Our Friend Mike is Brave

cross post from Shauna's blog

I feel very fortunate to have connected (and especially lucky to have connected my class) with Mike Moody, who co-hosts the Castle to Castle Disnerds podcast.

Mike and I initially got in contact when I contacted them about providing support to Edcamp Magic. They have tweeted with our class when we've been sharing our learning about gender. We have a Muppet in our class, Syd, who is ungendered and my grade 3/4 students have been very interested to learn about people who don't fit into the binary gender model.

After Mike tweeted at us, impressed about what we were learning, we tweeted back, asking them questions about preferred pronouns. Mike prefers "they", but understands that members of their family are still more comfortable using "he" when speaking about them.

We have been so impressed by Mike's braveness in sharing about their gender and facial disfigurement. When we recorded this video, we shared it with Mike (along with Dancing Man!) and they shared a song with us.


We listened to and really enjoyed Mike's song (also called "Brave"). When we requested a copy of the lyrics, they shared them with us. I was moved to learn that Mike wrote this song for a young friend with a similar facial disfigurement.

I've seen my share of hospital beds

(You've seen them all)

With the myriad of coloured cards

Crawling across the wall

They came to my bedside

With fresh sympathy

Did I ever realise,

"They're as scared as me..."?

They called me 'brave'

Was I brave?

Am I brave?

Were they brave?

I was just a little person once

Not anymore

Now, you're just a little person, yet

You're opening doors

That I could never have opened

When I was your age

Sitting back in that purple chair

Composed like a sage

They called me brave

But you are brave

You are brave

Oh, you are brave

They see my face, they stop and stare

You know it's true

I think I deal with it better every time

And so do you

'cause that's just us on the outside

And eventually they see

Friends have X-ray vision

They see inside

And that's quite brave

Your friends are brave

Your folks are brave

They're all quite brave

Your head has the scars

The bumps and the lines

You may think it's ugly

I think it's fine

It's your face to love

As much as mine's mine

And they all will too

If they take the time

The headlines will say

'It's All in the Head!'

And so take this

With your daily bread

You've come this far

So didn't you know?

You are brave

You know you're brave

I know I'm brave

Yeah, we're all brave

Your folks are brave

Your friends are brave

You and I are brave

We're all so brave

Thanks so much to Mike for being so open and willing to share with my students. We have been really moved and inspired by your bravery.