IF YOU ARE GAY ❧❧ HUMANE HUMANS WANTED TO STEP UP

For help (the help contact information is copied and pasted here from The Trevor Project website)
thetrevorproject.org 1-866-4-U-Trevor 1-866-488-7386

The Trevor Lifeline

Are you going through a difficult time? Feeling confused, lonely or blue?

Trained counselors are ready 24/7 to talk to you. If you’re a young person looking for someone to listen and understand without judgment or if you’re feeling suicidal, please call The Trevor Lifeline now at 866-488-7386. It’s free and confidential. There is hope, there is help. [U.S. CALLS ONLY]

Trevor Chat

TrevorChat is a free ~ thetrevorproject chat ~ confidential and secure online messaging service that provides live help through this website. TrevorChat is only intended to assist those who are not at risk for suicide.

Hours of Operation: Fridays between 1:00 PM Pacific (4:00 PM Eastern) and 9:00 PM Pacific (12:00 AM Eastern)

Connect with a volunteer who can support you with your concerns and questions [U.S. Residents only].

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Chris Colfer for The Trevor Project - It Gets Better from The Trevor Project on Vimeo.

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Double click the video to see on an enlarged screen at Youtube

Fort Worth City Councilman, Joel Burns, reaches out to GLBT teens with a personal story and a message of hope. For more coverage, visit the following links:

www.star-telegram.com

www.wfaa.com/news

facebook.com/joelburns1

Uploaded by joelburns

Lawrence O'Donnell aired this tonight on his MSNBC show "The Last
Word". It is time for bullying to stop. Bullying. We have seen an increase of "bullying" behavior by politicians and "wannabe" politicians who are running for office or those who have already run for office. And this sets the stage for bullying to rise by our young people. We as adults set the example to stop, tolerate or "fire up" bullying behavior.

This is a brave soul ~ Joel Burns. I hope you will listen and even if you disapprove of gay people being gay, I hope you will have compassion and empathy enough to help be part of the solution to stop the tide of bullies in our human race. Bullies in the family, in your town, in the rooms you pass through, in the campaigning, in the classroom, the places in our children's lives where they think they can get a pass on this behavior. It is time to behave humanely and be proactive about our caring. Compassion first.

From Lawrence O'Donnell's MSNBC show about this video Thursday, October 14, 2010 ~

Zoning laws, property taxes and school budgets typically dominate the conversation at city council meetings. But one councilman in Fort Worth, Texas used his podium to talk about the recent suicide epidemic among gay youths.

In a very emotional speech on Tuesday, Joel Burns pleaded with gay teens to re-think suicide as an option. At times, he even broke down and cried in the 12-minute appeal.

"Attitudes will change, life will get better, you will have a lifetime of happy memories if you just allow yourself and give yourself the time to make them," said Burns.

Burns, an openly gay man, says he struggled with his sexuality growing up. He also described what it felt like being bullied as kid.

"High school was difficult, coming out was painful," he said. "I want to tell any teen who is watching this, life will get better."

Gay teens Asher Brown, 13, Seth Walsh, 13, and Justin Aaberg all committed suicide in 2010 in the face of alleged anti-gay bullying. (Personal Photos)

Click post title to go to article where I copied the above three photos.

HUMANE HUMANS NEEDED

On the first day of the new school year, all the teachers in one private school received the following note from their principal.

Dear Teacher,

I am a survivor of a concentration camp. My eyes saw what no man should witness:

Gas chambers built by learned engineers.

Children poisoned by educated physicians.

Infants killed by trained nurses.

Women and babies shot and burned by high school and college graduates.

So, I am suspicious of education. My request is: help your students become human. Your efforts must never produce learned monsters, skilled psychopaths, educated Eichmanns.

Reading, writing and arithmetic are important only if they serve to make our children more human.

As I am reading my journals that I have written since 1969, I came across the quote which is shared above. I had written these words in my journal after I heard it at a music teachers workshop. I attended these workshops on Saturdays. This particular workshop was titled Creative Drama, Sound, Sight and Movement taught by Mavis M. Serries of the Waltham, Massachusetts Public Schools.

Reading it today moves me, as much as it did the day I wrote it down in my journal. It is from Haim Ginott's book, Teacher and Child. It is the book's epilogue, page 317.

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Uploaded by geornata

Your children are not your children,
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but are not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
Kahlil Gibran

More notes from Haim Ginott's Books
can be found at eqi.org/ginott.htm

Haim Ginott's most famous quote:

I have come to a frightening conclusion.
I am the decisive element in the classroom.
It is my personal approach that creates the climate.
It is my daily mood that makes the weather.
As a teacher I possess tremendous power to make a child's life miserable or joyous.
I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration.
I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.
In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated, and a child humanized or de-humanized.

Between Teacher and Child

Haim Ginott died at age 51 years old and his wife, Alice Ginott, wrote about him:

‘He wanted to learn how to discipline without humiliating; how to criticize without destroying self-worth; how to praise without judging; how to express anger without hurting; how to acknowledge, not argue with, feelings; how to respond so that children would learn to trust their inner reality and develop self-confidence.

“What is the goal of education?” he would ask, “When all is said and done, we want children to grow up to be decent human beings, a ‘mensch’, a person with compassion, commitment, and caring.” How then does one go about humanising a child, making a “mensch” out of him? Only by using “menschy” methods: By recognising that the process is the method, that the ends do not justify the means, and that in our attempt to get children to behave in a way that is conducive to learning, we do not damage them psychologically. Also, that we do not talk to children in a way that will enrage them, diminish their self-confidence, inflict hurt, or cause them to lose faith in their competence and ability.’ (p.10)

Haim G. Ginott (1922-1973) was a teacher, child psychologist and psychotherapist, who worked with children and parents. He pioneered techniques for conversing with children that are still taught today. His book, Between Parent and Child. The book stayed on the best seller list for over a year and is still popular today.

Teacher and Child

Ginott, Haim (1972)

New York; Colliers Books Macmilllan Publishing Company

The book primarily comprises a series of very short sections with a point to make about a humane way of being in the classroom and stories to illustrate. Each feels like a springboard for an enquiry focussed on ‘How can I improve what I am doing and live my values more fully through my practice?’ which would enable the enquirer to theorise their practice, to tell the story for how they account for themselves and their learning, recognise themselves as contradictions and progress; a quick and provocative read and good resource.

The next page of this journal has these words by Charles Silberman, from his book, Crisis in the Classroom:

Thinking alone, does not make a human being human. Feeling is also needed.

What tomorrow needs is not masses of intellectuals, but masses of educated men...men educated to feel and to act as well as to think.

Other links:

alice-miller.com

Emotional Intelligence

How to help a suicidal teen