The most powerful lesson I’ve practiced, as both a student and instructor of Prepare programs, is about being able to stay present to and bear what I know in the most intimate moments of boundary violations and danger, whether they are caused by the actions and behaviors of strangers or people close to me. To me, this is among the most formidable challenges our school-aged students face. For a young person to have the ability to know what they know is radical; to be able to act on that knowledge paves the way for transformation.
We get stuck on not wanting to know.
As a child, I responded graciously to adult attention and behavior aimed at me that can only be described as disgraceful. From an early age I knew adults shouldn’t flirt with me like that, shouldn’t comment on my body, shouldn’t look into my eyes that way, confide personal secrets, or pull me close to sit on their lap. While I couldn’t yet put it into words, I felt scared of the attention and knew it was no good for me. Yet the strength of my cultural and social conditioning, as a girl and as a Catholic, had me forgiving bad behavior without a moment’s hesitation, and even had me believing this was some kind of power I could wield. I protected grown men from embarrassment and rejection as though my life depended on it and to such a degree that it was unthinkable to me to be anything but sweet about stuff I didn’t like or knew was wrong.
The older I got, the worse the behaviors got. When, at the end of ninth grade, my newly graduated senior boyfriend began vaginal penetration after we had discussed that I did not want to have intercourse yet, my only thought was: He cannot be doing that when I already said I don’t want to—but is he?? Obviously, he was. But I couldn’t believe it. That disbelief held me up at a moment when I really needed to know what I knew and take action for myself.
In just about all those childhood instances, I knew perfectly well that what was happening was wrong and might even be a crime. Yet my private recognition stayed private, and what showed up on the outside was me feeling baffled and spaced out, nervous, smiling, or apologizing, when I had every right to be furious and to verbally and/or physically resist.
Grieve what’s true, and prepare to be surprised by your own power.
To live at the mercy of our social conditioning – to feel as though we can’t know what we know – is to be under a spell. What breaks the spell? A space where young people can be affirmed in knowing that the people they love or depend on, who should or do know better, may cross their boundaries and harm them; it is not their responsibility to control people’s behavior, but neither is it their burden to protect people from knowing they crossed a line.
But hearing that information and being changed by it are two different things. Even when we do accept that these things occur, our acceptance of it may only be intellectual, at first. Teacher says: The facts are this and this and this. Students say: Okay. But what if we were to pause—just long enough to acknowledge our grief at this truth, and our rage?
Every time I tell a classroom full of eighth or ninth grade girls that the majority of sexual assault is committed by the boys and men of our lives whom we know, some of whom we love, I pause, half-hoping that someone will yell: “Are you fucking kidding me?!” They never do. They show their disappointment in other ways. Eye-rolling and disruptive behavior during class, radio silence during discussions, and opting-out of whatever we’re practicing all speak to the betrayal some feel and their confusion about how things could be this way in the first place.
Especially in childhood, we want to be assured that we are safe and that the people we’re interacting with are basically trustworthy. Often, this is the case. The trouble comes when we find ourselves caught up, hung up, or frozen in a moment of clash between the ideal and reality. Disbelief and disappointment can keep us feeling stuck, but what Prepare teaches releases young people into their power to choose how they want to relate to what is true in the moment. We can acknowledge our grief, disappointment, anger – take a breath, pause – but we can absolutely not stop there. When we practice what comes next, we unleash our power to self-advocate.
Two steps back, “Don’t touch me.”
Even a seemingly small action has the power to turn a whole scenario around, and that’s where, for me, Prepare shines brightest. Prepare offers students a process that does help to tune them in more acutely to their body’s knowing, but moving from knowing to action is key. Very often, the “body” that registers knowing is a collective body—a class full of as many as 30 students, all genders, who, upon seeing a demonstration of some ordinary, terrible boundary violation, will, all together at the same moment, lean back in their chairs, wave their hands in front of them, and shake their heads vigorously. Add to their collective body language an eruption of gasps, oooh!!, and nah, bruh’s from all assembled, and it’s apparent: they know the behavior isn’t okay.
But a healthy intuition does not guarantee that we will be able to take action on our own behalf when the situation calls for it. Therefore, the practice of role plays and realistic scenarios, with coaching, safety and support in the room, are essential to getting us unstuck from our disbelief and fears about the world being exactly the way that it is. Is my boyfriend trying to sneak sex with me right now, as if I haven’t already said no? Yes. Am I disgusted and mad? Yes. Grief is part of the process and so is rage. An education in Prepare moves the body – the individual and the collective – from a reactive, eyes-closed, no, no, no in the mind or from the sidelines, to an authoritative, eyes-open, loud NO!, from a balanced body that is itself a barrier. This NO is unmistakable.
Knowing what we know is a powerful beginning to self-advocacy.
In my life outside of teaching Prepare, I write and illustrate children’s books about ordinary, terrible things. The books confront death, sex, race, abuse, family upheaval, and the confusing, conflicting and condescending messages kids receive about their own power. These books make space for children to be upset about things as they are and then trust them to make meaning of it. Two are banned in several states, and the one about dismantling white supremacy has been waved around on the House and Senate floors in Texas. It’s been used to justify banning any curriculum in schools that directly address systemic racism and a legacy of resistance to that established power structure.
In my capacity as an instructor for Prepare and the creator of these books for children, the unifying element is power: the power, not only to know, but to navigate what you know, consciously, decisively. In both contexts, what makes the work controversial is its willingness to confront truths that are not fun or comforting, but that empower children to see their world more clearly, take up space in it, and insist that others regard and respect their boundaries. To be able to act on our own behalf in a moment that feels terrible holds tremendous potential for shifting power, and offers a chance at transformation, at the level of the individual and the culture.
by Anastasia Higginbotham, Certified Prepare Instructor
Award Winning Author of the book series Ordinary Terrible Things