Aurora teens studying survival learn optimism's enduring power
What it means to be a survivor, beyond the long-running reality TV show, is a topic more than 100 East Aurora High School students study every year.
Through books about tragedies such as the Holocaust, Hurricane Katrina and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the students identify the characteristics it takes to endure horrific experiences - and they come away stronger, teacher Shane Gillespie says.
Each year's students get to choose one book to study with an extra focus, culminating in a spring service project that helps them gain perspective on a real person who has overcome extreme hardship.
This year's students are too young to remember when news of the hardship faced by their chosen author came to light eight years ago. But they're looking forward to hearing from Jaycee Dugard, who was kidnapped at age 11 and held captive for 18 years.
Dugard's 2011 memoir, "A Stolen Life," tells how she was forced to become a mother and a sister and never allowed to speak her own name. It gives such a chilling account of her time held against her will from 1991 to 2009 that students like senior Ana Jimenez were floored.
"As I was reading the book, I had to remind myself that this actually happened," Jimenez said. "It seemed so unbelievable that somebody actually went through this."
The students will hear more of Dugard's story when she speaks at 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 25, at their school, 500 Tomcat Lane, Aurora, as part of their study of sexual assault and abduction.
Dugard is speaking without charging the class a fee, but the students are trying to raise $7,000 through a GoFundMe page to donate to her foundation, the JAYC Foundation, which stands for Just Ask Yourself to Care. The nonprofit organization helps children and families recover after trauma or abduction and provides workshops for law enforcement and schools.
Gillespie says Dugard's book explains why "Just Ask Yourself to Care" is a central tenet of her message: because if more people who saw her and her captor in public had voiced suspicions, she could have been freed years earlier.
"If you see something that doesn't look right, then at the very least say something, because you don't know what the back story might be," Gillespie said.
To get a small, symbolic view into the traumatic experiences in Dugard's back story, the students are planning an educational lock-in on Saturday, April 22, called "A Stolen Night: 18 hours for 18 Years."
About 170 survivor literature students will spend a night in the school's field house, confining themselves there when surely there are other places they'd rather be. They'll hear from sexual assault survivors and journal their thoughts. They'll reflect on the hope and courage conveyed in Dugard's book and how its message has affected them.
"When you read a book like this about a survivor who went through it, it's a whole new perspective that you get," Jimenez said.
She and her teacher describe sexual abuse as a known but often overlooked problem - but not one they can ignore after reading of Dugard's experiences. So toward the end of their 18 hours in the field house, the class will hear from Amy Medlin, sexual assault program coordinator for Mutual Ground in Aurora, a nonprofit shelter and sexual assault counseling organization.
Medlin said she'll teach the teens how to get help from Mutual Ground if any are survivors of sexual assault - whether of recent traumas or of experiences from their past. The most direct way to access free counseling and other services is to call the 24-hour sexual assault hotline at (630) 897-8383.
"It's a vulnerable age range for sexual assault and abuse and they may have needs," Medlin said.
The idea of becoming a survivor means something different to everyone who's undergone a traumatic experience, and it's certainly not a linear process, Medlin says. That's why it helps to talk it through with a counselor and to learn that before healing often comes more pain.
"It's complex to be a survivor," Medlin said. "There's not one way a survivor heals."
Optimism, though, is one of the characteristics that helps, Gillespie says. It's present in strong overtones in Dugard's writing.
"Considering what she's experienced, she's got a terribly optimistic outlook," Gillespie said. "The kids bought into it. They see it as evidence of why she survived."