Equality: One Way In Which My School Exemplifies the Quaker Tradition

For a change of pace, our next post comes from a Friends School student voice. Tom Rickards, the Chair of Religious Studies at William Penn Charter School asked his 10^th graders, who recently finished a Quaker Principles and Practices class, if they would be interested in write a post for this blog. Those interested were instructed to focus on particular Quaker testimony to explore. This first submission focuses on the testimony to equality.


By Julia Truten, William Penn Charter School Sophomore

I go to the William Penn Charter School, a Quaker school in East Falls, Pennsylvania, and witness examples of equality and inequality at school every day. Our school has an active GSA (gay-straight alliance), in which I am as an active a member as I can be, and we are constantly fighting for our peers and classmates to treat LGBTQ kids the same way they would treat everyone else. However, when we really delve into the matter, I think the GSA has realized from a few discussions that what we want isn't for people to be kind to gay kids, because that would be inequality, for most kids aren't kind to everyone. What we're fighting for is kindness all around. Our slogans aren't just comprised of, "Chicks marry chicks; get over it!" We also try to spread messages like, "Think before you speak!" and "Everyone has problems--don't add to them." We focus on LGBTQ people because they've received so much hatred and injustice throughout history, and because no one else will fight for them. My school seems to be focused on the idea that if you stand up for gay rights, you must be gay. They don't realize that it's even more powerful when straight people stand up for them.

Our school, namely the administration, is uncommonly supportive of equal rights in all minorities, especially LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual, Transgender, Queer) people. This may be because we have openly gay teachers that make our community an obviously better place, or it could be because there are over 50 members of the GSA; it's the biggest club in the whole school. It's one of the things I like best about my school. Also, I know that those administrators who will, appropriately, denounce its students for screaming homophobic cheers at sporting events, and will do so in the full high-school assembly, will also find upon further inquiry and/or reflection that they do hold that standard of respectfulness and non-judgmental-ness to every student and regarding every student. I'm quite proud of my school for that, and even though some would say that my school is pretty "un-Quaker" for a Quaker school, maybe because it has a football team or all-school dodge-ball competitions, I think that this is one way in which my school exemplifies the Quaker tradition.