Using Education as an Agent for Social Change

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By Anika Venezia

Anika Venezia is a recent graduate of Albany High School where she was the president of the Amnesty International Club

My town of Albany, California, is currently abuzz about a recent New York Times article, detailing how boys at my former high school created an Instagram account where they shared racist and otherwise harmful posts, many targeting their Black female peers.

As a 6th grader at the time, I remember an air of shock and denial from many adults. If you know Albany, you might have heard it referred to as a “bubble” — as though it’s free from the heinous hate common across the country. This incident shattered the “bubble” believers’ perceptions of Albany. It also reflected many people’s lived realities in Albany. In reaction to the attacks, some students mobilized to push for change in the community.

Following the racist Instagram attacks, students at Albany High School formed a group called Speak. Speak creates presentations about topics like racism, privilege, intersectionality, and identity and presents them in fifth-grade classrooms throughout the district.

When I entered high school, I joined Speak. As I prepared to give my first fifth-grade presentation, an interactive lesson on the history of racism and privilege in the United States, I was learning the material in the presentation for the first time, too. Through the preparation for Speak, I learned about historical events like Apartheid and the War on Drugs, events that shaped societies and social rights as we know them today and yet I’d never learned about either in school. I learned to define words like “prejudice,” “discrimination,” “racism,” and “intersectionality,” and how to explain queer identity, all at a fifth-grade level. Doing so gave me the framework to talk about systems of oppression thoughtfully and intentionally, a skill I unfortunately wasn’t taught to develop in my formal education.

I reflected on my limited in-school education, and the impact of learning my own history, in and outside of school. The first time the Holocaust was mentioned extensively in school was in my 10th grade English class; we read Night by Elie Wiesel, and I remember the impact of reading a story that was connected to my family’s. I remember sitting at my desk researching queer historical figures because I never learned about queer people in history class. Seeing parts of my identity in history was comforting and validating. In school, history classes were centered in white, cishet, European history and usually from a male perspective. In Speak, we could change that for an hour.

I remember my first presentation very vividly; I remember how moved I was to see the level of engagement and interest in the fifth graders. I was inspired by their willingness to participate and engage. I was also impressed by how easy it was for them to understand topics that privileged society labels as unintelligible for kids — topics like privilege and intersectional identity. Kids are not born with prejudices; they are taught to hate. That is why unlearning and relearning at a young age is so crucial.

Albany is an extremely blue town in one of the bluest counties in one of the bluest states. This does not void us of systemic oppression. During our classroom discussions, students reported being called racial slurs and having homophobic insults hurled at them on the playground. No region in the United States is free of systemic oppression, and denial like that which many Albany locals exhibited following the racist Instagram attacks only prevents necessary steps toward equity and justice.

Speak’s mission, and the work of human rights education organizations like Woven Teaching, are relevant everywhere. Human rights-focused education efforts that include youth action empower students to understand and question societal systems. These opportunities can provide students with the language and knowledge to engage in the broader world.


Connections to UDHR

Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 2: Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Article 26: 

  1. Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.

  2. Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.

Teacher Resources