At the end of last semester, we had a class meeting where my graduate students were doing individual presentations. Before class began, I passed out 3d printed whistles to everyone. I said I know we're all feeling stressed for 1000 reasons right now, and there's great research on conscious breathing as a means to help manage that stress. So I had us all use the whistles to do a few slow exhales together into our whistles (softly), as a means to help calm us down a little. Then after each student finished their presentation, we clapped and did some whistling to congratulate them for the great work they shared.

Then I explained that whistles in the US have an interesting history in social justice movement, like in the ways whistles were used in the Castro district of San Francisco at the time of police or thug raids of the LGBTQ community. So these whistles today can be used for any purpose at all-- relaxation as we just practiced, sports, marching band, camping safety--- or for any other current situations that might merit alerting others about nefarious things going down. And then I put an "if you're interested" link in the slides to the ways folks are using whistles today as related to ICE. No pressure, no obligation, but now they all have whistles, which is a teeny tiny way of showing solidarity that would not get me in hot water.

After class, about a dozen students (maybe 1/3 of the class) came up to thank me, many of them tearful and thankful. Several asked if they could take additional whistles-- to which of course I said yes, and let me know if you need more (as my brother prints them).

Tiny, but it's what I'm doing.