Posted on 08/16/2005 10:27:28 AM PDT by upchuck
The Respect For All Project and the National Education Association have teamed up in an exciting partnership to create safe learning environments for all students, using the RFAP films Let's Get Real, That's a Family! and It's Elementary.
The Training Program on School Safety and Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Issues in Education, designed by the NEA and RFAP, will train 30 association members from across the country to conduct trainings to increase awareness of LGBT issues among teachers. The NEA estimates that the program will reach at least 5,000 educators during the 2005-2006 school year. The NEA's Health Information Network and the American Federation of Teachers are also partners in this new training program.
"The need to address prejudices in schools, including those against LGBT students, has always been great," said Dr. Kevin Kumashiro of the NEA Human and Civil Rights. "This training program will provide school personnel everywhere with access to valuable lesson plans and curriculum resources, helping to reduce school violence and increase student achievement. We are excited to be spearheading this important work."
Starting this fall, the Respect for All Project, in partnership with No Bully, a local anti-bullying intervention organization, is offering a new workshop for parents and guardians that uses Let's Get Real as a catalyst for dialogue.
Bringing together parents, guardians and school representatives to address bullying from a community perspective, the workshop helps parents strategize action steps to take with their children and the school to help ensure a physically and emotionally safe learning environment.
At a recent workshop in San Francisco, participants commented on the importance of the workshop in school safety. "The film got everyone talking about what is going on with our kids. The presenter was terrific in helping us get a community dialogue going - it's the first step we needed to really come together to make it safer here for our kids."
For more information about the parent/guardian workshops or to book a session, call 1-800-405-3322 or email us.
We have completed preliminary shooting for our new film Straightlaced (working title), about the pressures teenagers face to conform to gender roles. The film makes the connection between gender roles and homophobia and shows how anti-gay attitudes and behaviors play a role in all students' lives, regardless of sexual orientation. Straightlaced is designed to broaden awareness among teens and the adults who work with them about how anti-gay prejudice, and its link to rigid gender roles, takes a toll on everyone not just the LGBT population.
The film and an accompanying curriculum guide for educators will be distributed in 2006 to high schools across the country as part of the Respect For All Project's collection of diversity films.
Over the last 4 years, the Respect For All Project has trained nearly 4,000 educators around the country using our family diversity film That's a Family! and our anti-bullying film Let's Get Real.
It is conservatively estimated that 120,000 students have seen the films and engaged in discussion about diversity issues just as a result of our training program.
Entire schools, districts and counties have received training around our films either directly from RFAP trainers or from fellow staff members who have attended trainings.
The Cleveland International Film Festival awarded One Wedding and a Revolution the prize for Best Women's Short. It also won an award from the San Francisco State Women's Film Festival for Best Advocacy Film.
Let's Get Real, our powerful film about name-calling and bullying, has been awarded a Skipping Stones Honor Award, given to media resources that help educators develop multicultural awareness.
See a list of upcoming screenings for all our films.
One World in Schools, an organization that hosts film screenings and discussions around global human rights issues in Czech schools, has added That's a Family! to its collection of documentary films. 365 trained teachers will present the film at 250 schools around the Czech Republic.
Let's hear it for private schools and homeschooling!!
Crap like this will only leave to more Wars. This century will be no better than the last.
Caution: extremely gross and disgusting.
Of course! How else can they jam their perverted, twisted agenda down the parents' throats?
hear ! hear !
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