For 10 years,
high school students across the nation have been taking
part in the Day of Silence. They hold their tongues to raise
awareness about the struggles faced by gays and
lesbians, and they learn a little something about
their fellow students.
As I began
planning for the 2006 National Day of Silence, I did so with
caution. This year in my school we took every measure
possible to ensure students would be comfortable and
safe during their participation. Despite our caution,
we also planned out quiet protest with great
enthusiasm. As a student leader for the Gay, Lesbian &
Straight Education Network, which founded the Day of
Silence, I was excited about the activities that I was
a part of organizing, both in my school and beyond. It
turns out that excitement is contagious.
The Day of
Silence, now in its 10th year, is the largest student-led
silent protest in history. It has become one of the most
productive and effective means the LGBT community has
established for creating change in American schools.
While it is only one day a year, the Day of Silence,
during which LGBT students and their allies remain silent to
raise awareness about gay issues, is an invaluable
factor in a much larger effort in the safer schools
movement, and it often opens the door for discussion
and change in even the smallest schools. My school of
roughly 700 in is a great example. I’d like to
offer you a unique perspective on the Day of Silence,
and I’d like to invite you to share in my experience
as an active participant in an amazing day of silent
protest.
The Day of
Silence starts just as any other day in my high school in
Havre de Grace, Md. But it is oddly quiet throughout the
school. Despite the fact that hundreds of students
have chosen not to be involved in the Day of Silence,
the silence of participants somehow echoes. We wear red
shirts, many of us wear stickers, and we all hand out papers
called speaking cards, which will be our only form of
communication during our vow of silence.
.jpg "Day of Silence poster (large) | Advocate.com")
Jessie Liberatore is appearing in this ad from the
Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network, which
is running in the Washington Post on the Day
of Silence. Liberatore and other GLSEN leaders are
in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday to release the
2005 National School Climate Survey at a National Press
Club event.
The school day
begins in homeroom, where our attendance is taken and
school announcements are made. In some classes teachers give
short speeches about the Day of Silence to their
students. They tolerate discussions and many even
engage in the conversation before beginning their
day’s lesson. This open dialogue about LGBT students
is an important component of the Day of Silence. But
the major effects of the Day of Silence are not found
in the classroom. They are found by leaving the quiet
of the class and entering the cramped corridors of our
school.
We all have
commonalities, and yet we are somehow intensely different.
In walking among my classmates, participants and
nonparticipants alike, I see how our differences are
magnified. We are in search of the common ground that
we have abandoned today; as friends see friends in red, as
acquaintances question our silence, and as teachers watch
the interactions of their pupils, we find ourselves
faced with a daunting responsibility—to
educate.
We educate
through our participation in the Day of Silence, and in
return we learn as much as we teach. Perhaps one of
the most valuable means of learning is through
example. Our silent message is the loudest one we
offer. I have learned that no matter how reasonable, no
matter how kind, and no matter how right the words
that I speak may be, there will always be the option
for those who do not want to believe in what I say to
disregard my opinions. In turn, I have learned that not just
our words truly speak for us; rather, our actions
speak for us. The things that we do will convey the
most about who we are and what we believe in. It is
difficult for people who know us to ignore our actions; it
is always harder to discount someone as a person than
it is to disregard their words and thought.
During my final
class change on the Day of Silence last year, I was
walking through the halls when suddenly I heard a boy I knew
ask his friend, “Aren’t you ashamed to
be participating?” I was considering breaking
my vow of silence when a girl turned around to face him, and
as she looked him squarely in the eyes, she asked,
“Aren’t you ashamed that you’re
not?” She did not preach to him and did not tell him
he was wrong, but by asking a single question and then
walking away, she forced him to assess the actions of
the Day of Silence participants. This boy heard no
speeches on the Day of Silence, but because of one question
and the actions of 50 people whose names he knew and
whom he had grown up with, he apologized to me, his
friend, and the girl who had asked him if he was
ashamed. This year, though he will not be taking a vow of
silence, he will be wearing a red T-shirt on the Day
of Silence. Clearly, he’s moving in the right
direction. I’m just proud to have been a part of it.
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Liberatore is 17 and a member of GLSEN’s
Jump-Start National Student Leadership Team.