{"id":25075,"date":"2020-04-10T05:58:27","date_gmt":"2020-04-10T09:58:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/?p=25075"},"modified":"2024-08-31T10:30:28","modified_gmt":"2024-08-31T14:30:28","slug":"vted-reads-speak-by-laurie-halse-anderson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/vted-reads-speak-by-laurie-halse-anderson\/","title":{"rendered":"#vted Reads: Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson"},"content":{"rendered":"<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-25075-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Speak_Shout_Meg_Falby.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Speak_Shout_Meg_Falby.mp3\">https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Speak_Shout_Meg_Falby.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p>I\u2019m Jeanie Phillips and welcome to #vted Reads, we are here to talk books for educators, by educators and with educators. Today I\u2019m with Meg Falby and we\u2019ll be talking about two books by Laurie Halse Anderson: <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/39280444-speak?ac=1&amp;from_search=true&amp;qid=7Svoud73Fr&amp;rank=1\">Speak<\/a>,<\/em> and <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/34495927-speak?ac=1&amp;from_search=true&amp;qid=1XfaQBnO62&amp;rank=1\">Speak: The Graphic Novel<\/a>.<\/em> We\u2019ll also be mentioning <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/40519254-shout?ac=1&amp;from_search=true&amp;qid=H4HmUiy23i&amp;rank=1\">Shout<\/a>,<\/em> Laurie Halse Anderson\u2019s memoir in verse.<\/p>\n<p>Lovely listeners of #vted Reads, welcome to another episode.<\/p>\n<p>It is currently the first half of April, 2020, a challenging and re-defining moment for all of us. One that&#8217;s unsettling us in ways good and bad &#8212; okay mostly bad &#8212; but. But.<\/p>\n<p>As we all wrestle with the pandemic and how it&#8217;s moving around and through our lives, I&#8217;m struck by how much we are all turning to art. We are turning to books and painting and crafting and making and books and music and cooking (did I mention books?),and it&#8217;s really reaffirming for a lot of us the vital role art plays in our lives. The ways in which it carries us through dark times and helps pull us toward the light.<\/p>\n<p>Which brings me to this episode.<\/p>\n<div class=\"epyt-video-wrapper\">\n<div  style=\"display: block; margin: 0px auto;\"  id=\"_ytid_26224\"  width=\"525\" height=\"295\"  data-origwidth=\"525\" data-origheight=\"295\" data-facadesrc=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/f-lvb2VfEbQ?enablejsapi=1&#038;autoplay=0&#038;cc_load_policy=1&#038;cc_lang_pref=&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;loop=0&#038;modestbranding=1&#038;rel=0&#038;fs=1&#038;playsinline=1&#038;autohide=2&#038;theme=dark&#038;color=red&#038;controls=1&#038;\" class=\"__youtube_prefs__ epyt-facade epyt-is-override  no-lazyload\" data-epautoplay=\"1\" ><img decoding=\"async\" data-spai-excluded=\"true\" class=\"epyt-facade-poster skip-lazy\" loading=\"lazy\"  alt=\"Meg Falby reads: &quot;Speak: The Graphic Novel&quot;, by Laurie Halse Anderson\"  src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/f-lvb2VfEbQ\/maxresdefault.jpg\"  \/><button class=\"epyt-facade-play\" aria-label=\"Play\"><svg data-no-lazy=\"1\" height=\"100%\" version=\"1.1\" viewBox=\"0 0 68 48\" width=\"100%\"><path class=\"ytp-large-play-button-bg\" d=\"M66.52,7.74c-0.78-2.93-2.49-5.41-5.42-6.19C55.79,.13,34,0,34,0S12.21,.13,6.9,1.55 C3.97,2.33,2.27,4.81,1.48,7.74C0.06,13.05,0,24,0,24s0.06,10.95,1.48,16.26c0.78,2.93,2.49,5.41,5.42,6.19 C12.21,47.87,34,48,34,48s21.79-0.13,27.1-1.55c2.93-0.78,4.64-3.26,5.42-6.19C67.94,34.95,68,24,68,24S67.94,13.05,66.52,7.74z\" fill=\"#f00\"><\/path><path d=\"M 45,24 27,14 27,34\" fill=\"#fff\"><\/path><\/svg><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>On today&#8217;s episode, I&#8217;m joined by Vermont health educator Meg Falby, and we talk about Laurie Halse Anderson&#8217;s incomparable books, <em>Speak<\/em> and <em>Shout<\/em>. For those of you who are wondering, we talk in the episode about sexual assault and its aftermath. We&#8217;re not graphic, but we will talk about emotional impact as it&#8217;s portrayed in the books.<\/p>\n<p>While we&#8217;re using these books as a platform to examine how educators can talk about consent &#8212; living breathing free and thriving consent &#8212; this topic might be challenging for some folks, especially the survivors.<\/p>\n<p>We want you, as always, to put your own health first and make an informed decision about listening to the episode. Whatever you decide, we&#8217;re proud of you for making it this far, and we hold a space for you to listen, or read, or paint or craft, or sing or &#8230;speak.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m Jeanie Phillips. I&#8217;m awfully glad you&#8217;re back for another episode of Vermont Ed Reads, the podcast by with and for Vermont educators.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s chat.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong>\u00a0Thank you so much for joining me Meg, tell me a little bit about who you are and what you do.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> Thank you for having me, this is really exciting! I have been a teacher, this is my 18th year of teaching, a bit of a combination of what we call &#8220;family and consumer sciences&#8221;. It\u2019s kind of a new age home ec, and my real focus has been on health education.<\/p>\n<p>I started right out of UVM. I got my undergrad in family and consumer sciences education &#8212; believe it or not it exists &#8212; and I taught in both Barre Town School and Barre City School. Twelve years in and then a\u00a0 job at U-32 High School opened up, which was really exciting for me because I hold this school in really high regard. And I\u2019ve been here now for six years.<\/p>\n<p>I teach 7th and 8th grade health. I also teach high school health, and that typically is grades 10 to 12. And I teach 8th grade living arts class: sewing, cooking, all that good stuff.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> Oh that sounds like so much fun.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> It\u2019s such a fun class! Such a fun class.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie: <\/strong>I&#8217;m really excited to have you on the podcast! I follow you on twitter and I am a fan, but also I just think you\u2019re going to bring a lot to this conversation about these books, so welcome. One of the things I like to ask us right away is: what are you reading? What\u2019s on your bedside table? Because I\u2019m always looking for the next best book to read?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> Well, the number that I came up with was 17? But I think I&#8217;m now over 17. I\u2019m one of those people &#8212;\u00a0 at least in the last year &#8212; I\u2019ve become &#8220;The Collector&#8221;. You know how there\u2019s different types of readers? I\u2019m The Collector and I am also a reader that has multiple books going on at one time.<\/p>\n<p>Right now I\u2019m reading this wonderful book called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/37514115-beyond-birds-and-bees?ac=1&amp;from_search=true&amp;qid=36efVPkd30&amp;rank=1\"><em>Beyond Birds and Bees: Bringing Home a New Message to Our Kids About Sex, Love, and Equality<\/em><\/a>. It\u2019s by Bonnie Rough and she is an incredible writer. You know, to me it\u2019s an adventure story. She and her husband head over to the Netherlands and they bring their children with them. And she talks about just the *vast* difference between the American health\/sex ed class and layout versus the Dutch. And it\u2019s riveting.<\/p>\n<p>She\u2019s an incredible writer and there\u2019s so much to it that I go back. I keep going back and back, so the book has literally been on my bedside table for probably six months now. And she just has dropped this little seed of inspiration to do that someday: to take my family and just go to live in Amsterdam and go teach. Or do this amazing research of what it\u2019s like. What we are doing in America, how I am doing as a health educator and what she did.<\/p>\n<p>The other one that I\u2019m reading was actually gifted to me; it was dropped in my mail box here by one of my colleagues at U-32. It&#8217;s called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/35209767-how-to-break-up-with-your-phone?from_search=true&amp;from_srp=true&amp;qid=m6BpoOqVR0&amp;rank=1\"><em>How to Break Up With Your Phone.<\/em><\/a> And it hits home so hard that my own self-shame around my screen time usage? Makes me put it down. And then I have to process it and think about it, and come back to it like two weeks later.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> These both sound like books I need to add to my to be read pile so thanks for that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> Of course!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> They both sound fascinating and useful.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> Absolutely.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> Let\u2019s dive in!\u00a0We have books to talk about.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> We sure do.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> Books, plural. I just want our listeners to know that <em>Speak<\/em>, the original novel &#8212; which was published I think 20 years ago in 1999, so 21 years ago (I remember I read it when it came out) and then <em>Speak: The Graphic Novel<\/em> &#8212; which came out just a couple years ago &#8212; follow the same storyline. And really the same story told in different formats. They are both beautiful. They\u2019re both really incredible reads.<\/p>\n<p>The original <em>Speak<\/em> was groundbreaking in that it was one of the early books to talk about sexual assault by an acquaintance for young adults. So many kids have read it. Probably so many of our listeners or adult listeners have also read it. And I just wondered if you might introduce us to the main character in both: Melinda Sordino.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> Sure, so Melinda is 14 and she is on the precipice of high school and a kind of classic 8th grade girl, the excitement of what high school is going to be like&#8230; And then she experiences the most traumatic event of her life thus far, in August. And I found myself just rooting so hard for her as a young woman navigating the world of high school.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s funny the word, I think, how I would describe her, right? I just thought she\u2019s a *powerhouse* of a human, at age 14. And the journey that Laurie brings us on with her, I find myself rooting for her. But you felt it. You felt the rawness of everything that she was going through, through this insanely traumatizing event that so many people, so many of my students, so many of my friends, and family members have experienced themselves.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;I think of her too, as the classic high school kid: she\u2019s got parents that are fighting, she\u2019s got the annoying teachers that she\u2019s like, &#8220;What are you doing with my time, folks? This is my sacred life, I don\u2019t want to be here, you don\u2019t want to be here,&#8221; etc etc.<\/p>\n<p>One of her relationships that really hits home is her art teacher, and this relationship that she creates with Mr. Freeman. Where it\u2019s a struggle because art can be a struggle &#8212; and should be a struggle &#8212;\u00a0 but she finds that frustration, she kind of meets that frustration, with inspiration from him, and he grounds her in a really deep way. I see Melinda in so many of my students. It\u2019s incredible and that is in one way such a sad, sad thing but it\u2019s also so simultaneously invigorating to know that we as humans, we can get through trauma together. We can do this.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> At the beginning of both of the books we know something has happened to Melinda.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Speak-1-scaled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-25100 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Speak-1-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Page of Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak\" width=\"474\" height=\"632\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Speak-1-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Speak-1-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Speak-1-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Speak-1-1536x2048.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Speak-1-scaled.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 474px) 100vw, 474px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> Right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> Slowly the story emerges, through the course of each of the books. And I\u2019ve been thinking about it in a new light, thinking about Melinda; at the very beginning of the book, she has no friends.<\/p>\n<p>She has sort of one friend who\u2019s new, and an ex-friend, right? But she\u2019s really isolated because of the series of events, and sort of the negative publicity she\u2019s gotten because of her actions and &#8212; we\u2019re trying not to give spoilers, folks. But she\u2019s feeling really alienated and recently there was an article in The Atlantic that really hit home for me about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/magazine\/archive\/2020\/01\/the-miseducation-of-the-american-boy\/603046\/\">the importance of friendships in early adolescence.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> Platonic love.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> And just *why* they\u2019re so critical to the well-being of young people, and I think as adults we can look and say, &#8220;Oh you\u2019re going to be fine! Who needs friends? You\u2019re fine!&#8221; but actually kids really need friends. So she\u2019s had this traumatic experience, this traumatic physical experience, traumatic emotional experience and then its compounded by the trauma of feeling completely alienated and unseen in her school.<\/p>\n<p>And so her reaction? Melinda says:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s getting harder to talk. My throat is always sore, my lips raw like I have some kind of spastic laryngitis. I know I\u2019m messed up. I want to confess everything, hand over the guilt and mistake and anger to SOMEONE ELSE. There is a beast in my gut, scraping away at the inside of my ribs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And then on page 141 in the graphic novel it says:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Speak-2-scaled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-25101 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Speak-2-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Page of Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak\" width=\"474\" height=\"632\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Speak-2-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Speak-2-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Speak-2-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Speak-2-1536x2048.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Speak-2-scaled.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 474px) 100vw, 474px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>That connects us very much to the title, <em>Speak<\/em>, because one thing that Melinda is not doing is talking, talking about it or talking much at all.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> Right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> You said you see Melinda in some of your students, and I just wondered if you have any thoughts about her silence.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> It\u2019s so powerful. I think the silence itself represents fear and shame and self-doubt and judgment. I think as a survivor, she maybe uses in her mind &#8220;victimization&#8221; &#8212; she\u2019s been victimized. But really what we see is, she survived this and I think she uses her silence as power. Because without speaking, people don\u2019t know her story; therefore people can\u2019t turn and blame her. There\u2019s so much shame and internal dialogue when one is physically, emotionally, mentally taken advantage of; especially by someone who she &#8220;thought&#8221; she certainly looked up to and just *adored* as an older person.<\/p>\n<p>I find it so interesting throughout the book who she elected to speak to? And what she elected to say. And how she was very selective in those words. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> There is a lot going on.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> There is.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> She\u2019s reliving her trauma daily in school: because of the way she reacted during the sexual assault, kids got in trouble.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> Exactly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> People are heaping blame and shame and guilt on her. They ridicule her in school &#8212; and then she also has to encounter her rapist at school, on the regular. So in the graphic novel on pages 148 through 151, is one of the times she encounters him and none of the adults even recognize it! Do you want to share anything from those pages?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg<\/strong>: I\u2019m going to read.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Heather has another modeling job so I told her I\u2019d hang the posters I made for her. Heather said that people need to see me doing &#8216;normal&#8217; things around the school so I don\u2019t make them nervous.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And in the graphic novel the artist just shows Andy\u2019s face and his breath on her neck and he says the words, <em>fresh meat<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Speak-3-scaled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-25104\" src=\"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Speak-3-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"Speak Laurie Halse\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Speak-3-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Speak-3-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Speak-3-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Speak-3-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Speak-3-2048x1536.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 767px) 89vw, (max-width: 1000px) 54vw, (max-width: 1071px) 543px, 580px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>On page 149, in large white lettering it just says, IT FOUND ME.<\/p>\n<p>Like: he\u2019s back. How did he find me? I thought this was just a figment of my imagination. It was a one-time event that I am burying so deep inside my soul, and now he\u2019s here? He\u2019s in the hallways of my school, a place where I\u2019m supposed to be safe and supported and taken care of?<\/p>\n<p>So powerful. Knowing too, that in a building of over 1,000 students &#8212; in any high school it could be Vermont, it could be in California &#8212; that there are students who have been victimized. There are students who are in fact, survivors. that this very thing happens every day: they\u2019re sitting next to them in math class, they\u2019re in their art class, they&#8217;re in their PE class, their locker is four doors down.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> I think one of the reasons this book, the original, was so earth-shattering in the young adult literature world was because we still have this notion that a rapist is a dirty old man hiding in a dark alley.<\/p>\n<p>And here in this book, the person who has committed this sexual assault, Andy, is a really popular senior in high school. Girls want to date him. He\u2019s like the life of the party; teachers admire him. So Melinda feels really invisible in her experience, in her lived experience. And also in her whole self. Because she\u2019s not popular; as her friend says, you\u2019ve got to look normal. Nobody knows her story and she\u2019s not popular, she\u2019s an outcast, she dresses in baggy clothes, she\u2019s trying to hide herself.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> Bites her lips, her poor lips. Those raw lips. Grabbing on to anything so that she doesn\u2019t have to speak.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie: <\/strong>Yes, and so I wondered about, in the work that you do, do you have any thoughts for educators about how they might spot trauma in their students? How do they even recognize, especially, a Melinda who\u2019s trying so hard to fade into the background?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> I\u2019m going to back up a little bit.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> Please do.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> Just to say: I\u2019ve been in this gig for 18 years, education. The rise and the fall of what\u2019s trendy, what\u2019s hot, has come and gone, and I think that I want to give a major shoutout to Vermont as a whole state.<\/p>\n<p>But certainly my experience at U-32 &#8212; I\u2019ve only been here for six years &#8212; but in the last five, I would say we\u2019ve really honored the fact that a child is a whole child, that a student is whole and that doesn\u2019t just mean math scores, and SPARS 360 scores, but that when these humans enter this building they\u2019re coming from a home, they\u2019re coming from a family, they\u2019re coming from an online life, right? An online facade&#8230; and I really honor the work that we\u2019ve been doing around social and emotional learning. For me it\u2019s so validating and it\u2019s so solidifying in the work that I do in the health education class because that\u2019s what health education is.<\/p>\n<p>Health education *is* social emotional learning, with some content thrown in, certainly. The fact that I live in a community and teach in a community where we\u2019re honoring that and saying, &#8220;Algebra II scores are not going to increase until we talk to these kids about their mental health.&#8221; We are not going to have kids reaching for AP classes or we\u2019re not going to have kids passing college prep classes if 17 hours a day out of 24 &#8212;\u00a0 heck 21 hours out of 24 they are wrapped around a fully engaged in how many likes they just got on their Instagram post. Why that person left them on Read on snap chat.<\/p>\n<p>They come into my space; and they come in and maybe I\u2019m playing music and we\u2019ll have like an RP circle prompt that\u2019s kind of funny or I\u2019ll rip a joke or something. That learning objective at the bottom of my board? Where it\u2019s the &#8220;I Can&#8221; statement? They\u2019re not buying into that. Even in my class. I\u2019m not trying to make myself sound special but when that student is fully engulfed in relieving trauma or processing trauma or dealing with trauma from parents, whether its trauma that their parents have gone through&#8230; learning doesn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n<p>So you have to say, listen learning objectives: I see you, I respect you, I know that this is my occupation and that\u2019s why I\u2019m getting paid, but until you say, we\u2019re going to focus on who we are as humans first.<\/p>\n<p>To get back to the question of how you connect with these students that are our Melindas and our Michaels and our everyone in between? You get to know your kids and that is for some of us easier just based on our personalities, but I think that even watching and working in a high school with physics teachers and art teachers. We\u2019re really supported in the work we do at U-32 to create restorative circles where we start every class, I start every teacher advisory, I start every class. It doesn\u2019t need to be formal.<\/p>\n<p>Like yesterday, with my middle schoolers it was: what\u2019s your favorite flavor ice-cream?<\/p>\n<p>And then I try to write them down. To keep track of *them*, not their answers.<\/p>\n<p>I did ice-cream on Wednesday, so on Thursday I\u2019m going to ask them one of their insecurities &#8212; and they *always* have the right to pass. But it\u2019s amazing.<\/p>\n<p>You start off with ice-cream ones, right. You start off with the nice and easy, mild-flavored salsa and then you can get yourself up to questions that really can uncover some of the things that these kids are going through.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> So what I\u2019m hearing from you, Meg, and I really want to check, is that: it\u2019s not about spotting individual trauma, it\u2019s about creating spaces that are trauma-informed. That take into account the lived experiences, the emotions, the whole child and all of our students. And that welcomes their whole selves in. It creates levels of support, sort of safety nets, structures through relationships.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> That\u2019s it, it\u2019s all about relationships.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> What\u2019s interesting to me is that you sort of mentioned, without all of those relationships and emotional support kids aren\u2019t going to learn. And throughout the graphic novel, Melinda&#8217;s report card shows up in various iterations. I\u2019m on page 251,\u00a0 and it says, &#8220;My report card. Student name: Melinda Sordino, Grade 9.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Social life: F<\/li>\n<li>Lunch: D<\/li>\n<li>Clothes: F<\/li>\n<li>Spanish: D<\/li>\n<li>Algebra: F<\/li>\n<li>Social Studies: F<\/li>\n<li>Biology: D+<\/li>\n<li>English: D+<\/li>\n<li>Gym: D+<\/li>\n<li>Art: A.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And there\u2019s so much of what you\u2019ve just said there; like, at the top of her list is really social life, lunch and clothes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> Right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> I suspect that\u2019s a lot for our adolescents. And then at the bottom, the one course she has an A in, the one thing is Art. And she has this relationship with her art teacher. She feels seen by him. She doesn\u2019t tell him her story, he has no idea that she\u2019s been sexually assaulted, but he engages her on who she is on the inside a little bit.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> I think one of the connections with Mr. Freeman, her art teacher, is the fact that she sees him as a human. I think that they have created this safe relationship because she sees him as not just a teacher who comes in at eight in the morning and checks out at three. He\u2019s creating his own art in front of the kids. He\u2019s also ruining his own art in front of the kids, going through the whole process. And I think that\u2019s huge.<\/p>\n<p>I think when we as educators\u00a0 &#8212; with boundaries, clear lines and boundaries, that we are still the teachers &#8212;\u00a0 but when we as teachers can talk about being human, and what that looks like and feels like, before we get to our learning objectives? You\u2019ve got them. You\u2019ve got your audience. Because when they respect you and they know that you\u2019re human, they see it in themselves and then the learning happens.<\/p>\n<p>Its authentic learning. Because when you are authentic with your kids? They are like dogs. They know when we BS, they know when we\u2019re trying to crank through a lesson really quick because we want to check off the box because we need to get the proficiency.<\/p>\n<p>When you step back you say, &#8220;I want to do another circle, let\u2019s do another circle, I want to actually get to that.&#8221; Or: &#8220;We&#8217;re not going to get to this today. We&#8217;re going to hold off until next class.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> Inviting the full humanity of ourselves and our students.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> That\u2019s it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> It occurs to me, too, that there are two things happening for Melinda in both the graphics novel and the original novel, two barriers that are getting in the way for her to talk about her assault with a friend, with her parents, or with a trusted adult. And I\u2019m curious about you and your expertise around this. One, I\u2019m wondering if a lack of quality sexual education, sex ed, is getting in the way of her even being able to have the language to talk about what happened to her.<\/p>\n<p>And then I\u2019m also really interested in when, if and how we talk about consent.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> *Yes*.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> In schools, with our own personal children or with the children we are entrusted with in our settings as educators. So I wondered if you want to speak to either or both of those.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> Sure, I\u2019ll speak to both of them. I\u2019ll start with the first one: did you notice what class was missing on her report card?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie: <\/strong>Yes. There\u2019s no health.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> And I won\u2019t get on my soapbox and I won\u2019t be the squeaky wheel that I have been for 17+ years, but I think that having a space and a trained, certified professional &#8212; just like our English and our math teachers &#8212; is very important. To have health educators, from pre-K through graduation.<\/p>\n<p>I am biased and I understand this. But I believe there\u2019s no other space in a student\u2019s day, where you\u2019re just talking about life the whole time. You\u2019re talking about real life scenarios. You\u2019re using case studies, you\u2019re talking about experiences that they\u2019ve maybe previously already had or they will have. Because life in a body encompasses all of health education &#8212; it just does.<\/p>\n<p>I say the word &#8220;pre-K&#8221;, but I\u2019ll tell you as a parent, as a mom to a three-and-a-half-year-old and a six-year-old, the conversation around consent can never happen too early. Ever.<\/p>\n<p>And I think and I try to reframe it as, I call it &#8220;everyday consent&#8221;: if I want a swig off of your water bottle, I&#8217;m not just gonna grab your water bottle. I\u2019m going to say hey Jeanie, can I have a sip of your water? And Jeanie is going to say, Meg no, it&#8217;s cold season!<\/p>\n<p>And I&#8217;m gonna respect your answer.<\/p>\n<p>Just as if I wanted to copy your math homework and you say: no This concept &#8212; and I know someone before me has said these words but the term that I try to live by that I have taught my children and that I teach my students is:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Ask first, and respect the answer.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And you take that into everyday life, around this idea of consent that there\u2019s two people or more people figuring out what works for you, and what doesn\u2019t work for you. I think most of us &#8212; and I don\u2019t want to bring gender that much into it &#8212; but I think a lot of young women (and women as a whole) are &#8220;yessing&#8221;. They\u2019re saying yes when they truly don\u2019t mean it. I don\u2019t want to take on writing the front page of the newspaper. I have too much going on with my other classes but you know what, I\u2019m going to say yes, because I don\u2019t want to make too much work for other people. I\u2019m going to say yes so that I don\u2019t let anyone down.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> Regular listeners of this podcast and people who know me will not be surprised that I\u2019m going to bring up compliance culture. I\u2019ve been thinking a lot about &#8212; and I am not guilt-free in this &#8212; I\u2019ve been reflecting a lot on my years as an educator and as a parent, and thinking about the times where for convenience or efficiency, I just needed my son or my students or my to comply. I\u2019ve been thinking about how the persuasion, the pushing for &#8220;please just do this it will be easier for all us&#8221; is actually teaching the opposite of consent.<\/p>\n<p>And I\u2019m wondering how often in schools we are un-teaching consent in the way that we force for lack of a better word, certain behaviors or decisions on our students. Because usually it\u2019s about time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> Exactly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong>We feel rushed. Like we have to do a bunch of things and we just don\u2019t have time to get there on your own time. Or it\u2019s about convenience and this notion that &#8212; I think I thought this as a new educator &#8212; that my classroom should look compliant.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> Right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> And so I&#8217;ve really just been thinking about the way compliance gets in the way of things. It gets in the way of self-direction but it also gets in the way of understanding that my body is my body and I get to consent or not.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> Absolutely.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> And that other peoples bodies are their bodies and they get toconsent or not.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> Even as early as two days on the planet.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> Talking to our students and modeling us as well, it\u2019s really important that body sovereignty is taught as soon as they are out of the womb. There\u2019s been a lot of press on this, this idea of respecting the fact that little Mera doesn\u2019t need to go give grandma, grandpa, uncle, aunty a hug, if she doesn\u2019t want to. And as the parent of this toddler, preschooler, I need to ensure that they know that she has body sovereignty.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ll tell you: just last night, my six-and-a-half-year-old son when I asked him?\u00a0 I snuggled, and we read. I sang some songs, I tucked him in, and then I asked him, can I give you a kiss? And he said no thanks<\/p>\n<p>And then my heart broke and I cried on the inside, and I gave him a hug, instead. He said, &#8220;Hugs and handholds, that\u2019s it. That\u2019s all I want now.&#8221; And I\u2019ve gotta talk the talk and walk the walk. It\u2019s got to happen.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> I wondered, Meg, if you would share with us any resources or ideas you have about teaching consent? Especially to middle schoolers. And I\u2019m really thinking grade say 4 to 12.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> Absolutely. I was lucky enough, I can\u2019t tell you how many years ago, I was asked to be part of what they\u2019re calling <a href=\"https:\/\/vtnetwork.org\/consent-campaign\/\">the Vermont Consent campaign<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/vtnetwork.org\/consent-campaign\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-25112 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/vermont_consent_campaign-300x227.jpg\" alt=\"screenshot of Vermont Network Consent Campaign\" width=\"300\" height=\"227\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/vermont_consent_campaign-300x227.jpg 300w, https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/vermont_consent_campaign-768x580.jpg 768w, https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/vermont_consent_campaign.jpg 845w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I wasn\u2019t one of the creators but I was an educator and I was asked to look over this curriculum that could be used. It&#8217;s literally called the <a href=\"https:\/\/vtnetwork.org\/consent-campaign\/\">Vermont Consent Campaign.<\/a> And one of the pieces that I\u2019ve used, I think, with my 5th and 6th graders,\u00a0 but piggy-backing on a puberty lesson, once you\u2019ve gone through the basics of hygiene and body growth development, and\u00a0 kind of checked that box &#8212; I would always move into just healthy relationships. Friendships, parent relationships, \u2018\u2018dating relationships\u2019\u2019. One of the definitions on the handout that I\u2019ve given to my students for years now, is that their definition of consent means, quote:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cAt the time of the act there are words and physical actions indicating that everyone freely agrees and really wants to do the same thing.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Checking for consent is a process, that each person needs to keep doing. I\u2019ll bring it back to the water bottle example. If you say no on Monday, I might on Tuesday say, Jeanie how about that water now, I\u2019m still really thirsty! In which I\u2019m going to assume Jeanie is going to say, Meg, it\u2019s time for you to get a water bottle, do you want me to show you where I got mine?<\/p>\n<p>And teaching the fact that, yes people can change their minds at any time. Let\u2019s say you did say yes on Wednesday; it doesn\u2019t mean on Thursday I get to take a swig of your water bottle without asking.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> If I handed you my water bottle right now, Meg, (I don\u2019t know where it is but) if I handed it to you and then as you were putting it to your lips I say, &#8220;Wait a minute! Didn\u2019t you tell me you have a cold?&#8221; and I took it back&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> Yes! Is that consensual? Of course it\u2019s not. Because, as humans, whether you\u2019re a one-year-old or a 112-year-old, you have the human right to change your mind at any time. And one of the things that the Vermont Consent Campaign does so beautifully is they basically lay out these five components, and they say that before you engage in any type of sexual activity, you have to have your partner&#8217;s consent.<\/p>\n<p>The five pieces are:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Number one: Sexual consent can only be freely given &#8212; keyword *freely* given if there\u2019s a sufficient balance of power in the relationship.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>And that brings in the age of consent. We talk about that, we dissect the age of consent is 16, however, in the state of Vermont there is, I call it the high school clause (I could be making that up) but if both partners are between the ages of 15 and 18, they can legally consent any type of sexual activity.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The second piece is that both people&#8211;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>and wherever I teach this I ask my students to envision a middle school relationship or even like a freshman relationship, okay?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sexual consent can only be freely given if both people are aware of the consequences of sexual activity, both positive and negative, and they know what will happen next.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Meaning there\u2019s been decisions around protection, there\u2019s been decisions around birth control if someone has a uterus. There\u2019s been a conversation about what type of touch is okay. Both people understand what it means for them to be in a relationship together. And gosh isn\u2019t that really hard to think about a 14-year-old having these conversations!<\/p>\n<p>And what is the difference between a 14-year-old and a 16-year-old mentally, emotionally&#8211;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> Developmentally.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> Developmentally, yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The third piece is: it&#8217;s safe to say no.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Consent can only be freely given if it\u2019s safe to say no. If, in the back of anyone\u2019s head there\u2019s that little voice that creeps in and says: gah, but they\u2019re going to post this, they&#8217;re going to post something on a group chat about my body or they\u2019re going to tease me or they are going to put pressure on me, everyone is doing it, I told you I loved you &#8212; with ANY of those, it still has to be safe to say no.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Number 4: If you say yes, you can change your mind at any time.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>You could be intimate. You could sexually be very, very intimate with a person and if your internal working, your gut feeling is that, this isn\u2019t right it has to stop. And your partner has to honor that. Nobody wants to be with another human that doesn\u2019t want them to be there! I\u2019d like to think that. I want to have great faith in humanity.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> I\u2019m the mother of a son. And I&#8217;m a feminist. And I have spent a lot of time in my now 20 years of motherhood, thinking about the kind of son I want to raise and my values. We\u2019ve talked also in the past, (he\u2019s all grown now, he probably would be modified to hear me talk about this) but <strong>enthusiastic consent.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> Absolutely.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> The importance of enthusiastic consent. And one of the things that I\u2019ve been thinking about &#8212; a friend drew this to my attention &#8212; is the Ted Talk about the gendered way in which we talk about sex with our children.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> Sure.<\/p>\n<div style=\"max-width: 854px;\">\n<div style=\"position: relative; height: 0; padding-bottom: 56.25%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"position: absolute; left: 0; top: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%;\" src=\"https:\/\/embed.ted.com\/talks\/lang\/en\/peggy_orenstein_what_young_women_believe_about_their_own_sexual_pleasure\" width=\"854\" height=\"480\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> There\u2019s a tendency to talk to boys about sex in a way that it\u2019s &#8220;Pf course, you\u2019re going to want to do this, it\u2019s going to be fun&#8221;. But then we talk to girls about it as if it\u2019s not going to be fun.<\/p>\n<p>And so I think that ignores both various kinds of masculinity and femininity, and also so the fact that girls already are given a message that its probably not going to be fun, or that you shouldn\u2019t have fun. Or that you\u2019re a slut if you have fun.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> It\u2019s going to hurt, you\u2019re going to get pregnant, and you\u2019re going to get chlamydia.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> Right. That its dangerous for you and that it might not be fun &#8212; I think also muddies is the water for experiences of like, &#8220;Was I raped? I had never expected it to be fun&#8230;&#8221; That internal gut feeling that you\u2019re talking about of like, this doesn\u2019t feel right &#8212; I think we often give the girls a message that it\u2019s not supposed to feel right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> I think it\u2019s a really important concept to think about, the nuanced ways in which we gender sexual experiences and talk about it differently. Not even &#8220;we&#8221;, but the media. The stories that are told, widespread about who gets to have fun, who doesn\u2019t, I think muddy the waters for consent just like our lack of understanding, the bits and parts.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> That\u2019s it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> And the whole picture of sex ed.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> To come to full circle of this role of alcohol.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong>Yes please.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> Talk about muddying the water! And in fact that fifth piece? The 5th component that the Vermont Consent Campaign identifies is:<\/p>\n<p><strong>The only way sexual consent can be freely given is if both parties &#8212; all parties &#8212; are not under the influence of anything.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If someone is drunk, if someone is high, if someone has popped some pills? That prefrontal cortext of decision-making, it\u2019s not kicked in, right? In particular with alcohol. And so with Melinda chugging down those three beers of which she admitted to hating the taste, but she knew I\u2019m sure, right after that first one went down, she felt the effect of &#8220;Wow, this is a little freeing, I feel kind of good!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> Less awkward.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> &#8220;I\u2019m not awkward in my skin!&#8221; There\u2019s a question for the high school component of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/healthyyouth\/data\/yrbs\/index.htm\">Youth Risk Behavior survey<\/a> that asks students what percentage of them had been under the influence of alcohol or drugs during their last sexual experience and I\u2019m going to have to go on and get the exact number, but it\u2019s there.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> It\u2019s staggering!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> I wouldn\u2019t say staggering,\u00a0 but it\u2019s a really good place to jumpstart a conversation with students. One of my students said to me years ago, the words &#8220;liquid courage&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>And I said tell me more about that without using personal stories.<\/p>\n<p>And he said, &#8220;Well, I think we are all just really awkward, Meg, and I think that anything that we can do to just kind of loosen up, and also&#8221; &#8212;\u00a0 this is pretty poignant &#8212; &#8220;anything that we can do to help support the bad decisions that we make later in the night, we&#8217;ll take it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>So this crazy concept of hookup culture and of this one night thing of: &#8220;I\u2019m going to get wasted and I\u2019m going to hook up with that rando who is in my Chem Lab, but I\u2019m going to go to that crutch of alcohol and say I was so wasted, when the gossip mill starts. &#8216;Did you hook up with&#8230;?&#8217; I don\u2019t even remember, I was so wasted!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s what some of these students are turning to as an excuse. For Melinda, I think she was using that liquid as a way to just feel \u201cnormal\u201d or like, okay for a minute.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> Like she fit in.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> Like she fit in. I think the bigger conversation we have to have with our youths is alcohol! And the American culture and what is has done and how it\u2019s just like bread and butter. You go to a party, you eat food and you drink, any adult party, take the ad lessons out of the picture, look at our adult culture and think about how hard it is. I don\u2019t know if you have ever experienced this but how incredibly challenging it is, even as a level-headed adult to say the words &#8220;no thank you&#8221; even after someone has offered you a glass of wine at a dinner party.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Oh you\u2019re not drinking? Oh what\u2019s wrong, are you pregnant?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Like, I&#8217;m well adjusted, I\u2019m a health teacher. No thanks, I\u2019m not interested and I\u2019m practicing inter-personal communication, I\u2019m practicing setting boundaries. But what if I was 14-year-old Melinda? Would it be as easy? Of course it wouldn\u2019t! But we don\u2019t accept no; as a culture we hate being turned down.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> I think this leads to our next question related to the book. There\u2019s expectations of who we are &#8212; I was a nerdy high school kid who didn\u2019t drink in high school and so I had to live with labels like &#8220;prude&#8221; (and I imagine that probablyisn\u2019tthe word kids use nowadays.)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> Oh they use that word.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> You get labeled when you say no thank you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> Exactly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> And probably as an adult too: &#8220;killjoy&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> Killjoy, buzz kill.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> Now, we talked about Andy Evans, our rapist in the book, he projects one kind of masculinity sort of a dominant kind, the kind we think a lot about.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> Certainly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> But David Patracas offers this much different version of masculinity, and it&#8217;s quite this contrast. I know that you run a group for boys to talk about masculinity, and I just wanted to invite you to talk more about that. Because I want us to really think about both masculinity and femininity as a continuum and not even as mutually exclusive but as many ways you can be in the world. So I want to invite your expertise.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> Yes! It\u2019s in its first year, this group is called <span style=\"font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif;\">N<\/span><span style=\"font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif;\">uts and Bolts ( I\u2019m going to give a shoutout to my loving partner and husband for coming up with that creative name!) It originally came from Teen Health Week. <\/span>And on Sexual Health Day &#8212; Teen Health Week is five days long, each day dedicated to different realm of health &#8212; one of my colleagues said Hi Meg,\u00a0 why don\u2019t we offer spaces like just-for-gals, just-for-guys and I think we had &#8220;non-binary-pals&#8221;. Just to ensure that we are\u00a0 honor space with an adult where you can just talk about freely what\u2019s going on in the world of being a girl, or in the case of Nuts and Bolts, being a boy and what masculinity means.<\/p>\n<p>It was an incredible response. We had about 25 or 30 boys sign up for the offering.<\/p>\n<p>So, total Peggy Orenstein fangirl. And through reading a lot of Peggy\u2019s work through this Health Week I started to think: we are losing the boys. I\u2019m losing the boys, we need to get the boys. And we need to make a space that we can talk about it all. This group meets twice a month, it\u2019s the first and third Friday of the month, it&#8217;s a 45 minutes band of time, I went into it with great detail and I reached out to some of my amazing twitter folks that are out in Chicago and California that are doing the same very work just to not to reinvent the wheel her, but when the rubber actually met the road and I started advertising it to say, hey it\u2019s a callback with Meg. Meg, our female-identified health teacher is going to run a masculinity group!<\/p>\n<p>I reached out to my male teaching partner and reached out to some of my male colleagues. I and said, hi! Wouldn\u2019t it be wonderful if I can facilitate a group &#8212; and I will ultimately be the fly on the wall &#8212; but\u00a0 a group of young men can create a Q&amp;A session with males in the building to talk about what it\u2019s like to be a man. And to talk about women and what masculinity means to them.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> I love this so much. How is it going?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> It&#8217;s fluid, like one week I could have eight kids and the next week I could have 20. It&#8217;s always this open invitation to say, it works in your schedule, with your call back schedule come in, if you\u2019re not feeling the vibe within the first five minutes then you\u2019re always free to leave.I t\u2019s just that kind of: you\u2019re in control of whether or not you want to be here or not.<\/p>\n<p>And one of the first times we got two really amazing colleagues here at U-32: JB Hilferty and Nick Holquist\u00a0 JB teaches middle school and social studies and Nick is an English teacher at the high school level, and they created these questions.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ll give you a couple of examples.<\/p>\n<p>I prepped them to say:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;If you had free reign and were able to ask a group of U-32 teachers, coaches, and staff members anything about masculinity and about being a man, what would you ask them?&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I created this Google Doc, and I sent it to the boys. I wouldn\u2019t say that they *all* wrote back, (they certainly didn\u2019t) but it was really interesting to see what types of boys took the lead. And we had questions like:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What were some of the stereotypes that you grew up with about being a man?<\/li>\n<li>How has life changed, from being an elementary school boy to a high school young man?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And in this case both of our first interviewees, JB and Nick, talked about being a dad. They talked about getting married and how things changed and shifted for them as they started to put on different hats.<\/p>\n<p>It was so powerful to just watch the boys. They were so engaged, you could hear a pin drop. But the fact thatit\u2019s such a wide range of boys, you\u2019ve got boys that are acting, you have boys that are doing hip-hop classes, you have boys that are playing football, you have boys that identify as gay.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> This is bringing me such joy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> It\u2019s really awesome! It&#8217;s really awesome. Let\u2019s take a space to talk about what healthy masculinity can look like.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> Yes, you are a wealth of expertise and resources and I know you\u2019ve got a ton of listeners that Meg has provide this huge list of things were going to put in the transcript, so you can follow up and think about how this impacts your work with students, whether you are a health educator or not or whether it\u2019s about your relationship with your own children.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> Absolutely.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> One last questionI want to ask you before we touch on <em>Shout,<\/em> which we haven\u2019t discussed at all yet.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> Sure.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> How would you use <em>Speak<\/em>, either the graphic novel or the regular novel, in the classroom?\u00a0 How might you use it?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> The beauty of it is that it is used in our 9th grade English classes. Students have a choice. And the way that I was involved in this is that the English teachers invited me in. It was one of the first times I had worked collaboratively, kind outside of my health silo, if you will. We didn\u2019t really dig into the book a lot. They asked me to come in and really unpack consent. Because at least in this school, most high school students are in their sophomore year when they take health, sophomore or junior year, and so having the opportunity to go in and talk to a group of freshman about Melinda\u2019s story and Melinda\u2019s rape and the lack there, of consent. And like I had said the life components that we must have and the age of consent &#8212; it was just really powerful.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> And I think it\u2019s really great for our students to see that there\u2019s so much overlap with so many of our subjects, like I\u2019m in my English class and I\u2019m reading this book , that\u2019s Meg, she\u2019s the health teacher. And I brought it up separately in myown high school class, when we go through the basics of healthy relationships and covering consent: how many of you in 9th grade in your humanity class read <em>Speak<\/em>? It\u2019s the majority of our students, even if they\u2019ve taken their own time to read it now with the graphic novel, which is so incredible.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie: <\/strong>I love the graphic novel and I was reluctant because I love the original. Back when I read it it was new. And when I read the graphic novel I was shocked at how it hit me with the same force and power, even though I knew the story.<\/p>\n<p>I think one of the reasons I want to pull in <em>Shout,<\/em> which we haven\u2019t talked about yet, which is Laurie Halse Anderson\u2019s memoir, written in verse (a book I just adored with all my heart) is that it just came out. What\u2019s important is that Laurie Halse Anderson wrote <em>Speak<\/em> without ever talking about herself. It took her 20 years to come out and say, actually that book was about my personal lived experience.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a testament to the shame we carry when we are survivors of sexual assault. The way that it\u2019s not always but for many people hard to talk about. We grapple with it for years and years and years.<\/p>\n<p>When the time was right, Laurie was ready to share this and to share her own personal experience through verse. And I think that\u2019s really powerful for kids to see somebody come out the other side and be willing to talk about it, to speak up, to shout about it from this platform.<\/p>\n<p>But also there\u2019s a lot in here about healing. What it looks like to heal from sexual assault. Because <em>Speak<\/em> is really about the pain of sexual assault.<\/p>\n<p>And in <em>Shout,<\/em> we really get to see Laurie Halse Anderson share how she got through it in the long run. And I thought I just share one poem from this just gorgeous book, this one is on page 24 and its called &#8220;chum&#8221;.\u00a0 I think it&#8217;s related to many of the conversations we\u2019ve had.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-25116\" src=\"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Shout-1-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Speak Laurie Halse Anderson\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Shout-1-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Shout-1-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Shout-1-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Shout-1-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Shout-1-2048x1536.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This really resonated for me.<\/p>\n<p>I think Laurie Halse Anderson and I are not the same age, but I am closer to her age than probably you are. And sort of the culture that I grew up with was: boys will be boys. When I was in middle school I lived really rurally, and I felt very afraid of the young men in my community, in my rural community.<\/p>\n<p>And I went from a free, whirlwind girl who went out on her bike or hiking in the woods with such great freedom in my body to being a little bit afraid and avoiding things that I used to do, because I might run into the neighborhood boys who might ridicule me, who might make me feel threatened. I don\u2019t know if there are pockets of that culture that still exist, but that poem brought back all of those feelings, all of those emotions &#8212; those remembrances of staying in the shallow end &#8212; back for me and in such a real way. And if I were to use this in the classroom I would be tempted if not to read all of <em>Shout<\/em> with students, then to at least isolate some poems to compliment speak.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg<\/strong>: You\u2019re inspiring me and I will.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> You\u2019re inspiring me! We&#8217;re having a little mutual appreciation party going on here, and we&#8217;re running out of time. I could talk to you for days.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg: <\/strong>I agree.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> I wish I could! You all should see Meg\u2019s classroom, with the most tremendous ,wonderful picture of Lizzo.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-25114 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/speak-shout-2-1-300x196.jpg\" alt=\"Meg Falby and Jeanie Phillips in front of a giant mural of Lizzo\" width=\"300\" height=\"196\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/speak-shout-2-1-300x196.jpg 300w, https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/speak-shout-2-1-1024x670.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/speak-shout-2-1-768x503.jpg 768w, https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/speak-shout-2-1-1536x1005.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/speak-shout-2-1-2048x1340.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Is there anything else you\u2019d like to share with us, Meg, before we wrap up?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> I just want to thank you. This has been one experience! Thanks for doing this work, thank for finding me on twitter, thanks for the twitterverse.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeanie:<\/strong> You\u2019re hard to miss on twitter! Thank you for all you\u2019re doing with students, for all the ways you\u2019re making me think, and for all the resources you\u2019ve shared. It\u2019s been such a delight, I\u2019m so excited about this episode! Thank you Meg!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meg:<\/strong> It\u2019s been my pleasure, thank you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m Jeanie Phillips and welcome to #vted Reads, we are here to talk books for educators, by educators and with educators. Today I\u2019m with Meg Falby and we\u2019ll be talking about two books by Laurie Halse Anderson: Speak, and Speak: The Graphic Novel. We\u2019ll also be mentioning Shout, Laurie Halse Anderson\u2019s memoir in verse. Lovely &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/vted-reads-speak-by-laurie-halse-anderson\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;#vted Reads: Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25120,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1004],"tags":[1276,1277,1278],"class_list":["post-25075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vted-reads","tag-consent","tag-health-education","tag-u-32"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25075"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40977,"href":"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25075\/revisions\/40977"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}