Winona Reif
After a survey conducted by Aragon Student Equity Council in February revealed that a staggering 53.9% of students hear dehumanizing language on a weekly basis, administration and ASEC implemented the Humanizing Aragon campaign to combat the issue through education. However, despite their well-thought-out intentions, the flextime slideshow lessons and Monday CARES presentations are insufficient.
We aren’t the only ones who questioned the effectiveness of this reinforcement; while 61% of the student body thought continuing the lessons was worthwhile, Leadership has asked for admin to implement more punitive measures.
While we are supportive of how Aragon has made huge progress in addressing dehumanizing language, we believe that there needs to be a change in how the message is delivered. Standardized presentations simply lack the power to change a deep-rooted cultural problem.
Some students even treat the lesson and the issue of dehumanizing language as a joke. In a form responding to the effectiveness of the campaign, students remarked that “Some people are using what we learned more as a joke than anything. I haven’t heard or seen anyone actually use [the content of the lessons] with someone who was seriously using dehumanizing language” and “People think that this initiative is kind of a joke and is not a real problem.” Rather than inviting self-reflection, the questions posed to these large groups create an unserious atmosphere.
Furthermore, the three questions assume that the person answering is a bystander, not the perpetrator. But excluding the people actually doing the harm makes the lessons seem more like a way for people to feel morally upstanding rather than questioning their own actions.
Nearly everyone on campus has been implicated in some way, but many can dodge accountability in these classroom settings, whether that be because they don’t realize their language is dehumanizing, or because it’s become so normalized that people have fallen back on the attitude that “some people just can’t change.” However, most students are never presented with the opportunity to engage in mature discussions that allow them to view their language from another perspective.
“[When a classmate told me about my language], it really caught me by surprise because I’ve never been told that by a student,” said senior Brian Cervantes. “I’ve been thinking a lot about it and I was like, ‘Maybe I do need to watch what I say. Maybe I do need to be careful and take other people’s feelings into consideration.’”
The Outlook proposes that we implement more one-on-one discussions with classmates to encourage the exchange of personal stories. This should be guided with discussion prompts that allow students to reflect on their language usage at school. Carrying out this activity will promote understanding of others’ experiences while fostering respect and building connections between different student groups.
While we as the Aragon Outlook support this program and the people taking steps to help this process, we believe that authentic conversations within the community should guide the Humanizing Aragon lessons.
