Interview with Safe Schools Advocate, Shannon Cuttle: One Hundred Days of Bullying

4 February 2011

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Shannon Cuttle, founder and director of the Safe Schools Action Network (photo courtesy, Shannon Cuttle).

Today is the 100th day of school. It’s also the 100th day of battling bullies.

No one is fighting this battle on the ground with more passion and energy than Shannon Cuttle. Cuttle, founder and director of the Safe Schools Action Network (SSAN), knows from personal experience as both a former elementary school teacher and administrator how important it is for all schools to be free of bullying against LGBT and gender-nonconforming students, families, and educators. Cuttle’s activist heart and policy wonk mind make her a fierce advocate for change and an inspiration to all educators who want to make a difference one day at a time.

What is the 100th Day of School and how does the movement for safe schools merge with this day?

The 100th day of school takes place each year and is recognized across classrooms and schools. The Safe Schools Action Network is marking 100 days of school as 100 days of bullying. Our day encourages schools to have discussions about bullying and harassment and to question whether schools are creating inclusive safe spaces for educators and students.

We’ve asked students to write to principals in a “Dear Principal” campaign, and we’ve asked parents to do the same by speaking to school leaders. On a national level, we’ve asked community members to speak out and speak up by writing letters and op/eds to raise urgency as we reach the end of the 2010-11 school year.

By the end of the day, the goal is to open up dialogue on a local and national level and bring back awareness to bullying. Change will not happen without support and action. Merging both the milestone of 100 days of school with 100 days of bullying will bring bullying back into the spotlight. Continue reading →

On Recovering My Mother Tongue: Speaking Spanish from the Bronx to México

26 January 2011

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During the first five years of my life, I grew up speaking both English and Spanish with my Puerto Rican family in the Bronx. Both languages reflected the kaleidoscope of my life at the time: I could switch easily from speaking English while romping around Randalls Island and the Williamsbridge playground to speaking Spanish while dancing salsa and merengue at my grandmother’s house in Parkchester.

Once we moved from the Bronx to Long Island in the early eighties, however, a critical shift happened. I was no longer in a community where Spanish was commonly spoken and on top of that, racist school counselors “advised” my mother not to speak Spanish to my brothers and me, in case it might “confuse” us. Respectful of school authorities, my mother obliged this narrow and misinformed demand.

This shift marked the beginning of being robbed of my mother tongue. I have been on a search to recapture it ever since. Continue reading →

Speaking: Educating Girls Conference at the Chapin School

3 January 2011

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Today I will be speaking at the Educating Girls conference sponsored by NYSAIS (New York State Association of Independent Schools) to be held at the all girls Chapin School. The title of my workshop is “Engaging Girls in Feminist Activism.”

I will begin the workshop with the following video highlighting some of the most exciting moments of my course Fierce and Fabulous: Feminist Women Writers, Artists, and Activists between the years 2008-10.

Continue reading →

Feminist Teacher Celebrates First Year Blogging

2 January 2011

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This weekend I’m celebrating the first year of founding and blogging at Feminist Teacher. When I created this blog, my goal was to carve out a space to share my work as a feminist high school teacher and for fellow feminist educators to find a space to talk about the role of feminism in schools. As part of celebrating my first year blogging, I’m taking a look back at 2010 and my work as a feminist educator-activist:

Top 10 Media Moments for Young Feminists at LREI in 2010

1 January 2011

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In just one trimester, the students in my feminism course launched their voices into their communities and the feminist blogosphere. Here, they hold copies of "Click: When We Knew We Were Feminists." (photo Ileana Jiménez)

This past fall, the students in my Fierce and Fabulous: Feminist Women Writers, Artists, and Activists course at the Little Red School House & Elisabeth Irwin High School (LREI) took the work we do in this class to a whole new level. They not only launched their feminist class blog F to the Third Power but also launched their voices as young high school feminists into their communities and the media.

I am particularly proud of the myriad ways in which these students have leveraged their feminist blogging and their work as activists to make an impact on the issues they care about such as street harassment, sexual assault and rape, the sexualization of girls and women in the media, and what it means to be a male ally. From blog posts to speaking engagements, my students are definitely becoming the inspiring voices of today’s feminist movement.

Below is a round-up of their top 10 moments in the spotlight:

1. In October, students launched their own feminist blog, F to the Third Power with tremendous help from Feministing bloggers, Chloe Angyal and Miriam Pérez.

2. Within weeks, Courtney Martin at Feministing quickly discovered my students’ blog. Shortly afterwards, Gabriela Resto-Montero from DNAinfo.com also wrote about my students’ blogging and their commitment to activism.

3. Cameron Diggs, a student in the feminism class, writes a guest blog post for Feministe about her award-winning human trafficking video.

4. When Emily May, Executive Director of Hollaback, which uses mobile technology to fight street harassment, visited my class, she invited students to share their personal testimonies on the Hollaback website. By invitation from May, my feminism student Grace Tobin testified at the November New York City Council hearing on street harassment and was later interviewed by CBS and the New York Post. She wrote a blog post about her experience doing both at F to the Third Power.

5. Street harassment activist and scholar, Holly Kearl, features Grace Tobin’s testimony on her important Stop Street Harassment site as well as links Grace’s blog post from F to the Third Power. Ms. Magazine blog also quotes Grace in a post about her testimony. Continue reading →

Video of Feminist Teacher and Students Speaking at TEDxYouth 2010

11 December 2010

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Several weeks ago, the students in my feminism class, Fierce and Fabulous: Feminist Women Writers, Artists, and Activists, spoke at TEDxYouth at the Hewitt School. We shared our various stories about how we found our feminist voice. The video of our talk has been picked up by nist.tv, one of my favorite new websites that features feminist videos.

During the first half of the talk, I shared stories about how I came to my feminism as a queer Latina high school and college student and later, as an educator. During the second half, the students told their powerful stories as well. Their stories range from launching a movement against the sexualization of girls in the media, to becoming a male feminist, to sharing one’s story about street harassment to impact policy. Set aside some time to listen to this next generation of young feminists. They are coming to change your world.

Young Feminists Speak Out at TEDxYouth

22 November 2010

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Students from my feminism class spoke at TEDxYouth at the Hewitt School (photo by Ileana Jiménez).

After much planning and rehearsing, half of the students in my Fierce and Fabulous: Feminist Women Writers, Artists, and Activists class and I finally got up on stage at TEDxYouth Day held at the Hewitt School in New York. The theme of this year’s TEDxYouth was “Be the Change,” and all talks were live-streamed globally. During our 16 minute talk, each of my students and I spoke about how we came to our feminist voice.

For two students, seniors Taylor Brando and Ian Tsang, their feminism emerges from watching the women in their families overcome challenges.

Brando said during her talk: “I came into my feminist voice by witnessing day in and day out the hardships the women in my family faced. They would constantly be put down or quieted, for no reason other than they were women. Most women in my family would try to get their voices heard, but nothing truly came of it. The biggest exception, however, is my mother. She always has been and always will be my main supporter. She is the one that showed me that women don’t need to be weak and defenseless. My mother is the whole reason I started working on feminism. Because of her, I want to help other women learn that they can be independent and speak their own minds. I want all women to be like my mother: independent and not afraid.” Continue reading →

SPARK Summit Inspired My Students to Launch a Movement

1 November 2010

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The recent SPARK Summit held at Hunter College inspired my students to launch a movement against the sexualization of  girls and women in the media. After watching a video made by the Women’s Media Center on the horrific ways in which girls and women are objectified by the media, students wanted to learn more about how they could be a part of the conversation too.

To prepare my students for the summit, I designed a series of workshops for them to participate in on issues such as media literacy, sexual assault, street harassment, and feminist blogging. Guest visitors from around the country came to my class to share their expertise, culminating in students creating their own feminist blog to be part of both the SPARK bloggers team at the summit and to use it as a platform for our classroom activism. Continue reading →

Distinguished Fulbright in Teaching Award to México

27 September 2010

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The 2010 Distinguished Fulbright in Teaching Award grantee cohort in Washington, D.C. (photo courtesy, AED)

Last spring, I wrote a series of posts on sabbaticals. After 14 years of teaching, I began thinking about the lack of resources that teachers have to engage in serious and innovative research. That’s when I decided to apply for the Distinguished Fulbright in Teaching Award. Much to my thrilled surprise, this past spring I received the award to go to México from January to July of 2011. Different from the longstanding Fulbright Teacher Exchange, which sends teachers to various countries throughout the world to teach their content area, the Distinguished Fulbright acknowledges that teachers are scholars.

The Distinguished Fulbright has three components. Once in their host country, educators are expected to 1) attend graduate level courses at a local university; 2) lead professional development workshops and conduct research at local schools; 3) complete a capstone project that merges their coursework and teacher research. Continue reading →

Summer of Feminista: Finding My Latina Feminism

3 September 2010

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Want to know the story of how I became a feminist?

Fellow feminist Latina blogger at Viva La Feminista, Veronica Arreola, is hosting an amazing series of guest posts this summer by Latinas and their relationship to feminism.  I answered Veronica’s call for submissions as an opportunity to share the story that changed my entire life.  Here’s an excerpt from my guest post titled Finding My Latina Feminism:

If it weren’t for some Irish white guy, I never would have become a feminist.

When I read James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man my senior year in high school, it changed my entire life.  Never before had I read a novel that spoke to me with such intensity.

The main character, Stephen Dedalus, was repeatedly teased and picked on the playground.  I was teased and picked on the playground with names like spic and nigger.

Here was a boy who wrote poetry hidden underneath the covers. I wrote poetry with big words that no one in my family understood.

Here was a boy who questioned the Catholic Church and went off to college to proclaim non serviam, or “I will not serve” the church, and instead became an artist, a writer, and a thinker. At 18, I also questioned the Catholic Church and went off to Smith to proclaim my own destiny as a queer feminist writer and thinker.

But while I read Joyce, I kept asking: Why isn’t this character a Puerto Rican girl living on Long Island via the Bronx in 1993? And why haven’t I ever read a book with a Latina protagonist who shares my story?

Read the rest of my post here and if you’re a fellow Latina feminist, consider participating!