#7: Winding Up For The Pitch
- I plan to hook the audience by playing the last voice over in Breaking Binary which poses the question “what are we going to do?”. The small monologue ends with the phrase “Make the world a better place and break the binary.” This call to action leaves a great jumping off place to explore next steps.
- What’s the Story?
- The main conflict within the issue is general lack of understanding around gender and gender queer identities. This lack of understanding is especially harmful in the context of schooling communities. As young people, we do a huge chunk of our identity formation under the careful eye of our primary and secondary educators. When educators aren’t adequately aware of the array of identities which are being formed, they can be unknowingly harm students.
- This year, Breaking Binary may look at the presence (or lack thereof) of gender/sexuality education in schools and the general climate of the schools surrounding. This being said, any ideas around this topic are totally welcome. There are about a million different routes we could take to focus on issues surrounding non-binary-ness and they’re all amazing and exciting. Outside of the film, we may do teacher training workshops to help educate our educators about the issue. Breaking Binary has lots of momentum in the community and there are so many opportunities for creating real change. As of now, we are scheduled to lead a workshop around gender binaries and activism at Sharon Academy in January.
- Presentation: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1754hNEZ1fO7Ha-eswNzLUqTsE21irtAP-jJrJN3ecz4/edit?usp=sharing
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Eva–
I love your opening approach– that is, to return to the ending of your first video. And you make an obvious, but good, point: there is A LOT to be learned around gender identity in schools. You then asked for suggestions. I think an interesting approach might be to look at the HUGE discrepancy of gender education in our schools. For instance, Sharon Academy is obviously trying to stay current, but what about my school, where there has been literally NO discussion about this? What is happening in elementary schools? And at schools where nothing is happening, what are the consequences of that? What is the school climate around the issue of gender at schools where nothing is being discussed?
Juxtaposing a proactive school community with a passive school community could be a very interesting approach.
Let me know if you have questions or comments, and we can start a discussion.
Ben-
You definitely put into words what I haven’t been able to for some time. YES- lets look at what schools are and aren’t doing, model schools, having teachers set goals, etc. What school are you at? I’d love to do some direct stuff there….
Thanks