TeachRock

Greetings TeachRockers!

Have you checked out TeachRock’s new SEL lesson, “Bystander Intervention: Making Spaces Safer for Everyone”? It’s fantastic (IOHO) and the contributing author is Baltimore-based creative, Shawna Potter. 

In this latest TeachRock newsletter, Shawna shares about the experiences that led her to develop programming and write a book that would address harassment in public spaces. Now, she’s brought that work into the “Bystander Intervention” lesson, providing students with the tools to make the spaces they enter safer for themselves and their school community. Thank you, Shawna!

~ The TeachRock Team

 

I started my first band in high school. I played and attended as many shows as I could and I haven’t stopped since – despite often hearing comments about my body, my ability, and the ever frustrating phrase: “you’re actually pretty good.”

As an audience member, I’ve had men follow me around a venue, leer at me, and touch me without my permission. I’ve had friends called the N-word at a house show, not knowing if they’re welcome because they’re transgender, and my disabled friends stay home because a venue had no accommodations for them. Some friends have been harassed by security when reporting harassment by another patron, gotten their drinks spiked, or their bodies assaulted.

Live music should be a wonderful escape from the real world, but how can it be for those who experience the same harassment wherever they go? How can we possibly know which bands and venues are going to be cool? Without consistent ways to address harassment in every space we enter, it’s a total crap shoot if we’ll get any support. 

I wanted to change that, so in 2013 I started a venue training program, which I eventually turned into a book, Making Spaces Safer, to help any space where people gather. The program and the book include practical prevention methods and appropriate responses, including the “5 Ds of Bystander Intervention” (created by Right to Be), as described in the new TeachRock lesson I authored, “Bystander Intervention: Making Spaces Safer for Everyone.” If more people knew and used the 5 Ds, more people would feel safe and supported – which is great, because I think everyone deserves to rock without hate or harassment holding them back.

In solidarity,

Shawna Potter

Shawna Potter is a Safer Space Expert, Intimacy Coordinator, Musician, Author, and Consultant based in Baltimore, MD. She is the front-person for the Baltimore band War On Women and the author of Making Spaces Safer: A Guide to Giving Harassment the Boot Wherever You Work, Play, and Gather, a practical guide based on her Safer Space Program. Through her music and her work, Shawna has been empowering people to make their community more fun and inclusive for over a decade.