[Courses] [Spineful Living- Basic Human Rights]

[Valorie Zimmerman]

I've been meaning to post about an issue I'm tackling with my son's school 
administration: bullying. Cruelty is one of my push-buttons, so dealing with 
the reality that my son was being bullied was the first difficult part of all 
this. The rage I felt was so overwhelming, that I decided that I would put 
off a full-blown confrontation with the administration until I could marshall 
my resources, and work collaboratively with them on improving the situation 
for all students, rather than coming in with a flame-thrower and burning the 
place down -- which is what I felt like, last year.

Of course I did talk to the counselor who was dealing with one/some of the 
bullies at the time, but the last two years, that's where we left it. This 
year, I finally felt calm enough to start talking to the Safe School 
Coalition for help, and schedule a meeting with the principal, counselor, and 
the helpful fellow from SSC. I was amazed at how difficult it was to actually 
plan and schedule the initial meeting. I could hardly sleep the night before. 

That first meeting turned out pretty well, and although I shed some tears, my 
emotion seemed to be a good thing. Tears seemed to let them know how serious 
the issue was, and how committed I was to improving conditions in the school. 
They seemed shocked, SHOCKED that bullying of gay kids was so common at 
Kentlake HS. How that could be, I don't know! Did they never talk to the kids 
in the GSA (Gay Straight Alliance) club? It turns out that no, they had not!

A successful confrontation is so empowering! Still, I was very impatient with 
the poor communication about developments, so I pushed for another meeting to 
find out what progress had been made in the plans to have a staff training 
day early next year. 

Fortunately for me, Carla started this course in the meantime, and I started 
reading _When I say no, I feel guilty_. The day before the second meeting, I 
read the chapter about the Broken Record technique, and was determined to use 
that if they were still stalling. Fortunately, this wasn't necessary! I was 
gonna do it, though. :-)

I found out that the reason I hadn't heard about a date, is that the calendar 
for next year hasn't been completed by the School Board and Superintendant's 
office. At this point, after some of the articles I've sent them, and the 
death of 33 students at Virginia Tech, they are starting to take bullying 
VERY seriously. Not only will they have one staff training about this issue 
early next year, *taught by the GSA kids* (with the assistance of the Safe 
Schools Coalition), but they want to do a series of shorter trainings 
throughout the year also. AND they would like to have a speaker in, to speak 
to the students in an assembly. So we are now in discussions about who would 
be a good person to schedule. Judy Shepard's name was brought up, so they are 
thinking big.

My next step is to talk to the Superintendent's office, and see what we can 
get going at the District level. Bullying starts in grade school, and needs 
to be addressed there and in the middle and high schools, all of them.

It's amazing how much easier that huge task seems, than making the date for 
that initial meeting. It really is true that a long journey begins with a 
single step. And I'm glad to be working with them to solve the problem, 
rather than talking to the ACLU about filing suit. Although, if the district 
doesn't change its ways, that could still happen!

Valorie

I leave these Basic Human Rights, because so many of them were involved in my 
story.

On Thursday 26 April 2007 20:41, Carla Schroder wrote:
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Basic Human Rights
> 1. The right to feel good about yourself
>
> 2. The right to act in ways that promote your dignity and self-
> respect as long as others' rights are not violated in the process
>
> 3. The right to be treated with respect
>
> 4. The right to say "No!" and not feel guilty
>
> 5. The right to experience and to express your feelings
>
> 6. The right to slow down and think
>
> 7. The right to change your mind
>
> 8. The right to ask for what you want
>
> 9. The right to do less than you are humanly capable of doing
>
> 10. The right to ask for information
>
> 11. The right to make mistakes