Eliza Byard on the Value of the Ostracism Case Study

Eliza Byard is the Executive Director of GLSEN.

"This case study presents a remarkable opportunity for staff and faculty in other schools to learn from an object lesson without having it happen to the students they work with. There is also an amazing chance here to allow students to discuss this dynamic in a way that is a lot safer for them. I’m sure, you know, that any school you go to will have percolating issues, or perhaps full blown problems that are very similar in origin, dynamic and development to what’s happening here, but if students have the opportunity to talk about this without it being about them, about her, about him, they’ll probably speak a lot more freely about how they’re feeling about it and what’s going on, by being able to project it out onto an outside situation. And I think that any school that, any classroom that fosters this kind of conversation based on this case study is going to learn a lot more about what’s going on in the classroom, as long as the adults are listening very, very closely than they would in other kind of activities that they could undertake."