Crossing the Line…Prevents Violence?

Happy November! For those of us working in schools, this marks the middle of the semester! And for those of us out in the world, well…we can all see 2012, can’t we?

Our Outreach Advocate, Crossing the Line

I was fortunate enough to travel to Dallas last Wednesday to attend a Mobilizing Men and Boys Task Force meeting for Texas Association Against Sexual Assault (their blog here). I ended up speaking with a woman from another agency about our curricula, Project Empowerment. Luckily I had an extra copy and let her peruse it during the day. When she had finished, she came to me with a question about our activities – one called All My People and one called Cross the Line. She wasn’t sure what they accomplished and why they were part of our curricula.

These two games share the same premise – providing a space to share information about yourself and connect to others. In All My People, the students sit in a circle of chairs with one person in the middle. This person says something that is true for them. For example, “All my people who love Fall weather.” The people in the circle who also identify with this statement must get up and find a new chair. The person in the center is also trying to sit down, so the game progresses with each new center person. We do this as part of our first lesson with students.  (WARNING: people love love LOVE this game)

Cross the Line is a similar game with more structure. The group lines up and a series of statements are read aloud. When a statement is true for someone in the group, they’ll take a step forward (crossing the line) and then step back. The statements get more intense and personal as the game goes on. (WARNING: people love love LOVE this game too)

Now, I give you that background to tell you this story -

Today I attended the Texas Association of Future Educator’s conference at St. Edward’s University. Why? Because a group of my students were presenting the Cross the Line game to their peers and future teachers. I wanted to support them and hear what they had to say. The student facilitators talked about the need for teachers to connect with their students, and for students to have an opportunity to understand each other. They said they didn’t feel many teachers knew how to do this and that sometimes classes didn’t go well because people didn’t know each other.

It is quite telling that my high school students not only enjoyed, but wanted to share their knowledge of these games. Whereas my adult colleague was confused as to how these games were part of violence prevention. It seems like sometimes in this work we rush. I know I do – I want to talk about big issues – gender and inequality and harassment and consent.  Yet what the students of all ages cling to are those moments where they can share and learn and explore the spaces between themselves and others. These games have an outline, they have guidelines, they provide a strategy. It’s not dead time and it is definitely not counseling. And all of my groups of students want to play this game again before our time with them is over.

Which really gets to the root of prevention right? A society free of violence, free of oppression, would be one where people got to exchange and communicate and share and learn in ways that weren’t forced, weren’t judged, and were fun.

So whoever you work with – adults or kids – I encourage you to take a look at these games and try them out. Then let us know how it goes.

Cross that line,

Corey Ann
Sexual Violence Prevention Specialist
corey.seldon@hopealliancetx.org

Also, just a BIT of bragging – Brooke and I taught 88 violence prevention classes in October, reaching over 550 students in 3rd-12th grade!!

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