Students who attended the Student Diversity Leadership Conference hosted a silent movement activity for the upper school community on Dec. 8, and are processing the feedback after the event.

During the zoom activity, participants arrived with their cameras off. Then, different identifiers, including race, gender, age, religion, and ability, were read off. If a participant identified with what was read, they would turn their camera on. After turning their camera on, there was a moment to acknowledge who else had their camera on and who did not. Then, participants would turn their camera off and another identifier would be read.

Although the activity was intended to include the eight-core cultural identifiers–race, gender, age, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, religion, ability, and family structure–significant identifiers were cut due to concerns from students. The identifiers not included in the silent movement activity were socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, and family structure.

Sophomore SDLC member Tenzin Bawa said, “I was quite surprised by the request to take out some of the questions. I was surprised because people from all backgrounds from the SDLC highly enjoyed the activity, and it was the one thing that people wanted to bring back to their schools […] because of the high praise the activity got at the SDLC conference, it made me feel as though people would feel the same way here.”

Bawa is unsure if the silent movement activity will take place again, “I don’t know if there will be another class meeting with the silent movement activity or other activities from the Conference,” said Bawa, “However, I hope that in the future we can improve from what we have learned, and conduct something that will be meaningful for the student body.”

Participants in the SDLC found the silent movement activity to be a success, “I definitely think this was a success because we did an engaging activity that was quite different from just telling people about what happened at the SDLC,” said Bawa.

Bawa believes that the activity would have been more impactful in an in-person format, “If the activity was conducted in-person, I think most of the hurdles we had to overcome wouldn’t be there. I have only heard about what the Silent Movement activity is like in-person, but I think that engaging activities that are done in person would have a far greater impact.”