Stand Up, Sit Down

Last night, I had the opportunity to run diversity activities with the high school youth at my job. They are staying on campus this week and they requested me to do activities similar to what I'd done last year with them. I had a lot of fun, as did the youth. There were moments of laughter, silence, deep thought, and hugs. There's one specific activity I facilitated that always appears to have a deep impact - sometimes I run it as "cross the room" and sometimes "stand up, sit down," but either activity is very similar. Last night, the students participated in stand up, sit down.

In this activity, I first set the guidelines, which include what is shared in the room stays in the room, respect for each other, absolute silence, no forcing anyone to stand, no laughing at anyone, and only reveal that which you choose to reveal. No one is forced to reveal anything about themselves that they are not comfortable with. Once the guidelines are set, and I can see all the youth agree to them by nodding their heads, I start reading a listing of comments. After each comment, the youth decide if it applies to them and they stand up if it does, or stay seated if it does not. I always start with simple ones, like "stand up if you wear glasses or contacts." Those that do stand up. I wait a couple seconds so everyone can see who is standing and who is not. They are all in a circle of chairs, so everyone can see one another. After a few seconds, I say, "you can be seated." So, as I read the 40+ statements, the students are essentially doing a lot of sitting crunches. Up, down, up, down, up, down... but in reality, no one stands for everything I say. Here's an example of some of the statements I read after the "stand up if...":

• in the past year, you have been in a relationship that hurt
• you are a person of color
• you have felt embarrassed about the economic class of your family
• you come from a family of four or more children (85% stood)
• you are an only child (1 person stood)
• you are being raised by someone other than your parents
• you have low self-esteem
• you feel lonely
• you feel physically unattractive
• you are good at sports
• you, a member of your family, or a close friend is gay, lesbian, or bisexual
• you have been teased about your accent or voice
• you have ever felt alone, unwelcome, or afraid
• you have a learning or physical disability
• you have experienced alcoholism in your family
• you have experienced drug addiction in your family
• you have experienced suicidal thoughts at some point in your life

There were many more statements. Every statement I made was followed by several students standing. There they were, among their peers, sharing intimate details about their life. I used to be a bit cautious about how "deep" I allowed the statements to go when I was working with youth. For years, I led this activity as "cross the room" at the summer camp I help organize. What I learned year after year was that the youth loved participating in this activity. They liked revealing things about their lives and seeing that they were not alone in anything. Nearly every serious question results in multiple youth sharing that issue. It helps them. Year after year, the youth would ask me to add more and more statements. By my last year running this activity with the youth, I had a list of more than 100 statements. The youth never seemed to tire of the activity.

After the exercise, the youth are broken into age groups and have a discussion about the activity. They share insights and emotions. The activity can be draining, but the youth always say they would like to do participate in it again.

I've learned through the years of running this activity with youth, that youth want to share things about their lives. The problem they find, though, is that there are few listeners or people they trust to just talk with. An activity like this allows them to reveal what they want in a safe environment. Something that may have been a secret is now out and they don't have to harbor their feelings about it. As a person in recovery, I now understand how important it is to give people those safe spaces to share. I'm always surprised by how much youth want to talk about their lives if they are asked the right questions.

I carry this over to adults as well. I've actually run activities like this with adults and, in fact, I modified it from an adult activity I once participated in. However, adults don't necessarily find themselves in the types of environments where activities like this can occur.  Therefore, as caring adults, we need to ask these questions of our friends. We need to ask and listen. Perhaps some people are too closed off to share, but others will enjoy the opportunity to open up and reveal things they thought no one else would care to hear about. Sometimes, you may just learn something fascinating about someone that you thought you knew so much about. It's important that we all share things about our lives. It helps people reflect on their life experiences when sharing them. It also helps friendships become stronger. I challenge all of you to take the time to ask questions and share with a friend. It may help them and you at the same time!