Safe for a change

GLSEN's classic "safe space" sticker

I was struck by Gerri August's description of "integration" (Safe Spaces p 90) of topics of gender and sexuality into curricula for our students, which helped a lightbulb go off in my head. I even wondered if August had a hand in helping craft this syllabus, as a professor at RIC who teaches several courses similar to ours! She masterfully invoked many of the authors we've read so far: the "noncritical allegiance to traditional perspectives" August critiques is reminiscent of Freire's push for critical consciousness. The "path of least resistance" she highlights reminds me of the ways in which Delpit calls out well-intentioned progressive white educators for being either unwilling or unable to take on the difficult task of changing how they teach to pass along cultural codes of power. The invocation of "integration" (as opposed to adding new curricular elements wholesale) is akin to Finn's discussion of the Hidden Curriculum. And the comment that, "Heterosexism is one of those unexamined avenues of privilege" (84) takes us back to the first reading of the course - Johnson's - and the silence that stalls out our ability to act on all of the -isms.

The article struck a particular chord with me because it was so relevant to contemporary debates around safe spaces on campuses. At a time when some student groups and administrators are pushing for more safe spaces, others argue that such spaces are serving only to coddle young adults and kill open debate. For example, one article called us a "nation of whiners and softies," while "Social Justice Whiners" actually have their own Pinterest page.

My own experiences in the classroom have helped show me the power of safe spaces, and of their absence. I've witnessed students get straight A's but fail the one class where they feel the teacher is hostile to their identity. I've seen kids who never make it to the college-led "safe spaces" referenced above, since they come to view academic life as inhospitable; I've had students tell me vloggers create a space more conducive to curiosity and learning than school. In my own classes, as I've struggled to incorporate the nuances of creating a safe environment, I've seen how some of the most powerful voices during intellectual discussions can sometimes come from the students who raise their voices the least, and all too often because they fear how their honest words will be interpreted given the host of nonverbal cues that August discusses. Her chapter, and GLSEN's resources, were a welcome addition to my toolkit.

But I have yet to explain what I meant when I said that August helped a lightbulb go off in my head! I am sensitive to worries about silencing open dialogue, particularly on university campuses (I just think that this open dialogue and safe spaces aren't in the kind of head-to-head confrontation that some conservatives portray). What is the real value of safe spaces, then? "While it might seem to be the safest and least political of all curriculum units," August writes, "the study of family can either reinforce or interrupt heteronormative beliefs and attitudes" (85). In other words, though family norms may seem apolitical, they are actually far from it. I instantly thought of the following quotation from Audre Lorde:

That image hangs on my desk at school. A student asked me about it today, trying to understand what it meant. We had a good talk. And then it dawned on me: in schools, we work with kids who - by definition - don't yet have the resources that adults have to care for themselves. Kids need others to care for them. And in this context, what safe spaces do is they help young people get the care that they need. This is not self-indulgence. This is self-preservation, and it has the potential to dramatically alter the political reality in which we live - to build greater tolerance into our social fabric.