Sit with your kids. Sit with your faculty. Sit with your class.
Watch this.
Talk about the role you play in letting this happen.
Talk about what you’re going to do to make it stop.
Sit with your kids. Sit with your faculty. Sit with your class.
Watch this.
Talk about the role you play in letting this happen.
Talk about what you’re going to do to make it stop.
Zac, thanks for sharing this. Powerful example of what technology and social media can do to give children a voice when they otherwise would not or would not feel as though they had one. I hope you've read the update to the post that Jonah posted very recently:
. Unfortunately and not surprisingly, the comments on the video show that we have a significant problem to overcome. What can we do? Exactly what you said: Sit with your kids. Sit with your faculty. Sit with your class.Watch this.Talk about the role you play in letting this happen.Talk about what you’re going to do to make it stop.
Update: Jonah posted yesterday (I read this this morning, so I'm not sure when “yesterday” is) to Facebook to say that in the four months since he filmed this video, he’s come out to his family and friends, his life has turned around, and he’s able to smile and laugh again. It’s inspiring to hear that some of the young people who had previously hurt his feelings have since apologized to him and are now his friends. Help spread the message to kids like Jonah that it does get better!
Actually, here's Jonah's update in his own words: To all my friends and supporters,I made this video 4 months ago just before school was about to start. I was 13. It was a very emotionally dark time in my life. I made the video at 4:00 am in the morning; I hadn't been sleeping at night for a long time, too many things going on in my head. I was dreading going back to school and I had not come out to my family yet. Only my closest friends knew. I didn't know how to say what I needed to say. All I could think about were all the bad things that had been happening at school last year, every year for that matter. I just couldn't bare to go through that anymore. I was done being fake happy, pretending hateful words didn't hurt, done hiding it from my family.So this video was made for my friends that had moved on to High School who were worried for me, to say to them that I was going to take a stand, and to the haters at my middle school that I'm not going anywhere. I am who I am. I posted the video here and told people were to find it. That was it. My friends were moved by the video and thought I did something important. I was encouraged to upload it to my Facebook page so more people could see it. Maybe it could help someone else going through the same thing. So I linked it Dec. 1st. My Parents saw it for the first time Dec, 2nd.Then….. all this happened. [over 7 million views to the video and over 328,000 comments]I never expected in a million years that it would have such a wonderful impact on so many people. I am truly humbled and truly thankful for all the love, encouragement and support from people all over the world. It's been incredibly overwhelming. I don't know what to say. Thank you so, so much!Lastly, yes you have seen me happy in a couple short videos replies I posted; I would think that would be a good thing , and yes I do have friends, my High School friends, and I have made friends because when I came out they realized that they had hurt me and that they fealt sorry. The video is real, and true.In the last few months everything eventually came out in the open, I felt a huge weight off my shoulders; I'm happy, I'm excepted for who I am, I'm more confident and feel stronger every day.Thank you all, Love and peace to all who are hurting.Jonah Mowry