Upstander

After listening to, "What About Men?", I started to think about the role feminist men have in the feminist movement. One of the points mentioned that resonated with me was the idea of women having to ask permission to get their power. I started to think about how so often feminism gets painted as a loss or gain of power. It also made me think about the narratives or stories we hear. We are often deprived of hearing multiple sides of history, and rather are presented with the acceptance of what has been made accessible to us. 

As a teacher, we often assume we are teaching students how to be an upstander or at least how to show tolerance and acceptance of others. However, I think we often miss the importance of modeling, or living it in our classrooms by presenting multiple perspectives in our day to day routines. I started to think about the idea of bullying and the idea of being a bystander. I started to make connections with the idea of being an advocate vs. being tolerant. It is clear to me that being an upstander or an advocate reaches beyond just being accepting of others. 

As I started to think about all that I had read and reflected on could contribute to my game, I started to think about a student I had my very first year of teaching named, Remi. Remi had moved to the United States with his family at the beginning of the school year. Remi was not only learning English, but also had limited verbal skills as he was also on the Autism spectrum. The few words Remi did use often included, "pink", "rainbow", "girl", and "dress". Remi was undeniably unique in comparison to his peers and often grossly misunderstood by his peers. 

As a first year teacher, I struggled with how to help the students in my class not only listen to Remi, but to become an upstander. I wanted to help the five year olds in my class find a way to show others in the school how to take time to understand Remi. I so often wish I had the ability to go back and do this year all over again. Learn how to be an upstander myself. Helping others navigate through and combat the pressures of conforming in a school setting. My game features a teacher facing various scenarios where they are faced with bullying situations within a school and must confront current practices. 


                                        

In the game, the teacher is faced with making instructional and management choices throughout the day. The focus being on helping Remi throughout his day in a kindergarten classroom. The point or message of the game is that the choices we make each day to be an upstander are not always easy or straightforward.