Almaden Resident

Education

Day of Silence at Pioneer meant to make all aware of harassment

By Anne Gelhaus

Participants in Pioneer High School's Day of Silence found not speaking can be a great way to start a conversation.

The goal of the May 17 event was to bring attention to on-campus harassment of students based on their actual or perceived sexual orientation. To represent gays, lesbians and bisexuals who have felt pressured to hide their true identities, dozens of students communicated only in writing, and hundreds of others wore buttons declaring their alliance with their temporarily mute peers.

"It does a lot to create awareness," said social studies teacher Peter Glasser, faculty adviser to Pioneer's Gay Straight Alliance (GSA). "Everyone wants to create an environment where all students feel safe. When gay students see a significant population of the high school sending the message that they're not going to tolerate intolerance, it helps build a strong community."

The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network wanted to get this message out when it organized the first National Day of Silence 10 years ago. This year about 500,000 students from 4,000 schools nationwide took a vow of silence on April 26.

Members of Pioneer's GSA participated in last year's national event but were unable to do so this year because of the school's testing schedule. Undeterred, GSA officers Akasha Perez, Seth Winkenwerder and Shira Straus decided to stage their own Day of Silence last month as part of a week's worth of events at Pioneer focusing on tolerance.

While Pioneer is already a "very, very tolerant campus," Shira said, the idea behind the Day of Silence was to help make sure it stays that way.

"We want to keep the Pioneer campus open to other sexual orientations," added the 16-year-old junior.

Shira said a lot of people asked her why she wasn't talking.

"The fact that we had to communicate using notebooks made people aware," she added. "It was a little inconvenient during class, but generally people were fine with it."

Her fellow GSA officers ran into some resistance from their choir director, who wasn't happy when Akasha and Seth lip-synced instead of singing during rehearsal.

Shira said she plans to continue her involvement in Pioneer's GSA as a senior and hopes other students will take up the mantle after she graduates.

"We've been struggling with low membership all year," she said. "We'd like [the GSA] to be a resource for students to learn about their identities and how to deal with issues that might come up because of who they are."