational videos that deal with the problem of bullying and harassment in America’s schools.

Educator Trainings:

GLSEN is committed to providing hands-on training experiences for educators. In GLSEN’s Training of Trainers (TOT), allies in education gain a more in-depth understanding of how to make their schools more inclusive and safe for all students. The Training of Trainers are offered in communities across the country. One participant in the TOT program reports, “Facilitator mutual support and interaction really modeled great stuff. Every minute was purposeful...there was flexibility and adaptation to group and individual needs.”

The GLSEN Lunchbox 2 is a comprehensive training program designed to provide educators and community members with the background knowledge, skills and tools necessary to make schools safe and more affirming places for actual and perceived LGBT students. The Lunchbox 2 is designed to be a “do-it-yourself” kit and contains all the instructions and materials necessary for facilitators to conduct complete trainings of school staff that address LGBT issues. Because the needs of educators vary greatly from one community to another, the GLSEN Lunchbox 2 encompasses a broad range of strategies and provides a flexible structure. The training module is presented in menu format, and includes 55 exercises categorized under seven broad areas or “Frames.” Each Frame represents a different goal or facet of a complete training experience. In designing sessions that are best suited to their particular audiences, facilitators have the option of selecting exercises that relate most closely to their workshop goals and available timeframe.

No Name-Calling Week

Each year schools serving grades five through eight across the nation take part in a week of educational activities aimed at creating safer and more affirming schools for all students. Led by GLSEN and a coalition of over 40 education, mental health, youth advocacy and social justice organizational partners No Name-Calling Week addresses the problem of name-calling and verbal bullying of all kinds in American schools.

The Misfits, a young adult novel by popular author James Howe, inspired No Name-Calling Week. The novel tells the story of a group of seventh grade friends who, after experiencing repeated taunting, decide to run for student council on a “no name-calling” platform and to institute a “No Name-Calling Day” at their school.

Motivated by this simple, yet powerful, idea, schools across the nation will organize their own No Name-Calling Week each year. The first nationwide No Name-Calling Week was held March 1-5, 2004 at hundreds of elementary and middle schools across the country. The project seeks to focus national attention on the problem of name-calling in schools, and to provide students and educators with the tools and inspiration to launch on-going dialogues about ways to eliminate name-calling and bullying in their communities. The project is targeted at grades five through eight—years when the problem of name-calling is particularly acute—but the concept can be easily adapted by students and educators at other grade levels.

For more information about No Name-Calling Week please visit the website, www.nonamecallingweek.org.

PARTNERS

The following is a partial list of project partners for No Name-Calling Week.

Advocates for Youth American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education American Counseling Association American School Health Association Amnesty International Anti-Defamation League Asian Pacific Islanders for Human Rights Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development Big Brothers/ Big Sisters of America Children’s Defense Fund Council for Children with Behavioral Disorders Council of Chief State School Officers Educators for Social Responsibility Facing History and Ourselves Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network Girl Scouts of the USA Human Relations Media Human Rights Watch Mix it Up National Association for Gifted Children National Association for Multicultural Education National Association of Elementary School Principals National Association of School Nurses National Association of School Nurses National Association of School Psychologists National Association of Secondary School Principals National Association of Social Workers National Conference for Community and Justice National Education Association National Mental Health Association National Middle School Association National Urban League New Moon Publishing Planned Parenthood Federation of America School Social Work Association of America Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Simon Wiesenthal Center – Museum of Tolerance Skipping Stones, Inc. Women’s Educational Media Women’s Sports Foundation

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