Student Saturday: Education, Youth, and Body Image

From the BB:

            As a recent graduate certified in 9-12 English, my life has gone through many changes in the past few months. Many of those changes center around my increased experiences with young adults during student teaching, and the opportunity to make a difference in their lives. I don’t say that generically, either—making a difference in a young adult’s life is not Stand and Deliver or The Dead Poet’s Society; It’s the little things, like writing “me too!” on my students’ personal writing about body image. It’s the smile and encouragement I give to these students to reassure them of their intelligence and value. It’s those moments in which I realize that they are influencing me too--It’s the feeling I get when I want to run up and hug all of the beautiful fat young adult women who go to high school everyday with peers that judge them.

The point is, if you are an adult in a young woman’s life, and that young woman is fat, then you should take every opportunity to reassure her of her value and worth—not just besides, but including, her body. Don’t tell her she isn’t fat; don’t tell her that she would be good looking if she weren’t fat; don’t even tell her that she is beautiful DESPITE her fat. Tell her she is BEAUTIFUL and FAT and that FAT is BEAUTIFUL. She hears that fat is ugly from everyone her age, whose opinions she takes to heart, quite enough. Change her mind while you change your own—that is one of the greatest lessons I learned and tried to teach during student teaching.

Now, although the above points are very serious, true, and slightly sentimental, I must include a quote from a favorite young adult novel, An Abundance of Katherines, by the excellent YA author John Green. The quote is about the importance of fat solidarity, being a fat ally, etc…which is really what my post is about!

A main character from the novel, Hassan, on why fat people have each others' backs:

“We’ve got all kinds of shit you [skinny people] don’t know about. Handshakes, special fat people dances—we’ve got these secret fugging lairs in the center of the earth and we go down there in the middle of the night when all of the skinny kids are sleeping and eat cake” (Green).

Thus, my advice to the reader is as follows: Go out and be someone that a fat girl can eat cake with (with no judgment)! She will appreciate you for it ;)

From the WW:

While I had similar experiences to the lovely BB involving young women during my student teaching, what I really want to focus on for my portion of this Student Saturday is the power of young people.  We’ll eventually arrive at my point.  Some of you may have heard of the protests held by students at a high school in Seattle, but for those of you who haven’t, here’s a link: http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/2013/12/20/catholic-students-in-protest-rally-at-archdiocese/#19056103=0&19103101=0

For those of you who don’t want to read an article, here’s the summary according to WW.  Students at this high school are protesting the forced resignation of their recently married gay Vice-Principal.  With shouts of “Change the Church,” these students are showing that just because something is widely accepted doesn’t mean it is right.

I don’t pretend to be an expert on religion and I really don’t know a lot about Catholicism.  What I do know, however,  is that the Church is often stubbornly traditional.  However, the new Pope has shown the public that change is possible within the Church.  I have high hopes for these young people who have seen something that needs changing.

During my student teaching, I had the privilege to view the power of young people up close.  The beautiful and amazing ideas they have about important issues in the world and in their daily lives are stunning.  Yeah, sometimes it was a lot of yolo and swag, but that’s not all of it.   I think it is vital to take a moment and realize that the potential is there, but when students are more focused on issues that should not be important, like body image, the potential is often stuck behind a wall of insecurity.  Told you this was going somewhere!

From personal experience as a high school student, I remember not participating because I didn’t want people to look at me.  If they looked at me, they would be reminded of my fat body.  Unfortunately, I saw the same thing happening in my classroom when I was student teaching. 

So what can educators do about this? Students use fat as an insult regularly.  It is basically the final frontier in insults that are acceptable for us in front of teachers because adults still use it, too.  We are bombarded with Fat as an insult everywhere, to the point where it seems like no one thinks it is that bad anymore.  I think if more teachers took a stand (and I guess this goes for everyone, not just teachers) and begged the question, “Is it so bad to be a different size?” then perhaps students will think twice. Even if that doesn’t happen, it will show your students of size that you are accepting and value them as individuals.  I used this in my own student teaching and it was fairly successful.  If I had more time in the school, I think I would have seen an even greater improvement. 

When we have the power to unlock the potential in students, why not do whatever we can do break down that wall?