Originally published on Edutopia
By Dr. Becki Cohn-Vargas, Not In Our School Director
cnn
A Clever and Informative Response to “That’s So Gay”
At Ignite Boulder, a night of presentations in Boulder, CO featuring speakers about their topic of choice, LGBTQ advocate Ash Beckham gave a hilarious and clever presentation about the proper usage of the phrase, “That’s so gay.” Ash creates a humorous flowchart depicting the proper situations to use the term “that’s so gay” in the hopes of creating a larger societal shift towards acceptance of the LGBTQ community. The overall message of her presentation is made even more clear when she says, “Say what you mean, and mean what you say, because the words that you choose matter.”
Bill in Iowa house addresses cyberbullying
By Becki Cohn-Vargas, Not In Our School Director
All of us have experienced cruel behavior, either as a participant, victim or witness. The Not In Our School “Break Bullying”public service announcement, donated by the MAKE ad agency, appears to bring back those bad memories. The announcement depicts adults in a professional environment re-enacting the personal middle school bullying experience of the director, Mike Nelson. His point: If we would not stand for this at work, why do we stand for it happening to kids in schools? The purpose of the PSA is to make us want to do something—to intervene, unlike the co-workers who watch their colleague pushed to the floor.
Not In Our School “Break Bullying” PSA featured on CNN website!
The NIOS anti-bullying PSA, “Break Bullying,” now has more than 39,000 views! CNN re-posted the video along with a blogpost on their “Schools of Thought” blog, featuring excerpts from an interview with the film’s creator, Mike Nelson. The news giant was impressed with the PSA, calling it a “gut-wrenching” portrayal of bullying that will hopefully make the cruel reality of childhood bullying more salient to adults.
You can watch the PSA on CNN’s blog.A Thin Line: MTV National Bullying Prevention Month