Love who?

February arrived with “Education, we have a problem!” The aim of this month is to tackle and raise awareness of the problems regarding sexual orientation and gender norms, a problem not only experienced by school students around Europe, but also by other members of the society.

Why did school student activists from the whole Europe decide to tackle this issue?

We often think about how we could make schools as inclusive as we could dream of, and what are some of the common problems our current educational systems are facing but not solving well enough? Stereotypes, low acceptance of sexual minorities and inability to develop as an individual freely – no matter what your gender or sexual orientation is – are a part of the issue. For us, there are no acceptable stereotypes (and even less gender norms) which are applicable to every single school student, or, better said, every single human.

Some school students feel  strong pressure from society to be something they do not identify with. Inclusive education and inclusive schools are the places where these problems can be solved or at least where we can start solving them. Making the school a safe space for everyone, openly talking about the realities surrounding us and treating and accepting everyone as an equal individual is what we need. We are not born with the desire of discriminating anyone, but it is in different patterns of society and in education where we see how this is done very often. Unfortunately, not much is done to combat discrimination and bullying in schools.

Making school buildings and education inclusive for everyone involves acts such as getting rid of gender separated toilets (since not every school student and not every person wants to be defined as a girl or a boy) and getting rid of gender- and heteronormative school material, but it also requires a change in our perception of the world which is not only black and white and not only boys and girls. There has to exist an environment in schools where school students, teachers and school staff treat each other professionally and without prejudice and assumptions.

Therefore OBESSU will now bring these issues under the school students’ perspective and try to remove prejudice stemming from the lack of knowledge.