Making Connections and Making an Impact

By Emmalinda MacLean, Director of Curriculum and Instruction

I love what I do. I’m grateful every day to have meaningful work that I know benefits young people, even when it’s hard. Sometimes it can be challenging to have such a short amount of time with a class; relationship building is immeasurably valuable to education, and we often don’t get to know the students the same way their regular teachers do. But it’s beautiful to see the impact we can have, even with just a few sessions, and to know that those messages will last for years—even decades—after we’ve left their campus. Here’s a short list of some recent highlights from the classroom:

• A 6th grade girl shared with us that she hadn’t known about the clitoris, and that it can get bigger. She had been terrified that she was “turning into a boy”, and we were able to reassure her that there was nothing wrong with her body and what was happening was perfectly normal.

• At another school, we discussed gender stereotypes with first graders and asked them whether different toys were “for boys”, “for girls”, or “for everyone”. The class agreed that trucks and dolls and sports equipment and a play kitchen were all for everyone, but there was some disagreement about “dressing up like a princess”. A boy insisted that HE didn’t want to play princess, and I reassured him that that was ok; “It would be pretty mean for me to MAKE you wear a princess dress if you didn’t want to, wouldn’t it?” He nodded. “Would it also be mean to tell someone they COULDN’T wear a princess dress if they DID want to?” and he thought about it, and agreed that that was fair. So we all agreed that playing princesses is for everyone who wants to.

• Revisiting a school year after year is when we really get to see how we’ve affected our students. Recently I was at a client school we’ve been working with for a long time, where we run programs at the 7th and 9th grade levels. Two years ago, all of their lessons were over Zoom, so their 9th graders are getting More Than Sex-Ed classes in person for the first time. At the beginning of the class I introduced myself and a bunch of them started shouting “oh my God! We remember you from 7th grade, you were on the computer but now you’re HERE! You’re like a CELEBRITY!” I absolutely melted. It was the best.

So even when the work is hard, even when we’re tired and stressed, I know we’re making a difference in our students’ lives. Sometimes, we’re lucky enough that they even tell us so.