Another moment where I realized
this is when we were discussing gender a few days ago. In the middle of talking
about how women are treated differently in society, and the multiple masks that
many must wear as workers, mothers, girls, women, etc., one girl starts telling
a story about her weekend. She is talking about how she met this guy, and “He
was like ‘Damn girl, you lookin’ good’” repeatedly. She said she was offended,
but then she realized he was someone important (I think a rapper?), and she was
excited. I asked her if this is something that should offend her, and she said
“No, I liked it”. After this, I made them go back to the exercise we were
doing, looking at the portrayal of women in magazines, and they snapped back
into talking about how bad it was that all of the women have their boobs
hanging out.

 

High school students
get it:

When
discussing how to get results from our actions, the girls were so quick to
recognize that it is collective action that works. Many of them have
experienced walk-outs and other direct action against the reorganization of DC
public schools in the past few years, so they get this. They realized that if
one person walks out, they get detention, but if everyone walks out, they gain
power. They also were able to connect this to workers in factories, or to
consumer boycotts. I was impressed with them.

The
students also realize how to effectively communicate. After a few weeks of struggling
to gather the girls up every time we went into the school, we talked to them
about what they thought was the best way to reach them. Without hesitation,
they said that text message is the best way. We had been emailing them, but the
text messages seemed to do the trick. The girls who had working phones were
punctual and responsive when texts were used as reminders. I guess this is
something that the Obama campaign has already realized, but regardless, I was
taught a lesson that day.

 

High school history
is disheartening:

There are a
few topics that we have discussed throughout our time at Bell that I was so surprised the girls did
not recognize. First was the topic of labor unions. It is my feeling that these
girls had either never heard the word or had never been taught about unions in
a way that would make it stick. The general content or span of their history
knowledge is also surprising. Some girls, maybe ones who are older or have had
special placement in classes, have taken classes such as Constitutional Law,
but others do not have knowledge of major aspects of history, such as the
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.

One thing
that really got to me was that the girls (none of them!) had ever heard the
word “feminist”! I am only a few years older than these girls, and am well
familiar with the term. Is this term going out of style or out of use? When I
started to explain the history of feminism to them, one girl said “Isn’t that
those groups that hate men?” While I know that this response is quite typical,
this conversation taught me the need for some serious transformation of
educational content. There needs to be a more prominent progressive voice
speaking to these students.

 

While these
lessons may seem a bit sarcastic, I have really enjoyed the girls at Bell. I am amazed at the
way that they respect each other’s beliefs regardless of their different
opinions or experiences. I am also happy with the progress that they have made.
I was speaking to one of the girls a few days ago, and she was telling me how
she went shopping and bought this new pair of jeans that she was wearing. I
asked her if she knew where they were made and she said “Yep, Indonesia.” I
was impressed, and asked if it mattered that they were from there. She said “Well,
I need to buy clothes, but at least now I think about it.” I guess that is the
most we can expect.