Jon Galanis: Today, we prepped some kind of more personally reflective questions.

Arria Coburn: Because our school is willing to engage in courageous conversations, we are willing to honor the voice of the students in front of us.

Jon Galanis: Do you think you’ve been taught a role based on your sex?

Student: How do these lenses affect how you view yourself?

Jon Galanis: We’re trying to share authentic experiences around these questions.

Arria Coburn: When students are adding to the conversation, they’re feeling validated that their voice matters.

Student: I can see the effects of social media.

Teacher: I can discuss whether or not Confederate monuments should be removed by listening to my peers and using evidence.

Arria Coburn: At the Springfield Renaissance School, we build in intentional time for us to have an open dialogue with students about events that may not exist in the textbook. There are events happening outside of our building that trickle into our building, and we can’t ignore it. Adults have to be able to have those courageous conversations. And that means that you have to be in a place where you understand how to navigate through that.

Student: I want to disagree with a lot of you saying that they’re bad.

Arria Coburn: I came in very nervous to engage in conversations about race and equity. And so, I think acknowledging that that’s okay, it is okay to be uncomfortable when you’re having a courageous conversation, because that’s part of the growth and learning.

Jon Galanis: I always think about the big picture. And I’m, like, so what can I do in my life to try and make the world more equitable?

We use discussion as an evaluation of students’ understanding of specific content. So in this case, the daily learning target was ‘I can discuss the motivations behind the women’s movement and consider connections to my own life.’

Brian: To prepare for the conversation, we had a document written in the nineteen-hundreds called The Feminine Mystique about desire for women to do something more than just be a homemaker or housewife.

Jon Galanis: In order to have a good discussion, you need to have students who are willing to get beyond just sort of the surface level of things.

Student: If my grandpa says my cup’s empty, she has to go and fill it.

Jon Galanis: Getting them to talk about their families, their own biases, their own experiences. It can be hard enough to get a teenager to engage in a conversation. You’re adding a huge roadblock if you’re not giving them some very structured time ahead to really plan out what they’re going to say.

Student: But you could tell there are a lot of things that she wanted to do that she couldn’t because she had to take care of us–

Brian: Mr. Galanis is one of those teachers that likes to connect everything back to current events. So by looking at how the feminist movement started in the nineteen-hundreds and eighteen hundreds, we’re connecting that back to how the feminist movements have changed from then to now.

Adia: He makes it known that you are close to this history. You still have to interact with this daily based on the structures that we see in our nation. He makes us– want us to be aware of ourselves and each other. And I think he creates a culture where we don’t have the option to opt out.

Jon Galanis: So last night, I put my daughter to bed. I came down and sat on the couch, and I was sitting there, and I was thinking. And I was, like, all right. I’m going to do the work just like the students do. So I started talking to my wife.

The questions, they were personal. So it gave me an in to be able to share some things about my own life.

So there’s kind of some built-in inequity in my home in terms of career.

Especially being a male teacher teaching this content, being a white teacher in a school that’s predominantly students of color, any time that I can bring my own humanity into it, I feel is important for modeling for them.

Maybe I need to be a little bit more small-scale, microcosm, and think about my own life and think about how these things play out there.

Adia: Mr. Galanis, he’s trying to change other people’s lives by examining his very thoroughly. And so, I feel like those are just things that he demonstrates in his classroom.

Jon Galanis: So that’s something that I hope to get better at.

Brian: I was listening very closely to everyone’s point of views.

Student: Women began to own their sexuality. It was something that they had that men couldn’t have.

Brian: Hearing other people’s stories really opens an eye to see what it’s like for other people.

Student: Women have been more sexualized openly, I think, today.

Student: I disagree with that because I think that’s going back to putting girls into their gender roles. And I think–

Jon Galanis: Especially in education, as a teacher, we have these insecurities about either talking about certain issues, being worried, like, well, if I say this, then how are the kids going to react? How are the parents going to react? How is the principal going to react? So when you’re letting yourself have conversations with your students that are hard, are conversations that people don’t typically have, I feel like that brings a real shift to the kids, a real shift in consciousness.

Student: It makes me feel so grateful for our generation, to be able to move past that and understand that there are people that are completely different.

Schools That Work

The Springfield Renaissance School