A California teacher turned the tumultuous nomination process of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh into a teaching moment about consent — even for hugs — for her third-graders.
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Liz Kleinrock (she/her) (@teachandtransform) on
“Everything about Kavanaugh in the news has been making me HEATED,” Liz Kleinrock, a teacher at the Citizens of the World Charter School Silver Lake in Los Angeles, wrote on Instagram.
“So whenever I get frustrated about the state of our country, it inspires me to proactively teach my kids to DO BETTER. Today was all about CONSENT,” she continued. “We even explored the grey areas, like if someone says ‘yes’ but their tone and body language really says ‘no.’”
Kleinrock, 31, created a chart titled “All About Consent,” which she hung in her classroom to teach her young charges what scenarios require permission, how to give it and how to recognize if it has been provided.
“We made the chart together,” Kleinrock told the Washington Post. “I organized the different sections of it, but everything in it is student generated.”
The 8- to 9-year-olds appeared to be getting the message.
One child drew a male stick figure asking a female figure, “Can I give you a big big hug!”
The frowning female responds with an emphatic, “No!”
“Please,” the male pleads, only to be met with another firm “No!”
“It’s really sweet to be bombarded with five little kids being like, ‘Can I give you a hug, is it OK if I give you a hug?’” Kleinrock said.
Kleinrock — who posted an image of her chart on social media on Sept. 26 — said she was inspired to take action during the #MeToo era particularly in light of the sexual assault accusations leveled by three women against Kavanaugh. He has denied all the allegations.
“I always like to think about what can I do be proactive,” she told the newspaper. “You can’t change what’s happened in the past, but what I feel like I do have some control over is the future of our country and how we’re educating our children to be better and more responsive than we currently are.”
The teacher said she explained the concept of consent in terms of physical boundaries and respect.
For example, the class discussed how to clearly communicate not wanting to be touched by someone and how to tell a person who is making you physically uncomfortable to stop.
Kleinrock had the children explain the importance of asking for consent — and shared some answers on Instagram with the caption, “More evidence that my 8-9 year old students are smarter and have more emotional intelligence than half of congress.”
“Asking for consent is important because if you don’t they might not trust you the next time you ask,” one student wrote.
“Asking for consent is important because if you didn’t thay [they] midof [might have] not wanted to get tuchd [touched],” another one wrote.
The students also drew pictures of their “safety networks,” with one labeling his or her parents and siblings as people they can turn to when they feel unsafe.
“We revisited the concept of ‘trust’ and talked about who we feel comfortable talking to when things occur,” Kleinrock wrote on Instagram.
Kleinrock said her school’s other third-grade teachers also will be using her lessons to educate their students about consent.
“There’s a really strong belief that we’re not just here to teach students reading, writing, math, science and things like that, but that we are trying to equip our students with life long skills that will set them up for success when they go off into the world,” she said.
Her lessons have been met with mostly positive reactions on social media, but some accused her of “sexualizing third-graders” and “pushing a particular agenda on children,” she told the Washington Post.
Kleinrock insisted that the topic of sex has never come up in any of her lessons, attributing the criticism to the fact that “so many people have associations between consent and sex, and that’s very hard to separate.”
She also said she doesn’t believe the subject is a partisan issue.
“These are important lessons for any student, any child, and I would also hope that any parent or caregiver or teacher, regardless of your political beliefs or religious beliefs, would want their kids to feel safe and respected,” she said.
“I live in a blue state in a blue city, but I would hope that a teacher in a red state in a red city … would still see value in teaching their students about boundaries and respect.”
