How Does Be Strong, Be Wise Benefit High School Students?
An Interview with School Admin and Counseling Staff
“Be Strong, Be Wise helps teens listen to their inner voice. It helps them identify that voice, nurture it and most of all, trust it. I see this as such a key piece to your whole program.” -Allison Pringle-Bennett, Counselor
I recently had the honor of holding a conversation with the team at Camden Hills Regional High School (CHRHS) where the Be Strong, Be Wise Youth program and Train-the-Trainer were delivered. For me, it was a real privilege to learn how particular aspects of the BSBW curriculum will support the needs of students and what this team had to say in response.
What do you see as some of the major obstacles to sexual safety for teens?
Jen Curtis (Assistant Principal): In the past, we have taken a very reactionary response. Now we are looking at the fact that every student in this building could benefit from learning about consent. We are making space for the conversation because we realize how much confusion is there. For example, most students are still looking at “No means no” but we are trying to bring more awareness of what affirmative consent means.
Allison Pringle-Bennett (Counselor): There is a lot of misinformation that students come to us with. It feels like a race to provide them with the right information before they get the wrong information. In your curriculum, you do a really great job of exploring where that misinformation is coming from.
One of the hardest things to navigate is screen life and its effect on a teenager’s understanding of the sex experience, including their understanding of consent.
Nell Daily (Assistant Principal): Consent is necessary far before the sexual encounter begins.
Allison: I see kids as young as 5th and 6th grade trying to navigate their online presence in a way that takes consent into account.
Jen: Yes, and cameras are ubiquitous, so students don’t have enough time to process their actions afterward, when they can’t take that action back.
Nell: I’m always blown away by how many students get impacted when someone crosses a boundary and their peers find out about it.
What do you see as the unique benefit to offering the BSBW curriculum to high school students?
Jen: I liked how the BSBW course started at the premise of gender and culture: how hard it is for girls, for example, to speak up for their own needs. Or how hard it is for boys to understand that consent goes beyond “no means no.” I also liked how Be Strong, Be Wise taught students how to take care of each other, how to listen to each other and help each other make good choices with their online presence.
Healthy relationships start with consent, and that includes consent with their online relationships. Every parent lets their kid bring their phone into their bedroom. We don’t think twice about it. In actuality, they are engaging in sexual activity in their bedroom since the phone is where most of these encounters start. Whether sharing nude pics, or acts of self-pleasure, cyber space is the number one arena where students are exploring the sex experience.
Allison: Teenagers have an online identity and a physical identity and rarely are they the same. One is curated and is not necessarily true to who they are at the core. I’ve seen students who have agreed to something electronically but then aren’t sure how to translate that to a real-time experience. Be Strong, Be Wise helps teens listen to their inner voice. It helps them identify that voice, nurture it and most of all, trust it. I see this as such a key piece to your whole program.
Nell: Yes, and the story-telling piece is so important, when you share stories in your program, it helps teach students that they have the right and ability to write their own story on their own terms. Like you also have the right to have a good sex experience that takes place on your own terms and in your own time.
Allison: I can’t emphasize enough the importance of having these conversations. I think about all the survivors who will go through this curriculum and have the opportunity to re-write their own story from a more informed space.