SHS Girl Up hosts teacher panel, student discussion

Solon High School Girl Up hosted a teacher panel to discuss a variety of topics that are  meaningful to SHS students on Tuesday Nov. 29. The panel included Mrs. Fishman, Mrs. Kinney, Mrs. Bush, Mrs. Keys, Ms. Smith, Mrs. Guseilo, Mrs. Wein, Mr. Jeter, Mr. Kirk, Mr. Northrup, Mr. Ashkettle, Mrs. Strom and Ms. Short.

The teachers and administrators on the panel were asked questions first by Girl Up officers and then by students in attendance. Question topics ranged from gender roles to politics to stereotypes and how these different issues manifest in society,especially for high school teachers and students. SHS teachers shared personal anecdotes from their lives in and out of the classroom to spark conversation with students and each other.

SHS English teacher Mrs. Keys spoke about her experiences lobbying and fighting for women’s rights when she was younger.

“I’m here because I feel I’m a bit of history because I protested for feminism back in the day,” Keys said. “You have to constantly fight the cultural biases that you see. I see those perpetual stereotypes that are out there about dating and relationships. Wherever you think there is a bias, it’s on your shoulders to speak out or find someone to help you speak out. I think that’s a point we’re all trying to make. It’s not relative to the gender you are, it’s really how you think and what goals you want to achieve. That’s a big lesson. You’re the most important group. You need to fight those stereotypes if you can.”

Ashkettle emphasized the fact that although things are better now than in the past, our society is not done improving.

“We do not live in a post-racial world,” he said. “We don’t live in a post-sexist world. As proof of that, Education Week had an article today that something like 14 states have less than eight AP Computer Science tests for girls. That is an abysmal number. Those that take my AP [Government] class know that for salary jobs on average women make between 20-30% less than their male counterparts at the professional level, that’s unthinkable as a father of two girls. The most underrepresented group in our government now is not African-Americans and Latinos or any religious group, it’s women. Let’s not pretend. We have come a long way through hard work, but we’re not even close to ‘there yet’. That is why the work that [Girl Up] is doing is so important.”     

Kirk described that his inspiration for being on the panel came from the important women in his life despite his initial hesitation to participate.

“I was a little bit hesitant after [Hallie Fried], a former student of mine, asked me to be on this panel, being a male with a background in the sciences and teaching science,” Kirk said. “The two closest women in my life, my wife and my sister, encouraged me to be a part of this. My sister works in economics and finance and my wife is currently in medical school which are very male dominated and just hearing their perspectives on what they’ve experienced and are currently experiencing in their classrooms and workplaces really drove me to see the dialogue and see what questions you have.”      

Girl Up co-presidents  juniors Shobitha Sanjeevan and Diana Huang decided to host this event to not only raise awareness for issues they feel are important, but also to give students an opportunity to get to know their teachers better outside of the classroom.

“We always get a glimpse of the stories teachers want to share when they’re not talking about literary devices, or derivatives or chemical bonds,” Sanjeevan said. “They have experiences to share, lessons they want to teach us that lie outside the curriculum. There are so many important conversations that should happen but don’t. We hoped this event would give us the opportunity to be able finally hear the experiences and stories of the people we dearly admire.”

Fishman enjoyed that the extreme variety of topics covered during the two hour panel allowed every student to have interest in some part of the teachers’ discussion.

“We talked about feminism and we talked about race, politics, what it means to be a student, what [teachers] see in their classrooms and what ways [attendees] have been affected by these things in [their] life and I think that allowed every student to connect in some way,” said Girl Up advisor Kelly Fishman.

The event was almost entirely student run, with the Girl Up club officers planning, procuring donations from local businesses, recruiting teachers to participate and advertising the event around SHS with Fishman coordinating with staff and administration.

“The officers of Girl Up all worked together to get donations from restaurants, plan the questions, advertise and ask teachers to participate,” Girl Up vice president junior Fried said. “We also held a meeting where all of our club members were able to create posters to hang around the school.“

The event was attended by over 50 SHS students and 12 Solon staff members. Overall, Girl Up was very pleased at the turn-out for their first teacher panel.

“Girl Up is a club on the rise, and we really don’t have a huge amount of members like SADD or Key Club. The amount of students and teachers that came was absolutely amazing, and it meant so much to our club to see how many students care about our cause,” Fried said.

Fishman said she was especially impressed at how attentive and involved the participants were, and applauded the serious nature of their questions.

“No one left and I thought that was very telling that they were coming and they were taking notes and they were asking questions,” she said. “The questions that the students asked just blew me away. They were so insightful and well worded and they were very respectful in the way they asked their questions as not to offend people with different beliefs.”

Girl Up intends to host this event again in the future due to the support from the SHS community and hopes that the event will continue to succeed in the future.

“I was so thrilled with the event and the support,” Fishman said. “Just from a faculty perspective, it was amazing. In a time where I think a lot of people feel a little discouraged, I think we as a faculty got this sense of hope from our students. [Our students] asked these really amazing questions, they’re seeing some of the same things we see, they’re concerned about them and want to change them. We see that the next generation wants to make a change and wants to keep making things better and that we will keep moving forward.”