Today I had an fantastic turn out of students at today’s hangout and wow it did me good to check in with them!
We did a quick check in ‘chicken’ of how we were feeling. Pleased to say most of us are feeling ‘alright’ and some a little better since finding it easier to access work and teachers. I think we are learning to accept the situation and realise that life continues and doesn’t wait for us to catch up… it just keeps on going.
I feel positive that so many were at the hangout this morning and I feel the remainder of the term is going to be spent purposefully.
Today’s session focused on the current situation in the world that has developed from the tragic death of George Floyd. I asked them to tell me what they knew about the recent events surrounding this. Most students knew about it and were aware that this has had a huge impact on the subject of racism which still seems to be a part of the world we live in even in the 21st Century.
During the protests and riots there has been a huge focus on the statement ‘BLACK LIVES MATTER’. We all used our voice to express what this term means to us. There were comments such as: ‘all people deserve equal rights’, ‘people having to fight for their rights’, ‘speaking out against abuse’, ‘black people should be equal to White people’, ‘Just because our skin colour is different on the outside that we are all the same inside’.
I’m proud of the comments my crew shared and couldn’t agree with them more. However although most people will agree with my crew, sadly this is not the case for everyone, and racism and other discriminations continue within the world and within our own local communities.
Obviously all lives matter, we know that, however at this moment in time something terrible has happened and has highlighted the inequality that is still happening against black people. Therefore this is the right time to elevate that people won’t tolerate racism by bringing it to the forefront of all peoples thoughts and actions by making bold statements such as BLACK LIVES MATTER.
Until we have equality we need to highlight and work harder for those that suffer because of it. I went through this comic strip with my crew that had been shared with me by a colleague.
I love this!
It highlights that sometimes we need to go beyond treating people the same or equally and that actually we need to do more for them at certain times.
This can often be a problem we need to address in school where often students feel they haven’t been fairly treated. One student in crew (I wont name him) highlighted something that he personally experienced in school. He said that he often got told (by me) to stop talking out of turn and that when another student did it I didn’t always say something to them and that this wasn’t fair. However they explained that by understanding the difference and necessity of equity and equality he understood that because he spoke out of turn more than anyone else during crew sessions then I needed to focus this intervention on him more than someone speaking out of turn just once.
We used this to understand how although we know that all lives matter, that at this moment in time we need to focus attention on the inequality felt by many black people.
Hopefully one day we won’t need to wave banners stating ‘BLACK LIVES MATTER’ or protest about inequality because hopefully through using our voices now and waving those banners high enough on behalf of those who are oppressed, action will be taken to end inequality and racism and the banner we can then fly high and be proud of is ………..‘ ALL LIVES MATTER’.