Schools today have designated some classrooms and offices “Safe Spaces”. You can tell these spaces by their rainbow stickers, rainbow flags, and LGBTQ themed books. This seems like a noble ideal; a nice way to allow children to express themselves, but what exactly is a Safe Space?
According to Google, a Safe Space is somewhere a person can go to be free from discrimination, criticism, harassment, or any other emotional or physical harm. Therefore, a Safe Space is also a place where a person could go to get away from bullies. This begs an obvious question. If a child within a school must go to a Safe Space to be free from bullying, criticism, harassment or harm, are these behaviors acceptable on the remainder of school property? What about the hallways? The playground? The buses? Has the administration ceded these territories to the bullies?
This doesn’t make sense. Schools would never permit these behaviors in some places while disregarding them in others. There is in fact, another reason for Safe Spaces.
For the majority of school personnel, the best explanation is that Safe Spaces are places where children can go to DISCUSS issues pertaining to themselves in SAFETY, knowing there will be no judgment. Discussions had in Safe Spaces are kept confidential. By nature, most teachers care deeply about children and want to help them whenever possible. It only makes sense that these teachers would put a sticker in their classroom letting children know they are willing to help them if they are struggling.
Unfortunately, there are inherent issues with Safe Spaces. Remember open house? The week prior to school starting, parents and students come in to meet teachers and get introduced to other adults in the school. Maybe children know a few from year to year, but by and large, open house is a time for teachers, students, and their parents to introduce themselves to each other (something you do with strangers). What does this have to do with safe spaces? One week later, these students are in the school with the teachers they just met a week earlier.
This is normal and completely acceptable. After all, the majority of teachers are focused on teaching academics to students, but a small minority find it appropriate to talk to students about their political views, personal lives, and sexuality. Some teachers promote gender ideology in their classrooms through stickers, flags, and classroom library books, etc. What’s shocking is that the State of Michigan and some administrators encourage these behaviors. Here is one such teacher talking about his safe space classroom. This clip was taken from training videos put together by the State of Michigan for school districts. What’s more, the Michigan Department of Education instructed schools on how to keep a child's gender identity hidden from their parents.
Remember, what is discussed in the Safe Space is meant to be confidential. “Your secret is safe with me”, so to speak. Put in a different context, this turns very troubling. If a stranger pulled into a park in a white van, offering reading material to random children, promising to keep whatever happens inside the van secret, cops are likely to be involved quickly. What if the person is not a stranger, but someone the child met a week earlier? This scenario is not much different than what is possible within a Safe Space at a school. In fact here’s an article from January 6, 2023 showing Chicago schools watchdog finds hundreds of employees groomed, sexually assaulted students.
Here is another issue with Safe Spaces. Maybe the bullies, in the school's eyes, aren't in the school at all. There have been instances where the creators of Safe Spaces believe that their role is to protect children from those in their lives outside of the school who may criticize, harass, or cause other emotional or physical harm. To them, it is the parents and child’s home life that provides a bullying environment. This is by far the most dangerous possibility of what a Safe Space represents, but we have seen examples of governments making decisions that should be reserved for parents.
Whether the bullies, judgment of other students, or protecting children from their parents are the reasons for Safe Spaces, it is a misguided (at best, sinister at worst) attempt at a reasonable solution. If Safe Spaces are for children to hide secrets from their parents, as per the MDE training, they create a potentially predatory setup. They further isolate children from their parents and weaken family relationships. The ideal is children being comfortable and safe to express themselves how they see fit anywhere in the school. Safe Spaces don't do that. All safe spaces do is let children know where in the school they are safe to express themselves without fear of bullying, and it does not encompass the majority of the school grounds. By definition, Safe Spaces give bullies free reign everywhere else. Stopping bullying as a whole and helping families build stronger relationships are better solutions.