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November 1, 2004

Election Protection Training Tonight
Tonight, Monday, November 1, from 6:00-8:00 pm (REQUIRED)
Meeting held at: 5818 N. 7th Street (South of Bethany Home Road) IBEW Hall

People for the American Way Foundation and all of the other 60 local and national non-profit, non-partisan Election Protection 2004 collaborating organizations are seeking your help on Election Day November 2!

As part of the Election Protection, we are still seeking primarily Bilingual Volunteer Poll Monitors to be on the lookout for voter intimidation and suppression tactics in South and West Phoenix communities on Election Day. We currently have over 450 volunteers who are flying into Arizona from across the country to help support our cause! However, we still need more Bilingual volunteers to help protect our Spanish speaking community!

Poll Monitors will be trained to answer common questions from voters, hand out copies of the Arizona Voters Bill of Rights, in English and Spanish, and serve as a resource for voters should they have any problems. Additionally, poll monitors will be equipped with cell phones ready to put voters in touch with attorneys through the 1-866-OUR VOTE hotline to deal with more serious questions or problems. This number is open to ANYBODY who has questions, or feels their rights are being violated now, or on election day!

Please RSVP if you are interested in volunteering and attending one of our training sessions by calling the office at (602) 263-4855 or by sending me an email at jpearl@pfaw.org.

With your help we can keep Arizona from becoming 2000's Florida!
Janey Pearl
Election Protection
Volunteer Coordinator
(602) 263-4855
www.electionprotection2004.org

Movie Night with Filmmaker "Laramie Inside Out" - November 4
"LARAMIE INSIDE OUT"
A Documentary Film by Beverly Seckinger
7:30 pm Thursday, NOVEMBER 4, 2004 CLCC 110
Everyone is invited!

In October 1998, Wyoming college student Matthew Shepard was brutally beaten and left to die. His shocking murder pushed Laramie into the media spotlight and sparked a nationwide debate about homophobia, gay-bashing, and hate crimes. Filmmaker Beverly Seckinger, a Laramie native, returns home to the site of her own
closeted adolescence to investigate the impact of Shepard's murder. She encounters students, teachers, parents, and clergy suddenly moved to speak out and take social action. An inspiring story of personal
discovery and the meaning of community.

"An important addition to the narratives that help us understand what happened to Matthew Shepard, why it happened and how that community was affected by the crime." ---Moises Kaufman, Screenwriter/Director, HBOs The Laramie Project

"A must-see for all people seeking a higher spiritual place in their lives. We must be reminded that change in the world begins with change in ourselves." ---Rev. Patrick Stout, Community Church of Hope

"With warmth, humor, and insight, Bev Seckinger gives us a vision of Laramie that few have imagined. A lovely, loving testament." ---Beth Loffreda, Author, Losing Matt Shepard: Life and Politics in the Aftermath of Anti- Gay Murder

"Demonstrates how grace and honesty can overcome bigotry and fear in the aftermath of great tragedy." ---Cathy Renna, Former News Media Director, Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation

*Best of Arizona award, Arizona International Film Festival
*San Francisco, Seattle & Tucson Lesbian & Gay Film Festivals
*Amnesty International Film Festival
*Hamburg Lesbian & Gay Film Festival

The filmmaker will be present to entertain discussion!
Beverly Seckinger is Associate Professor of Media Arts at the University of Arizona. Her work has been screened at international festivals around the world. Her videotapes include Mommie Queerest (1997), a comic short about mother/daughter conflicts over gender socialization; Bottoms Up (1996) and Alice Unplugged (1996). In 2002, Seckinger received a Media Arts Fellowship from the Arizona Commission on the Arts.

Sponsors: Spectrum http://www.west.asu.edu/spectrumclub/
and the Departments of Social & Behavioral Sciences,
Women’s Studies, and Interdisciplinary Arts & Performance

Transgender Day of Remembrance
There will be a transgender vigil held on November 20th at Encanto Park from 5:30-6:30 pm. Contact Ruth Grove (rgrove2468@aol.com) for more information.

GLSEN has supported Gender Education & Advocacy's (GEA) Transgender Day of Remembrance over the past several years, encouraging students, student clubs and GLSEN chapters to remember the transgender people who have been murdered, and educate communities about ending violence based on gender identity/expression. With an official partnership this year, GLSEN hopes Transgender Day of Remembrance can be used to create events that are spaces for discussions about the need to protect students against discrimination and harassment based on gender identity/expression.

From a candle light vigil, school assembly, art instillation or transgender inclusive school training, students will be encouraged to participate during the week of November 15-19 in their schools.

Support Transgender Day of Remembrance
www.dayofsilence.org/tdr/

Register your GSA club online with GLSEN at www.dayofsilence.org/cgi-local/tdrsignup.pl

For more information and resources on Transgender Day of Remembrance and other Days of Action please visit www.dayofsilence.org/tdr/

ASU Conference of Education November 19 & 20
ASU and its Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics sponsors free one-and-a-half day conference entitled: “Whose Children: Ethics, Education, and Collective Responsibility.” We’ve gathered together wonderful panels and speakers to address what we, as educators, can do to make for a more ethical teaching practice and better world for our children.

Highlights of the Conference:

The speakers include

Governor Janet Napolitano,

Thomas Wartenberg (who will speak on teaching philosophy for children),

Cameron McCarthy (who will speak on a global way of thinking about children and education).

Panels will address the whole range of education possibilities from urban education reform, media and education, higher education, ethical research practice for improving education, and more.

A Town Hall at the end of the day will bring together the presenters from the day to discuss with the audience what we have learned about children and collective responsibility in education.

I hope you will be able to join us Friday, November 19 (4-6) and Saturday, November 20 (8-5) upstairs at the Memorial Union on the ASU-Tempe campus. On Friday light refreshments will be served and on Saturday there will be a light continental breakfast, break foods mid-morning and mid-afternoon, and light refreshments at the end of the day.

Additionally, there will be free lunch served to 200 people at which Dr. Wartenberg will discuss his philosophy for children program, including excerpts from a video of children doing philosophy in school.

In order to register your intention to attend

Please go to our website (to be available soon at the College of Education website, http://coe.asu.edu/)

Click to a registration form. If interested in the lunch, please indicate on the form (attendees will be chosen by lottery so be sure to include your best e-mail address to be contacted),

Register in order to indicate your intention to attend.

Donald Blumenfeld-Jones
Lincoln Associate Professor of Ethics and Education
Arizona State University
Vice-President, AERA, Division B (Curriculum Studies)

No Name Calling Week - January 24-28, 2005
No Name-Calling Week is an annual week of educational activities aimed at ending name-calling of all kinds and providing schools with the tools and inspiration to launch an on-going dialogue about ways to eliminate bullying in their communities. For more information about No Name-Calling Week sponsors, a list of events planned, or the No Name-Calling Week resource kit for educators, please continue to visit www.nonamecallingweek.org

During the week of January 24-28, 2005, hundreds of middle schools from across the country will take part in a week of educational activities aimed at ending name-calling and verbal bullying of all kinds. Although schools are encouraged to take part during the third week in January, educators can incorporate the No Name-Calling Week curriculum, principles and resources at any time throughout the school year.

“We received feedback that confirmed for us and the coalition the importance of No Name-Calling Week to middle and elementary schools across the country,” said a national spokesperson for the No Name-Calling Week Coalition, Kevin Jennings. “This year we moved the dates to the third week in January based on educators’ comments that they wanted to benefit from the positive effects of No Name-Calling Week for more of the school year.”

No Name-Calling Week seeks to draw national attention to the problem of name-calling in schools and to provide students and educators with the tools and inspiration to launch an on-going dialogue about ways to eliminate name-calling in their communities. The project was inspired by The Misfits, a book written by popular author James Howe and published by Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing. Educators can purchase a resource guide with lesson plans, a video for classroom use and other promotional materials to assist in facilitating the week’s activities.

With over 3,000 educators, administrators, parents or students registered, and over 600 schools across the country reporting their participation, No Name-Calling Week 2004 was a tremendous success. Many teachers conducted bullying surveys in their schools (a resource available on the NNCW website). Results indicated that students reported a significant decrease in the amount of bullying and harassment in school after taking part in the activities.

Students, in their own words, also had an opportunity to discuss the impact No Name-Calling Week made in their schools and their lives. Students from the Merill Middle School in Des Moines, which submitted the Grand Prize-winning entry in the No Name-Calling Week lesson plan contest, said:


“You gave me a new ambition, to go out into the hallways and stop people that bully others and make people with few friends feel like I can be a friend to them. Especially if they are big picking on the little.”
“We’ve grown from this bullying unit so much. My friends and I are more careful about what we say and how we treat others. Since this unit, we’ve learned that what we say about people hurts them more than we think it does...No one deserves to get made fun of!”

“This motivated me to befriend someone who looks left out.”

For this year’s No Name-Calling Week events, the list of sponsoring organization has grown to include such groups as the National Education Association and Educators for Social Justice.

You'll find updates and free educator resources, and learn how to order the No Name-Calling Week Kit for schools (including a guide with eleven lesson plans, a video, a copy of the book The Misfits, and promotional materials).

School's Remarks on Bullying: Lack of Understanding


VIRGINIA (November 1, 2004) GenderPAC today criticizes comments made by Loudoun County, VA School Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio (R), who announced last week that he believes Sterling Middle School’s anti-bullying efforts should exclude mention of sexual orientation, adding that any anti-bullying program is a “politically correct” tool of “special-interest lobbies" that wastes school time and money.

“These remarks show a complete ignorance about the severity of school bullying. An estimated 8,100 Loudoun County students will be bullied this year, many taunted with anti-gay epithets,” said GenderPAC Executive Director Riki Wilchins . “Anti-gay epithets aren't just about sexual orientation, but about enforcing school yard codes of masculinity through public humiliation and intimidation."

Delgaudio’s remarks were prompted by a parent survey on bullying introduced by the school which included questions regarding sexual orientation-based harassment. Delgaudio wrote a letter to the School Board and the media claiming middle-school children are too young to be introduced to the concept of sexual orientation, even though the survey was only for parents. In his letter, he further commented, “I don’t consider simply ‘talking’ about a child’s perceived sexual orientation to be bullying.”

A recent survey by masculinities expert Michael Kimmel showed that over 90% of recent school shootings involved young boys who were mercilessly taunted, picked-on and threatened with anti-gay epithets -- not because they were gay -- but because they were seen as artistic, quiet, shy, or simply different.

"School bullying and violence are serious issues, and anything that can help prevent the next attack or the next school shooting is worth investing school time and money," added Wilchins.

GenderPAC's GenderYOUTH Network empowers college students to work with local high school youth who may be targeted for bullying and harassment because they don't live up to gender stereotypes.