Mitigating Bullying

From what I have seen in everyday life and from what I have read in Pascoe’s book, a lot of the issues with bullying based on gender and sexual orientation all has to do with the lack of education. From the time we can understand what the words “weird” and “different” means, we are taught to place whatever into those two boxes. As we get older, we don’t just wake up and say “I’m going to pick on the gay kid today” or “I’m going to verbally harass that girl for dressing like a slut”. We learn from time that we are young that these things are okay if it doesn't seem to be a big deal to the teachers.

I think the first strategy for mitigating bullying based on gender and expression in schools is educating the teachers. Teachers spend 4 years pus to learn the skills they need to be effective teachers of America. So why can’t one or two classes be based on how to deal with students who are gay, lesbian, trans, queer, etc.? Many male teachers, especially the soon-to-be ones here at Fredonia, lack the knowledge of issues with the LGBTQIA community and how to deal with the, let alone to be accepting community to begin with. We have all seen this issue where the teacher sends a student to the principal’s office for making a sexist or rude comment but doesn't actually say anything about it or explains what they said was wrong. Future teachers should be graded on how they would deal with these situations and learn the proper tools. If we can’t get classes about this, then teachers should at least have to go through workshops and training for queer issues and issues involving bullying.

The second strategy for mitigating bullying is by starting gender positive and queer sensitive education in pre-school and continuing all the way to high school. By high school, most students are set in their ways with small amount of room for change. Students need to learn from early on about gender identity and expression on a level they can understand. When I was in kindergarten, my teacher Mr. Cornwell did a thing where each day was dedicated to one of the students; we would spend 20 minutes in a circle while that student sat in the big comfy chair as Mr.Cornwell read fun facts about them (he asked the parents to interview their kids early in the school year for this reason.) What made it so gender neutral was he never did anything without us telling him what we wanted and he never edited our answers; he kept them as is. I remember when it was my day and he asked me to sit with him during snack time. He asked me what shape I wanted my picture on and I told him a star; he then asked me what color I wanted the star to be and I said blue. He never once questioned what I wanted on my special day.

The third strategy would be to have GSA’s in middle school and high school. They shouldn't have to be founded by students first to exist in schools. Having a safe place for all students should be a priority for all schools to have.

The fourth strategy is based on dress code. If there has to be a dress code, then it should be equal. What I mean is that there shouldn't be different codes based on gender and bodily anatomy. What a dress code should come down to is this: no shirts with violent and graphic material; if it’s 20 degrees outside, wear clothes that are meant for those temperatures; don’t wear shirts that say offensive remarks. These should be the issues when it comes to dress codes; not issues of a female students body is distracting to the male teachers and students.

The fifth and final strategy would be based off of Red Ribbon week. The majority of Red Ribbon week I dedicated to alcohol awareness which is fine, but not the only issue facing students. There are enough days in a week to dedicate room for issues of bullying and acceptance. There are already plenty of things telling adolescents not to drink but not enough educating them on LGBTQIA issues and on gender expression and identity.