Say Something

Hello!

My favorite times in my classroom are the "teachable moments" that arise more often than one might think. It is in these moments when the planned lesson stops due to a comment I hear or an issue that I see. After a statement during my first year of teaching about how students are unable to stop bullying, I took the opportunity to talk about the unnerving trend that I see with kids and adults alike: the silent witness.

Unfortunately, there will always be evil and ignorance in the world. To try to stop each instance of this would be almost impossible. What concerns me the most are the times when people see cases of others treating another person in an unkind manner and say nothing. This is the silent witness. I once watched an Oprah episode with the Little Rock Nine. Not only were all the students back, but Oprah brought white students who were classmates of the original integrators. One of the white students, now a middle aged man, felt an extreme amount of guilt, not for bullying the Little Rock Nine or being violent, but because he watched it and said absolutely nothing.

We humans have the obligation to stand up and speak out against any who are mistreating others. To not say anything puts us in the same category as the bully. I know there are the thoughts, "It is none of my business. I don't want to get involved." Human kindness is all of our business. No person should be verbally or physically abused for any reason whatsoever. It takes one person to step up and do the right thing. Just one. Others will follow. Will ignorance and evil ever be stopped? Probably not, but, collectively, we can make a difference.

Staying silent is never the way to go. Staying silent may not seem like that big of a deal, but historically, it has been the catalyst to horrors like slavery, the Holocaust, sexism, etc. Speak up. One person can make more of a difference that you might think.

Go do good things,

BT