My student Carina Cruz shares her experience learning about feminism in high school. (photo, Ileana Jiménez).

Earlier this week, my students and I were guests on the radio show, Joy of Resistance, a feminist, multicultural radio show on WBAI hosted by Fran Luck and Jasmine Burnett (@blkfeminst). My students and I spoke on the importance of learning and teaching feminist theory and activism in high school classrooms.

Each of the students who joined me have done important feminist work both in the high school women’s studies class I teach as well as outside of the classroom. Carina Cruz, junior, is a SPARK blogger—Sexualization, Protest, Action, Resistance, Knowledge—for a youth-led movement to stop the sexualization of girls and women in the media. Junior Dinayuri Rodriguez’s blog posts on our feminist class blog, F to the Third Power, have been so successful that one of her posts connecting Virginia Woolf’s argument in A Room of One’s Own to today’s low-earning feminist bloggers earned her a comment on the post from well-known feminist author and blogger Courtney Martin, of Feministing fame.

Emma Stydahar, junior, is also a SPARK blogger who recently spoke at the Meet Us on the Street anti-street harassment rally in New York. Finally, senior Grace Tobin found her voice testifying at last year’s New York City Council hearing on street harassment, landing her an interview with CBS, which led to a blogging internship with the Women’s Media Center. Grace also spoke at the anti-street harassment rally with Emma.

I was particularly moved and inspired listening to my students speak about how taking the feminism course has made an impact on their lives. Fran asked students if they could share how learning about feminism allowed them to name one thing in their lives that they could not name before, leading them to a feminist click. Here’s what they had to say:

Grace: “There’s a lot of Ileana’s class that is about forming your own opinions on feminism . . . Emily May from Hollaback! asked me if I would [testify] at the New York City [council hearing on street harassment]. When I got up there and shared my testimony, I was one of the youngest women there; I was extremely happy that I was able to enlighten the entire [council] . . . at such a young age, I could have a voice, even though I was only 16 years old.”

Emma: “Ileana introduced me to an organization called SPARK . . . and we’re all about going against the sexualization and objectification of women in the media . . . it was never something I could really put a name to, but after becoming aware of SPARK and the blogs that they have, it just gave it a name and gave something to fight back against.”

Dinayuri: “For me, feminism really began to click when we started seeing all these intersections of all these other systems of oppression. When I started seeing how all these systems of oppression affect women and how they are represented in feminism, I just really began to notice all of these things  . . . I just really wish that everyone taught [feminism], it should be a core subject taught everywhere.”

Carina: “Taking Ileana’s class was really eye-opening and life-changing. I come from an activist household; both of my parents were involved in the Puerto Rican rights movement as young adults, and passed that fire on to me. I was always very aware of racial issues and racial discrimination, but taking the feminism class, I realized there was more out there that I wasn’t fighting against, that’s when my click moment really started to happen.”

After the taping, Joy of Resistance hosts Frank Luck and Jasmine Burnett gathered in the WBAI studio with my students (photo, Ileana Jiménez).

One of the most important messages I shared during the interview was the importance of creating classroom partnerships with activists groups. These partnerships are the hallmark of the course, showing students how feminists on the ground work on multi-issues. My students have worked closely with GEMS (Girls Educational & Mentoring Services), Girls for Gender Equity, Hollaback!, Men Can Stop Rape, RightRides, and many more. Above all, these groups have demonstrated to my students how feminist activism manifests itself across lines of race, class, gender, and sexuality, creating multiple “feminisms” for social change.

For more on our interview, listen to my students and me on Joy of Resistance and let us know your thoughts (19:35-57:00).

Joy of Resistance, Multicultural Feminist Radio @ WBAI airs on the 1st & 3rd Wednesday of the month, 9-10 pm at 99.5 FM (broadcasting to New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut) and streams live at WBAI. Follow JOR tweets and read their blog. They welcome all new listeners and encourage feedback and participation.

The success of last week’s International Anti-Street Harassment Week was astonishing. Organized by leading anti-street harassment activist Holly Kearl, founder of the well-known blog Stop Street Harassment, the week featured the work of the most cutting-edge activists in the field, including dance performances by Sydnie Mosley and her Window Sex Project and a viral video featuring Joe Samalin and other male allies telling men to just stop harassing women in both English and Spanish.

As part of the week’s events, two of my students, Grace and Emma, and I spoke at the Meet Us On the Street rally in New York. Grace shared a portion of the testimony that she read to last year’s New York City Council hearing on street harassment and Emma, who is also a SPARK blogger against the sexualization of girls and women in the media, shared her own vision for safer streets and communities not just for herself but also for her own sister.

I spoke about the importance of engaging teachers in the global movement against street harassment as an education and health issue for schools.

But the work doesn’t stop there. It’s important to show students that activism needs to be consistent, and not done in a flavor-of-the-month style. That’s why last fall, students in my high school feminism course partnered with other students at our school to create their own anti-street harassment public service announcement (PSA).  Their goal: to educate their peers about the gravity of street harassment in their daily lives.

As part of the background work to create the video, I invited activists from Girls for Gender Equity, Hollaback!, The Line Campaign, Men Can Stop Rape, and Right Rides to talk to my students. Activist Shelby Knox also visited to talk about her film, The Education of Shelby Knox. Each of them shared their expertise, provided students with materials, and ultimately inspired them to create their PSA.

You can create your own PSA with your students too. Start, as I did, with educating your students about the issue by inviting activists to your classroom. Then have students envision a PSA that would be relevant and engaging for your school community. Screen the PSA at an upcoming assembly. Then join the revolution.  See above for inspiration.

My student Grace testifying at the New York City Council Hearing on street harassment in October 2010. (photo by Ileana Jiménez)

Last year, my student Grace did a very brave thing. Before a packed room of reporters, politicians, activists, and fellow testifiers, she shared her personal experience with street harassment to the leaders of the New York City Council.

During her testimony, Grace described how a man publicly masturbated in front of her on the subway and the humiliation and shame she felt as a result:

The moment which I have felt most degraded, belittled, and humiliated was at 6 p.m. on a Saturday getting on to the 1 train at Chambers heading uptown . . . His eyes flashed up to meet mine and I quickly dropped my gaze into my lap. I didn’t want to make eye contact with him, just like with any stranger; I was worried he would misinterpret the eye contact  . . . but I glanced up at him, against my better judgment.

The hands I thought were in his pockets were not. They were under the big sides of his tan coat. 
Masturbating.

I guess I must have been angry. I don’t think I could feel it though. My fear and shock overpowered everything else such as the shame and embarrassment. The vulnerability and victimization. The fact that I was frozen. Unable to say a thing. Unable to move. Unable to fully comprehend, or at least, not letting myself.

Grace’s powerful testimony was one of many shared at that hearing, which was organized by City Council Member Julissa Ferreras, chair of the City Council Women’s Issues Committee. Ferreras hoped that it would “cast light on this depraved practice and that women and girls will no longer have to adopt a veil of caution when they want to do something as basic as walk down the street.”

As a teacher, watching my own student testify against street harassment made me all the more galvanized to be a part of the growing global movement against street harassment. Her story not only confirms the experiences of so many girls, women, and members of the LGBTQ community on both national and international levels, but also confirms that my very own students are subject to this very real form violence as they travel to and from school, hang out with friends, and in short, live their lives.

For me, stopping street harassment is a part of my work in making the lives of my students safer, just, and whole. The numbers alone should make every educator wince and take action. Indeed, Holly Kearl, street harassment expert and author of the groundbreaking book, Stop Street Harassment: Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming for Women, tweeted just this morning about her own research of over 800 women in 23 countries and 45 U.S. states: “90% of girls under age 19 face #streetharassment.”

If that many girls and young women are being harassed on the street, then teachers need to be concerned. The emotional toll that street harassment takes on our students is considerable. In addition to feeling shame and humiliation, many young women feel silenced, even hopeless in the face of harassment, as many do not know who to turn to for support.

Once at school, moreover, girls and LGBTQ youth face harassment from their own peers. According to a recent report by the American Association of University Women titled Crossing the Line: Sexual Harassment at School, which was co-authored by Kearl: “Nearly half (48%) of the students surveyed experienced some form of sexual harassment in the 2010-11 school year, and the majority of those students (87%) said it had a negative effect on them.”

Given the data that Kearl has collected on both street and school harassment, we can infer that those same girls who are having trouble sleeping and who do not want to go to school due to facing harassment at school are probably also more than likely to face the same harassment going to and from school as well.

The picture is grim for LGBTQ youth as well. In their 2009 National School Climate survey, GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, Straight Educators Network) reports that “84.6% of LGBT students reported being verbally harassed, 40.1% reported being physically harassed and 18.8% reported being physically assaulted at school in the past year because of their sexual orientation.”

Given all of this sobering data about the harassment that both girls and queer youth face daily, if we want to create safe schools and safe communities for our students, then as educators, it is absolutely our moral imperative to address both the harassment occurring at school and the harassment happening on our streets.

As Grace reminds us in her testimony:

Please remember, that the experiences I shared are not unusual. They happen on a daily basis. I do not know one girl or woman in my life that has not experienced some form of sexual harassment in their life. I’m sure that this is true for almost every female you all know too.

For all of these reasons, I’ll be joining Grace and another student Emma on stage on Saturday, March 24 at the Meet Us On the Street rally in New York starting at 1pm at Judson Memorial Church at Washington Square Park. You can RSVP on this Facebook page. Along with amazing activists from the Ali Forney Center for homeless LGBTQ youth, Girls for Gender Equity, Hollaback!, RightRides, and Sydnie Mosley from the Window Sex Project, we’ll be sharing our stories about street harassment and why it matters that we live our lives free of all forms of violence.

I’m honored that I can stand alongside my students and stand up for making their lives that much more safe. Will you join us tomorrow with your students?

Find out more about International Anti-Street Harassment Week on the Meet Us On the Street website.

Trans-girls of color need to be a part of how we mark International Women’s Day, especially in a year when the theme is “Connecting Girls, Inspiring Futures.” Often absent from our discussions about girls’ education and girls’ empowerment programs, trans-girls remain invisible to our re-imagining of a dynamic and inclusive future for all girls.

That’s why today I screened the film Gun Hill Road (2011) for my high school students taking my LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) literature and film class. Winner of the Best Acting Ensemble Award at the Ashland Independent Film Awards, Gun Hill Road features the story of a Puerto Rican family in the Bronx whose patriarch, Enrique, returns from prison only to learn gradually that his son, Michael, now identifies as a young woman, Vanessa.

As a queer teacher of color, I personally feel a responsibility to bring a range of narratives about the LGBT experience, especially those that have an intersectional lens of race, class, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality, to my students, who themselves acknowledge that the queer images they see in the media are too often of white, upper middle class Will & Grace types. For me, screening a film about a young Puerto Rican trans-girl is imperative for teaching students that we need to disrupt mainstream narratives of what it means to be queer, young, and of color in today’s transphobic, misogynistic, and racist world. 

In addition to illustrating the struggle between Vanessa and her father, the film offers opportunities for educators to have important conversations about gender and sexual identity and bullying in schools. In one locker room scene, Vanessa is taunted by her peers both in Spanish and English, where phrases like “metemelo” (put it in me) and “don’t forget your panties” are hurled. Scenes such as these should give educators the opportunity to discuss important issues such as sexism, misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia.

Indeed, according to GLSEN’s (Gay, Lesbian, Straight Educator’s Network) 2009 climate survey: “90% of transgender students heard derogatory remarks, such as ‘dyke’ or ‘faggot,’ sometimes, often, or frequently in school in the past year.”

Educators should also note scenes related to discussing bathroom accommodations for transgender youth as well as safe sex practices for all queer youth.

As part of the screening, Rashaad Green, the director of the film, also came to speak to my class. When asked what his goal was in portraying the life of a trans-girl, Green responded:

It’s not necessarily a coming out story. I think when we meet Vanessa, we meet somebody who is pretty realized in her own journey. She can’t be who she wants to completely to her own family. But she knows who she is.”

I found this sense of self-actualization to be true in the scenes where Vanessa performs spoken word. In one scene, her poetry reveals not only her need for her father’s acceptance but also her desire to be seen as she truly is: “I’m begging right here for you to see me . . . see me.”

My student Aaron said that he found Vanessa’s transformation on stage as a transgender poet important for understanding her character:

To see her change our of her clothes, recite her poetry, and completely bare her soul was powerful.”

Rashaad was impressed with my students’ overall reaction to the film: “The masses aren’t as progressive as say, this school is. At other schools, I’ve had to preface the material, they aren’t necessarily ready to accept Michael’s transition.”

While it may be true that not all schools are progressive as the school where I teach, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work hard towards creating safe spaces where these discussions can be had for students and teachers in all settings. If we really want to create schools that allow students to learn without fear and anxiety as well as support families that are accepting of all our children, then Gun Hill Road certainly provides an excellent starting point to create those spaces not just today on International Women’s Day but throughout the entire year.

The inimitable Courtney Martin, former Feministing editor and author of such books as Do It Anyway: The New Generation of Activists, moderated the panel. Courtney framed our conversation with three compelling questions:

• What is one thrilling success you or your organization has had at the intersection of writing, new media, and activism?
• What is one good failure?
• What is one question you’re still “living your way into”? Ala R.M. Rilke:  ”Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”

It was an honor to to be a part of this exciting conversation with inspiring women who are at the forefront of working with young people at the intersections of gender and equity, writing and feminism, activism and advocacy.

Even more exciting was bringing the high school juniors and seniors in my feminism class to the conference; they all sat in the front row of Barnard’s Diana Center eagerly scribbling notes as they listened to the panel. Each of them wrote excellent blog posts on their feminist class blog, F to the Third Power, about their experience at the conference.

I think you will be left inspired by my students’ posts, as they ponder what feminism means to them, including Dinayuri, who wrote: “Feminism is not broken. It does not need to be repaired. It isn’t tainted so much so that the grounds from which it was built has to be destroyed and created all over again. But rather there is a need to expand feminism to include as well as recognize and fight for more diversity. Feminists can no longer be ignorant to other factors of oppression that come into play and which thwart one from being fully free of all discrimination.”

A video of the panel is now available:

The students in my feminism class read Rachel Lloyd's memoir, Girls Like Us, about the commercial sexual exploitation of children. (Photo, Steve Neiman, used with permission).

During a recent Twitter chat on #sheparty hosted by the Women’s Media Center, I tweeted: “How many feminists know edu hashtags and vice versa?”

The point I wanted to get across is that many feminists today don’t know much about today’s education conversation and, in turn, educators don’t know much about what’s going on in feminist discourse, whether it’s academic or activist.

My job as a feminist high school teacher is to close the women’s and gender studies gap for young people. To stop bullying, stop raping, stop perpetuating racism and sexism, and instead start making social change, I believe in bringing a gender, racial, and economic justice lens to education at all levels. Feminism does this work.

For me, connecting schools with feminist theory and action is personal. When I was in elementary school on Long Island in the early ‘80s, I was called “Afro” and “nigger.” Recess was not fun; to the contrary, it was a time to be bullied by my peers, who surrounded me while I was on the swings and in the sandbox. I always wonder how different my life might have been if my white teachers and white peers knew something about racism or if the rich history of Puerto Ricans and African-Americans had been taught to us as children. The goal would not have been color-blindness, but safety and inclusion, respect and responsibility for each other.

Now that I am a teacher, I believe that the power of feminist theory and action is exactly what young people need to create understandings across differences, learn how to lead healthy lives and to make social change. 

Tapping the Women’s Studies Canon

I start by teaching my high school students the very thing that colleges teach in feminist studies — intersectionality. The students read a variety of texts — Patricia Hill Collins, the Combahee River Collective, Kimberlé Crenshaw, bell hooks, Audre Lorde and Cherríe Moraga. Like any good high school English class, they conduct close readings, hold discussions and write about their interpretations. Their writing also includes blogging on their own feminist blog, F to the Third Power.

Students also write personal essays about their own experiences. From the young white boy to the multi-racial girl, each of my students has a story to share about race, class, gender and sexuality. They include the Dominican girl who was afraid her undocumented parents would be found out and the Asian boy figuring out his sexuality. No theory has ever made more sense to them than intersectionality because it finally gives students the language to describe their everyday lives, making this important tenet of feminism suddenly indispensable.

The social issues that high school students face have long roots in feminist analysis. Schools struggle to combat bullycides, cyberbullying, and mean girls (and mean boys), all of which are ongoing at alarmingly high rates. These concerns involve homophobia and transphobia, sexism and misogyny, racism and classism; feminists have offered rich analyses about these interlocking systems of oppression for over 40 years.

I also teach them how to enact social change in their communities. For the past three years, the students in my high school feminism course have supported GEMS (Girls Educational and Mentoring Services), which is the only agency in New York State to protect girls from re-entering the cycle of domestic sex trafficking. We watch the film, Very Young Girls; we read GEMS Executive Director Rachel Lloyd’s new memoir, Girls Like Us, and invite GEMS outreach workers to talk to the class about the commercial sexual exploitation of children.

The students in my feminism class in 2009 launched our partnership with GEMS (photo, Ileana Jiménez).

But that’s not all. I don’t want my students to just learn about the work of feminist activism. I want them to participate in it, as well, and to develop a sustained relationship with an issue that is part of a gender justice vision, not flavor-of-the-month activism.

For the past three years, the students in the high school feminism class have hosted a GEMS assembly, during which they teach their peers about the commercial sexual exploitation of children. Students write a script, create presentation slides, show clips from Very Young Girls, share their personal stories about why the topic means something to them and invite GEMS outreach workers to answer questions. At the end of the first assembly in 2009, students called their peers to action, asking for donations for GEMS girls and their babies. The next day, our donation box was flooded with baby blankets, clothes and diapers. Following our assembly, we received a rare invitation to visit the GEMS office to participate in World AIDS Day activities.

The second year, a student club at our school called the Community Service Roundtable was so moved by the GEMS assembly that it dedicated its annual coffeehouse fundraising efforts to GEMS. What was once a classroom unit became a school-wide commitment. This year’s effort will include students interviewing Lloyd about her memoir and selling her book to support the Girls Like Us campaign that fights for a world where girls are not for sale.

In my experience, high school students flock to courses that bridge what they learn in the classroom to the outside world. This idea is a core principle of passion-based learning, which is the complete opposite of test taking and racing to nowhere. Passion-based learning inspired one of my students who had seen assemblies on the commercial sexual exploitation of children during her first two years in high school, to take my feminism course her junior year and explore more deeply the kind of social change that is based on gender, racial and economic justice.

The work I do with students incorporates some of the most valuable aspects of education: critical thinking, analytical writing, collaboration and public speaking, all the while connecting them to important social issues that asks them to practice care and compassion.

More Work to Do

More cross-connections between feminists and educators would make a difference. Why don’t we talk to primary school children about gender roles and gender expression at a time when these roles are first reinforced? Why not teach middle school students to be more mindful about the sexualization of women and girls in the media and how these images prime their buying habits and influence how they eat (or don’t eat)? Why aren’t educators teaching high school students how men can stop rape?

People tell me that I’m unique for doing this work with high school students. I disagree. Waiting in the inbox for my blog are several emails from middle and high school teachers from across the country, asking for ideas on how to bring a gender-based lens to their classrooms. Mostly, these teachers need support with age-appropriate content that will help them implement curricula for K-12 classrooms.

Achieving this transformation in schools will take an entire village of feminist scholars, activists and teachers working together. Here are some things that would help:

● Women’s, gender, queer, and ethnic studies departments should offer pedagogy classes for the K-12 sector.
● Professors in women’s, gender, queer and ethnic studies and teachers in local K-12 schools should share content and approaches.
● Education schools should create centers dedicated to gender research and invite teachers to participate in research projects and curriculum design.
● Feminist activists and organizations should partner with teachers on participatory action research (PAR) projects and activist initiatives that involve K-12 students.

There is so much more that we can do. Obama’s Council on Women and Girls could collaborate with the Department of Education on how to bring more gender research into curriculum design. International partnerships with the Miss G Project in Canada, which has been working to get a gender studies course into the Ontario secondary school curriculum since 2005, could be created with teachers here in the U.S.

During my time as a Fulbright teacher and researcher in Mexico this past year, working on LGBT youth in schools in the gender studies program at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), showed me that teachers, not just scholars, need to do more global research on issues of gender and sexuality, and bring that knowledge back to their schools.

In the end, this is about working together with young people to tackle our most important social issues. In 15 years of teaching, I have seen that there is no other generation than today’s high school students more ready to take on this work. Are we ready to join them?

Meiling Jabbaar, former high school feminism student, and Ileana Jiménez (Feminist Teacher).

Last year, I launched an on-going guest post series written by my former high school students reflecting on the impact of learning feminism(s) in high school. To mark the beginning of the school year and to inspire teachers to bring a feminist vision to their curricula, I’m posting a piece written by my former student, Meiling Jabbaar, who took my course on feminism her senior year last fall. In this essay, Meiling teaches all of us that learning about feminism in high school made an impact on finding her voice. Meiling will be attending Brown University this fall.

Growing up as a young woman in today’s society, I have always been aware of issues that women, teenage girls, and even young girls face.  When I learned about the feminism course offered by Ileana Jiménez, who teaches in the English department at my high school, I realized that I would have the chance to discuss topics to which I could relate.  But little did I know how much of an impact the class would have on me.

My Fierce and Fabulous: Feminist Women Writers, Artists, and Activists class, which I took during the first trimester of my senior year, did much more than expose me to the world of feminism.  In providing the space to talk about issues important to me, such as female stereotypes, issues of beauty, and how women are portrayed in the media, I learned ways in which I could solve these problems, while at the same time, I learned a lot about myself.

Before taking the class, the only thing that came to mind when I thought about feminism was women’s rights.  I soon learned that feminism entails so much more.  First, we focused on feminist theory.  We read the works of various renowned feminist writers, including bell hooks, Audre Lorde, Cherríe Moraga, and Virginia Woolf.  I was overwhelmed and moved by their powerful pieces that analyze the history and roots of the struggles that plague the lives of women.  After reading these writers, my eyes were opened to what feminism truly represents.

One significant recurring theme throughout our readings was the idea of intersectionality, which pulls together the central focus of feminism.  One cannot analyze women’s issues without considering race, class, gender, ethnicity, religion, etc., because each affects one another and plays a major role in our lives.  Through intersectionality, feminism seeks to establish equal opportunities for all types of women from all walks of life.

Following the multiple feminist readings we did, we wrote personal essays on intersectionality where we had to reflect on the ways in which race, class, gender, etc., have influenced our own lives, something I had never thought about before.  Writing my intersectionality essay helped me come to a better understanding of my identity.  I reflected on being racially mixed, being a woman of color, and the role of socio-economic class in my life.  I took a risk and shared experiences and emotions I had never expressed to anyone.  However, it was both uplifting and self-rewarding to have done so.

Aside from feminist theory, feminist activism was a major part of the class and my favorite as well.  One of the many activist projects we took part in was our work with Hollaback!, whose mission is to end street harassment using mobile technology.  Out of all the activist work we did as a class, Hollaback! had the biggest influence on me because street harassment is an issue I have personally experienced and stand against strongly.

Growing up as a girl in New York City, I have been sexually harassed countless number of times, but have never known what to do.  Hollaback! introduced me to a way I could finally take a stand and stop street harassment. As a part of our work with Hollaback!, we had the great opportunity to write testimonies for a New York City council hearing on street harassment.  This meant a lot to me as it gave me the opportunity to have my voice heard as a young person and make a difference.

At the end of the trimester, I was not the same person I was when I first walked into my feminism class. My newly gained knowledge of feminism’s theories and principles gave me a greater understanding of the world I live in and the problems surrounding me everyday.

With the intent to dismantle the inequalities that exist towards women, feminism has helped me realize my potential to create change by offering the opportunity to stand up against issues about which I am passionate.  As a result, my feminism class led to the realization of my feminist voice I did not know existed within me.

My Fulbright presentation at UNAM on LGBT youth in schools in Mexico City.

Every now and then, teachers get the opportunity of a lifetime.

I know I did when I was selected to be a member of the second cohort of Distinguished Fulbright Award in Teaching (DAT) recipients. Still a fairly new addition to the family of Fulbright awards, the DAT Fulbright provides experienced teachers the chance to conduct research in a host country in an area of education about which they feel passionate.

I’ve just recently returned from Mexico City after having spent six months as a guest researcher in the gender studies program, Programa Universitario de Estudios de Género (PUEG) at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). My research focused on interviewing high school-aged LGBT youth on themes relating to gender and sexuality; coming out/not coming out; safety and discrimination; and their vision for making their school’s curriculum inclusive of LGBT themes and issues.

I could not have had a more life-transforming experience.

While I was interviewing 32 students, six teachers, and two administrators, I kept marveling at the fact that this was the most extraordinary opportunity to create change in schools on a global level. Here was a young man sharing how his mom didn’t hug him when he came out; and here was a young woman telling me how she was harassed at school for being transgender and how she had the guts to come to school wearing a dress when everybody else knew her previously as a boy; and here was a young woman telling me her dreams for making her school more respectful of all her friends.

And here was Fulbright giving me the chance to be a researcher, not as a PhD student, not as a professor, but as a teacher.

Teachers to whom I gave a workshop on LGBT inclusion at Preparatoria 4 in Mexico City.

For six months, Fulbright provided me with the space, time, and funding to pursue my passion as a guest researcher at a major global university; as a public intellectual speaking at international conferences on bullying as well as at UNAM’s medical school; and as an educator delivering professional development to local teachers on LGBT inclusion. This was no sabbatical. This was an immersion in becoming a global educator with a research and passion-driven purpose.

My passion is social justice in schools, and, in particular, the creation of safe and inclusive schools for all students. My research was not only about my position as a researcher but also about my position as a change agent. Giving young people the opportunity to voice their opinions for change was the most important piece of my work in Mexico.

When young people told me that they wanted to see accurate information about gender and sexuality in their health classrooms; or when they wanted to see a trans-inclusive or gender-inclusive bathroom on campus; or when they wanted their teachers, prefects, and peers to stop making homophobic remarks, I knew this wasn’t only a research project but more importantly, the beginning of a lifelong commitment to creating change in schools on an international level.

My talk on bullying in June at UNAM's Facultad de Medicina, or medical school.

Now that I’m back in New York, one of the most critical things I hope to do is to continue the conversation about the importance of providing teachers the funding and support to conduct research both in the U.S. and abroad. I recently wrote about this issue in a piece I wrote for Smith College. Teachers are expected to cultivate generation upon generation of thinkers, doers, and scholars and yet we are not given the proper support to be thinkers, doers, and scholars ourselves. For those of us who teach high school, we are only expected to know and teach our content area, assign and grade papers, write college recommendations, and then start over again.

How does this deadening cycle allow us to be a part of a national and global community of educators?

It doesn’t.

For this reason, it is critical that I bring back my just-emerging understanding of Mexican LGBT youth in schools to my already-existing work on safe and inclusive schools in the U.S. There is no doubt that there are many similarities as well as differences between the experience of LGBT youth in Mexico and of those in the States. The richness of those similarities and differences is what will inform the next steps in my work as a feminist educator and activist, such as:

• Innovating the content of my professional development workshops on LGBT inclusion in schools;
• Broadening the scope and sequence of my research in the future;
• Expanding my publishing to scholarly journals in addition to more blogs and other media; and
• Deepening my own high school curriculum, especially my course on LGBT literature and my course on feminism.

One of the most important women I met in Mexico was Gloria Careaga, who is a leading feminist psychologist at UNAM and longtime LGBT activist. Careaga is also the Secretary General of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Intersex Association (ILGA). In one of her articles I frequently referenced, she writes that as teachers, we need to “confront our fears and break the barriers of prejudices and stereotypes . . . to protect the rights of each of our students . . . and to guarantee respect for the free expression of each and every one of them” (“enfrentar nuestros miedos y romper las barreras de los prejuicios y estereotipos . . . para proteger los derechos de cada uno de las y los estudiantes . . . [y para] garantizar el respeto a la libre expresión de cada uno”).

I completely agree.  If there’s anything this Fulbright has done for me is that it has re-affirmed and re-invigorated my commitment to confront my fears, protect student rights, and fight for the free expression—based on race, class, gender, and sexuality—of each of my students for safer schools now, for safer lives always.

Apply today to be a part of the next cohort of Distinguished Fulbrighters.

Feminist Magazine, KPFK 90.7, Pacifica Radio

Within the past few months, I’ve had the terrific honor of being a guest on two feminist radio shows: Digital Sisterhood Network’s Feminism Online Project and Feminist Magazine. Last night, Feminist Magazine co-hosts Celina Alvarez and Christene Kings interviewed me during their show on KPFK 90.7 Pacifica Radio in Los Angeles. Calling in from México, I was thrilled to talk to Celina and Christene about my work with young people in high school.

One of the points I made was that the reason why students are attracted to feminism is because they can use its tools in their everyday lives: “What I do in the classroom not only focuses on gender and sexuality but also race and class . . . Students get excited because it’s about them . . . they face sexism, they face racism, they face classism, they face homophobia, transphobia, all of it, and feminism is the perfect launching point for those kinds of conversations. They want their education to be personal but they also want it to be useable, and I think that feminism is one of those things that you can teach that is so useable and young people just grab it.”

In case you missed the show last night, here’s the archive: my segment starts at 28:24 and ends at 42:18.

Earlier in May, I was also invited by Ananda Leeke from the Digital Sisterhood Network to be her guest for the entire hour (just press play). I was able to talk at length with Ananda about the Fulbright research I’m doing in México on LGBT youth in schools as well as my work in schools in the U.S. During the course of the show, my student and fellow Twitter fiend, Steven Susaña, joined the chat section of the program. Steven took my feminism course last fall, and since then, has been a committed feminist activist and male ally. It was so wonderful to have him as part of the conversation about teaching and learning feminism at the high school level.

Throughout both of these interviews, I was reminded again and again how important feminist media is and how important it is to lift each other’s work through our blogs, op-eds, radio programs, television appearances, and the like. We have to be the ones to invite each other to be guests on our blogs and programs if we want to change the landscape of voices. We have to be the ones to invite a different conversation for a different world.

In March of this year, I was invited to sit on several panels as part of the Smith Women in Education conference at Smith College in Northampton, MA. I was thrilled to be back on campus even if just for a few days, as it took place right in the middle of my Fulbright time in México; it was absolutely invigorating and inspiring to be among Smith sisters in education making change in their classrooms and in their communities.

One of the things I talked about during a panel titled Teaching in the 21st Century, that was moderated by Smith alumna Joan Sigel Schuman from the class of 1962, was the importance of teachers coming to the classroom as whole people, especially along lines of race, class, gender, and sexuality. Our students know when we are not being real or true with them, and we as teachers also suffer when we are not our whole selves with our students, our colleagues, and our school communities.

I went through a time of not being a whole person myself when as a young teacher, I was not completely true to my students during my time in girls’ schools between 1997-2004. There I was, teaching young women to be empowered and to become self-actualized as young feminists, and I was not even out to my students; as a result, I was not a whole educator or a whole person in my profession. I was not self-actualized.

I also talked about how important it is for education to be about vision not just about content. I said,

I don’t think that curriculum should just be about content, I think it should be about some kind of larger vision that you want your students to be able to accomplish and achieve with you. What’s the journey that you’re going to be taking your students on throughout the course of a year, [while] hitting particular moments that will make that vision happen together?”

Since I’ve been on my Fulbright, a growing passion of mine has been the place of teachers as experts in their field and as a result of that, the place of teachers as public intellectuals. I said,

How do we give teachers the money, the resources, the time, to become intellectually stimulated, [to become] public intellectuals contributing to the discourse, creating change, creating innovation, and giving them the time and support to do so?”

My fellow panelists were outstanding. Rachel Willis, who is the 2010 recipient of the Milken Educator Award, and graduate of the Smith class of 2004, spoke cogently about how teachers are treated on a larger societal level: “We are not necessarily treated as professionals . . . even though we’re told that we are going to be nation-builders, we’re not treated as nation-builders.”

Kayleigh Colombero, from the Smith class of 2008, reminded us how important student voices are: “Students bring a lot of authentic questions to the classroom and if you can never build space in for their voices and their questions, then what are we telling them about . . . coming to school? It’s almost like they’re not even necessary.”

I was thrilled to be a part of this panel, especially in my role both as teacher-activist and now as teacher-researcher. There was no better place to share where I am right now in my trajectory as an educator than at Smith. As Rachel said at one point in our panel: “Everybody says that Disney World is the most magical place on earth, but that’s because they didn’t go to Smith.”

Kayleigh voiced what was on all of our minds, that what we do as teachers is really about love. “My students love me and I say I love them back . . . do you get that at your job?”

If you are a Smith alum in education–early childhood, K-12, higher education, and beyond–please join our Smith Women in Education Facebook group.