How A Texas Teen Turned Bias and Body

How A Texas Teen Turned Bias and Body-Shaming into Advocacy and Action

Olivia Julianna (who uses only her first and middle name publicly to protect her privacy) has been an activist for several years, advocating voting rights and reproductive-health care. Like many in her generation, she found the political side of TikTok where young people post about important issues facing them. Olivia is involved with Gen-Z for Change, a nonprofit organization leveraging social media to promote civil discourse and political action on a variety of topics including COVID-19, climate change, systemic inequity, foreign policy, voting rights, and LGBTQ+ issues.

The online targeting of Olivia started after she criticized an elected official who, at a student-action summit in Florida, called abortion-rights activists disgusting and overweight and said, “No one wants to impregnate you if you look like a thumb” among other offensive comments. After Olivia denounced these comments, the politician then posted a photo of her on Twitter next to an article that referenced his insults. That picture went far and wide to his million-plus followers. In addition, she received hateful and biased private messages.

Online hate and harassment are all too common, especially for those in marginalized identity groups like Olivia who is a queer, Latina woman—identity groups that are often targeted in digital spaces. While ignoring, muting, blocking, documenting, and reporting are all options, Olivia decided to address the bias and offensive comments directly. That’s when she engaged in a public social media battle with the elected official, who continued to double down on body-shaming and belittling her.

As a result, Olivia announced she would be supporting a fundraising campaign for the Gen-Z for Change Abortion Fund, which splits donations across abortion funds in all 50 states. This story instantly exploded on social media. Although the number of offensive comments she received increased, she also received overwhelming support, so much so it also brought more criticism but also helped Olivia raise $2.2 million—which is still climbing. She’s inspired people in Texas, elsewhere in the U.S., and beyond. She says, “I’ve been mocked, ridiculed, and harassed for most of my life. I will not tolerate that kind of behavior anymore. Don’t mess with Texas women and don’t underestimate Gen Z!”

For educators and those who work with young people, especially as we return to school in what promises to be another challenging school year, what can we take away from Olivia Julianna’s experience and story?

Teach young people about current real-life activists and others who take action about bias and injustice. Even better if those activists are young people themselves because people like Olivia Julianna can serve as important role models. Civil rights activists of the past are icons in history, and we should teach about them. However, if we also highlight current activists who are young, they will be able to see themselves in that advocacy. You can use children’s literature, current events, and social studies text to explore activism with young people.

Help young people consider what problems and injustices they currently see in their world. Then, as Olivia did, help them transform those concerns into actions. As Bellen Woodard, who dubbed herself the “World’s 1st Crayon Activist” at 8 years old, suggests in More than Peach, her new picture book, “Instead of asking kids what they want to be when they grow up, ask them what they want to change.” What we can learn from Bellen, Olivia, and other young activists is how vital it is we talk with young people early and often about how they want to make a difference in their world.

Don’t just tell young people to challenge bias and bullying—show them how. This means helping them understand and identify what bias and injustice are and then providing tools and practice for them to address and challenge the injustice. Discern the difference between addressing it in person and in digital space because young people are increasingly facing bias and harassment online. Teach them the skills of allyship and the many ways one can act as an ally, advocate, and activist.

Explore with young people the myriad ways they can engage in activism. Olivia showed us a variety of strategies, from educating to organizing to fundraising. Many young people, and adults, are taught that activism is only about protesting. It’s important to show them that as there are many ways to be an ally, there are many ways to engage in activism such as educating others, running for office, raising funds, advocating legislation, and more.

Remember that many young people will not take action when faced with bias and bullying. In fact, many young people will turn inward and may not tell anyone. Young people are reluctant to report bias and bullying to adults, and that reluctance increases with age. As a school staff, explore how you can be more approachable so that students are more likely to tell you when something is happening. Make sure your school’s bullying, harassment, and nondiscrimination polices are current, reflect district and state guidelines, and include clear definitions and consequences, incorporating online behavior as well.

It’s a difficult world out there right now. From health care to climate change to racism to gun violence, young people are facing many issues in their lives, issues that are sure to challenge their future. We can help them navigate these choppy waters by showing them and inspiring them to do something about the injustice they see in their world. Olivia Julianna’s story is instructive and can help show the way.

A former K-5 public school principal turned author, presenter, and leadership coach, DeWitt provides insights and advice for education leaders. He can be found at www.petermdewitt.com. Read more from this blog.

Michael Fullan, professor emeritus, is a former dean of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of Toronto and the global director of leadership for New Pedagogies for Deep Learning (deep-learning.global). Joanna Rizzotto is an alternative education teacher in Wisconsin and the creator of the Educators Amplified podcast.

Teacher resignations are common knowledge these days. It’s like COVID itself. Nearly everyone personally knows a teacher or knows of teachers who have left in the past year—often abruptly. These days, students often have different teachers, unqualified substitutes—more and more schools are stress zones. It seems like no one wants to be a teacher anymore.

Some see the current situation as a function of the carpet-bombing effects of the pandemic that have been visited upon schools. Relentless, unbearable, ever-worsening pressures make it impossible, some say, for even the most dedicated teachers to remain. What if we were to say that the structural cracks had been there for some time. Like a Florida condominium or London’s Grenfell Tower collapse was inevitable—just a matter of time and additional stress that became the last straw.

Most teachers—from the days of the one-room schoolhouse to the larger contemporary schools—came into teaching to connect with, inspire, and guide students through their growth and development. Over the years, schools became less and less valued by students, while the mandated ‘fixes’ demoralized teachers. Schooling became more boring or alienating for the majority of students as they moved up the grade levels.

The system was held together by external props—standardized tests, fixed requirements about when and where teaching should occur, and micromanagement of everyone. Shaming, naming, and blaming may garner compliance but does nothing to assist learning. Judgment and fear are consistently used as motivators. While some schools did manage, the system as a whole became less and less effective.

Prior to the pandemic, most students and teachers had already become less and less enthusiastic about their daily fare. All along, system actions tended to be one-offs. Leaders overlooked making the system itself more supportive. Now that the system is creaking badly, and blame is being cast in all directions, people at all levels are being forced to go beyond healthy limits.

The pandemic has helped to reveal fundamental weaknesses about the failure of schooling. One way or another, change is inevitable. We see two possible pathways. One is to allow societal forces to run their course. If we do this, it is almost certain that artificial intelligence or machine learning will dominate. Andy Hargreaves and I called this the Business Capital model wherein technological innovation and capital investments drive what happens. Teachers are there, but they are fewer in number and are in service of the machines and those who develop them. No one has to “cause” this model to dominate. It is already embedded into our economy and its investments. To the extent that there is a driver, it is big business.

The alternative pathway is to change the system—not to tinker but to transform it. We call this path the Humanity-Based model in which all students become “good at learning and good at life”; where “belonging, purpose, individual and collective problem solving” is fostered; and “where students know that improving society for themselves and others is essential to well-being and indeed to the future of humanity.” The “human condition” is the focus of this model.

In the meantime, if quality teaching is lacking, if students are insufficiently motivated, if inequality continually worsens, are individual teachers and students to blame or is the existing system the problem? Who is abandoning whom? Our conclusion is that the old, deeply flawed system has de facto abandoned the teachers, not the other way around. We continue to try to patch up a flawed system with segmented ideas. The calls for greater diversity, increased teacher pay, better teacher preparation and professional development (while needed and necessary) won’t amount to much in a bad system. We need to shift our understanding and energy to developing a new system where both new learning and technology develop in tandem.

The business-capital model with its digital ubiquity is the most likely outcome because it operates as a kind of “invisible hand” in a society that does not have counter forces favoring an alternative. We believe that most people do not want digital domination. While teachers and their students are bearing the brunt of our current outdated system, there are people across the system who want what we have called humanity-based learning.

The good news is that we might know more about how to do this than we realize. Ironically, the answer may be found in those educators who decided to stay. What are these remaining teachers who are connected with students doing? What are the teachers who are feeling balanced and not burnt out doing? Chances are, that it’s humanity-based.

When a system is wrong, it’s wrong all over. School districts complain about compliance overload, which of course redounds to schools. Equity gets siloed, local initiative restricted, and intrinsic motivation lessens. The more anxious central leaders become and the more money they have, the more they lay on a cornucopia of distractors that become fatal for coherent system transformation.

By contrast, a humanity-based model facilitates transformation as schools and communities experience greater local autonomy and lateral learning and gain capacity to be influential upward. In the present model, schools are not in a position to benefit from the growing knowledge of innovations and effective practices that can be found in some other schools and districts and in research and innovation such as SoLD (the Science of Learning Development) and in our own New Pedagogies for Deep Learning.

So, how do we get there? If we know anything about complex change, it is that it must be addressed through joint determination by those in authority and those in the situation where the problems lie. Many leaders would say they believe in getting input and they foster participation in decisions. But their actions in a hierarchical leadership structure are a far cry from actually working together on the solutions.

This brings us to those educators who decided to stay despite or maybe even because of the pandemic. They may represent the first building blocks of a new system. Yes, upon returning this year, they may be more adamant about what they are not going to do. Perhaps they will not be as willing to sub or voluntarily serve on committees outside of paid hours. They may choose to use all of their personal time, prefer virtual meetings, and want to work flexibly with their students. But we also detect, more than ever, a strong child-advocate theme. Teachers are concerned about the world that students are experiencing and feel called to be positive and protective on their behalf. Teachers have abandoned the old system, but the truth is that they never left their calling.

A just released study from Australia analyzed 65,000 news articles about teachers covering the last 25 years. The headline: “No wonder no one wants to be a teacher.” The author drew three conclusions: “We are fixated on teacher quality,” “teacher work is made out to be simple (it’s not),” and “teacher bashing is the norm.”

Our future, our very survival as a species, depends on human and social development. We need machines, and they are ever more powerful. But they are not powerful enough to save our planet. We need the ingenuity, hope, and drive of humans—groups and collectives.

You can’t fix what you don’t understand. Most people don’t understand how the current system is at fault. Decide to create a new, different, better system. Put it in motion. Do it in partnership with teachers, parents, communities, and students. When students and teachers come to feel that they are a big part of the solution, no one will feel abandoned!