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Not in Our School Videos

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  • Abbott Middle School students filmed and acted out a skit about bullying, in San Mateo, CA.
  • Here is an example of a student-led assembly at Peralta Elementary School in Oakland, CA. This assembly launched their schoolwide anti-bullying campaign. The students did a skit and talked about how to be an upstander as they took the lead in addressing bullying and intolerance. Students also learned how to be upstanders who work toward an accepting and identity safe school environment. Not In Our School developed a guide and sample skit for a similar assembly at the middle and high school levels. Learn more at niot.org
  • Student leaders from Del Sur Middle School in Lancaster, California visit a local elementary school and teach 4th and 5th grade students how to be upstanders. Through role-playing and interactive activities led by the middle schoolers, the younger students learn the meaning of the term "upstander" and how to effectively intervene, get help and support a peer who is being bullied. This process can be an effective tool to use with students in your own classroom and school. Please use the guidelines below and review the "Note of Caution" to ensure a positive and productive experience.
  • "Identity safe classrooms are those in which teachers strive to ensure students that their social identities are an asset rather than a barrier to success in the classroom. Acknowledging students' identities, rather than trying to be colorblind, can build the foundation for strong positive relationships. This, coupled with challenging opportunities to learn, can help all students begin to feel they are welcomed, supported, and valued as members of the learning community." —Dr. Dorothy Steele Learn more about identity safety in this interview of Dr. Dorothy Steele, co-author with Dr. Becki Cohn-Vargas of the new book for elementary educators, "Identity Safe Classrooms: Places to Belong and Learn."
  • Kiki Vo is an extraORDINARY Sacramento student who, through her perserverence, strong character, and ability to Forgive, has been able to celebrate life, finding happiness and success. Ten years ago, Kiki and her sisters were badly burned in a house fire in their native Vietnam that took the life of their mother. Raised by her father after securing treatment in the United States, Kiki and her sisters edured taunts and bullying and were separated when their father died of lung cancer a few years later. They have since been reunited.
  • Youth reactions to the violent attack of a California student
  • How do the names people call you affect the way you see yourself?
  • Learn how one middle school counselor created an anti-bullying program at her school and spread it to the entire community. This is a DVD extra from the PBS program, Not In Our Town: Class Actions. For more information on the film, visit niot.org/ClassActions
  • At Orange High School in Pepper Pike, Ohio, students are mapping their school to locate the spaces where bullying takes place. After identifying the "bully hotspots," including the cafeteria, media lab, and locker rooms, students created a flash freeze demonstration to raise awareness about bullying, and opened the conversation about how to create a safer school.
  • At the anniversary of the American Disabilities Act, a group of disability rights advocates march in solidarity to assert their rights as Americans and human beings. Many are here because of the work of Eliza Riley, a disability rights advocate in Silicon Valley, who has developed a youth leadership program for people with disabilities.
  • Shaw High School students use role play to discourage bullying.
  • The students of Newcomers High School in Long Island City, which specializes in teaching recent immigrants, and those of St. Luke's, a private middle school in Manhattan, have come together to dialogue about difference and combat bias. The Building Bridges project was created through a collaboration between Newcomers teacher Julie Mann, and St. Luke's teacher Kim Allen, who met ten years ago through a Facing History workshop. Ms. Mann's class of English-learners exchanged letters with their St.Luke's "buddies", and in the first of several meet-ups this year, received help editing their personal immigration stories. In return, St.Luke's students are preparing research papers on immigration informed by the interviews they conducted with their Newcomers buddies.
  • When Facing History teachers Jamie Lott and Mary Sok asked their World Cultures class about bullying at their school, the class described the hallways as safe. But after listening to a presentation given by hate crimes task force officer Dave D'Amico, they started a discussion about the widespread problem of online bullying, and how they as a class could take the first steps toward preventing it.
  • How do the names people call you affect the way you see yourself?
  • Learn how one middle school counselor created an anti-bullying program at her school and spread it to the entire community. This is a DVD extra from the PBS program, Not In Our Town: Class Actions. For more information on the film, visit niot.org/ClassActions
  • The students of Newcomers High School in Long Island City, which specializes in teaching recent immigrants, and those of St. Luke's, a private middle school in Manhattan, have come together to dialogue about difference and combat bias. The Building Bridges project was created through a collaboration between Newcomers teacher Julie Mann, and St. Luke's teacher Kim Allen, who met ten years ago through a Facing History workshop. Ms. Mann's class of English-learners exchanged letters with their St.Luke's "buddies", and in the first of several meet-ups this year, received help editing their personal immigration stories. In return, St.Luke's students are preparing research papers on immigration informed by the interviews they conducted with their Newcomers buddies.
  • Out in the Silence captures the remarkable chain of events that unfold when the announcement of filmmaker Joe Wilson's wedding to another man ignites a firestorm of controversy in his small Pennsylvania hometown. Drawn back by a plea for help from the mother of a young gay teen who is being brutally abused at school, Wilson's journey dramatically illustrates the universal challenges of being an outsider in a conservative environment and the transformation that is possible when those who have long been constrained by a traditional code of silence summon the courage to break it. The film portrays the ongoing struggle for justice and equality in communities across the country and depicts the change that is possible when people search for what they have in common rather than what that set them apart. Not In Our School features an excerpt from this inspiring film about CJ, a 16-year-old boy and his mother, who challenge the community and school board in their small town to create an environment where all students feel safe and included. For more information visit http://wpsu.org/outinthesilence. You may also download a discussion guide to Out in the Silence here.
  • When teacher Janet Miller learned that transgender youth in her district were the most at risk of attempting suicide, she wanted to make sure that her students felt safe. After sharing the alarming statistics with the school community, teachers and students worked together to create a Gay Straight Alliance at Hoover Middle School in the San Francisco Unified School District. The GSA brings students together to talk about differences and acceptance.
  • Dr. Joseph Marshall, Jr. is an author, activist, and veteran street soldier. Founder of the anti-violence movement Alive & Free, Marshall draws audiences from across the country to his weekly radio program, Street Soldiers— a name Dr. Marshall uses to describe people working to eliminate violence in their communities. To help keep his own community safer, Dr. Marshall co-founded the Omega Boys Club after years of working as a middle school teacher and seeing too many of his students lost to drugs and violence.
  • Patchogue, NY after the murder of Ecuadorian immigrant Marcelo Lucero
  • In the heart of the South, students at the University of Mississippi question whether traditions tied to the Confederacy and segregation continue to belong on their campus. When a chant and football fight song surface old racial tensions and divide the Ole Miss community, student leaders, supported by their chancellor, bring people together. This is the first segment in the PBS special, "Not In Our Town: Class Actions," which premiered nationally in Feb. 2012. For more information, visit http://www.niot.org/classactions.
  • One only has to turn on the television to view a plethora of stereotypes about people based on gender, race, religion, physical appearance, intelligence—the list goes on. Claude Steele, Dean for the School of Education at Stanford University, and his colleagues discovered that even when stereotypes are not uttered aloud, the phenomenon of stereotype threat, or the fear of confirming a negative stereotype, can be a stigma that affects attitudes and behaviors. These ideas are very important to Not In Our School because our core principles focus on creating safe, inclusive and accepting environments, free from stereotypes, bullying, and intolerance. In this interview Dr. Steele explains the concept of stereotype threat and its antidote "identity safety."