'Not in Our School: Palo Alto’ Returns to KQED

Some of the inner workings of Palo Alto schools will be broadcast for the world to see when KQED, a local PBS affiliate, soon airs the documentary film Not in Our School: Palo Alto.

This latest, updated version of the film will air 13 times between June 26 and July 3.

Not in Our School: Palo Alto explores efforts on three Palo Alto campuses—, and —to combat bullying and discrimination, and encourage tolerance. The film features appearances by several Palo Alto teachers, students and administrators as they go through the annual “Not in Our School” week, which consists of class discussions and activities intent upon fostering tolerance among students and faculty and creating a supportive school environment where everyone, regardless of background, feels safe.

The original version of Not in Our School: Palo Alto aired on KQED in 2009. The film had a profound impact, says Alicia Upano, of the parent organizations Not in Our Town and Not in Our School.

“Both inspired by Palo Alto and seeking a way to address two teen suicides that occurred within a 50-mile radius of her town, Lauri Massari created a Not In Our School program that encapsulated 20 campuses serving 50,000 students overall,” Upano said. “Lancaster’s Not in Our School story will air as part of our national PBS broadcast early next year.”

Gunn High School teachers Daisy Renazco and Kristy Blackburn help co-facilitate Not in Our School week at Gunn along with fellow faculty member Todd Summers, and design various activities teachers can lead in their classrooms to focus on different topics such as stereotypes, gender differences, bullying, derogatory speech, tolerance and self-esteem.

Not in Our School week most recently took place around the end of March to early April on the three Palo Alto campuses.

Blackburn, who teaches English and journalism at Gunn, led a new activity this year about combating racial stereotypes, called the “Stereotype Pool.” She had students in her classes write down examples of different stereotypes they would like to see go away, such as “Asians are bad drivers,” on scraps of paper and throw them into a pool, where they symbolically “wash away.” She encouraged discussion of the stereotypes amongst the class.

Renazco and Blackburn say, each department in the school takes a different day of the week to lead activities in their classes related to Not in Our School week. Renazco helped the science department lead a day focused on gender differences.

“We talked about, what gender differences are genetic and which ones are societal, and how we can think about them and be mindful of them and, if they choose, how to combat them as well,” she explained.

In one of her classes, Renazco said she showed the students some of the YouTube videos from the “It Gets Better” campaign, launched in response to nine lesbian/gay/bi-curious/transgender (LGBT) suicides by youth that took place across the nation in 2010.

“The campaign’s message is, ‘life gets better once you get older, so you need to stick around in order to see that,’” Renazco explained. “We talked about the campaign and how it can relate to so many other things in our adolescence that get better as we get older, and tried to give them a message of hope.”

Renazco said some of the examples the students came up with in her discussion included stress around school, stress around family and friends, and being teased or made fun of.

“It was personal for each student,” she said.

Blackburn said she showed her students episodes of the recent ABC show “What Would You Do?” which uses actors to give the appearance of something serious happening in a public place to see if passersby will merely watch, keep on passing by, or actually stop to help. Some episodes used examples such as a woman being hit by her boyfriend in a public park, or a stranded motorist.

“We talked about some of the situations and also related them to the [English] books we were reading at the time,” Blackburn said.

Other classroom activities and discussions touched upon everyday terms and sayings that may seem innocent, but can actually hurt others’ feelings, such as saying “that’s so gay” when they think something is stupid or foolish, or saying “that’s so Jewish” if they think something or someone is cheap.

Renazco said, she thinks one of the most powerful scenes in the film Not in Our School: Palo Alto features local teacher Roni Habib facilitating a discussion with a class about the use of those two exact phrases.

“It was really enlightening to hear these students talk about the phrase ‘that’s so gay’ and how they said it wasn’t intended to be mean to say that, but they began to talk about how it could be perceived as mean,” Renazco recalled. “[They suggested], if what you really mean by it is ‘that’s so stupid,’ then you should say that, instead.”

Renazco said, as a co-facilitator of Gunn’s Not in Our School week, she helps the teachers become more comfortable leading the activities with the classes, since it is rather “out of the norm” as far as the content they usually teach.

“I think [as teachers] we’re comfortable teaching content, but I think we’re less comfortable talking about topics that are more different, like sexual orientation or race relations or discrimination,” she said. “I think [Not in Our School week] provides teachers with a forum to talk about some of these real issues and provide students with ways to deal with them and combat them if bullying happens, and it gives the students resources to help them step up and help each other.”

Blackburn agreed and said, Not in Our School week can be a great way to step out of the box and really make a difference in their students’ lives.

“It’s a great way to incorporate discussions about things the kids are interested in, but we don’t always have time for in the curriculum,” she explained. “It’s good to have time to talk about things the students’ classmates are going through, and things they should be aware of in order to be better people.”

Renazco said, the 2011 Not in Our School week appeared to go very well.

“A lot of teachers said they had a lot of great discussions,” she said. “Some said they had only planned on using 20 minutes of class time, and ended up using the whole 58 minutes of class because the discussions were so rich.”

Upano said, representatives from Not in Our Town/Not in Our School recently attended , in which community members, students and high-powered corporate executives from the local area were allowed to stand up and talk about anything they wanted for 10 minutes. At the event, Palo Alto Mayor Sid Espinosa spoke out in support of the Not in Our School program and film.

"We all must fight against discrimination and harassment. I am proud that the Palo Alto Unified School District, through Not in Our School activities, has become a model for other school districts taking action against intolerance and bullying. And the word keeps spreading,” Espinosa said. “This is a great start, but we must remain diligent if we really aim to reduce intolerance and harassment."

Renazco agreed, and said, “We need to bring awareness that these kinds of things exist. Like, homophobia does happen in a lot of places. Just because we’re in the Bay Area doesn’t mean we’re immune to discrimination, on any level.”

For more information about the programs Not in Our Town and Not in Our School, visit www.niot.org and www.niot.org/nios.

For a complete listing of when Not in Our School: Palo Alto will air between June 26 and July 3, and to find out what channel KQED broadcasts on in your area, visit http://www.kqed.org/tv/programs/index.jsp?pgmid=20047.