Mainely Middle
Journal of the Maine Association for Middle
Level Education
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2001/2002 |
Reaching Real Peace... Student to StudentI would like to tell a couple of stories. The first involves a group of four teenagers from Palestine and Israel in the Middle East. Two are Palestinians and are Muslim and two are Israelis and are Jewish. It is a big deal that they spend time together because, for the most part, Jews and Muslims in Israel and Palestine do not interact. Muslims and Jews go to different schools and live in separate areas. Israel and Palestine, two countries that neighbor each other are in the midst of a violent struggle filled with hatred and death and grief. All that they have been taught about the people of the other side is that they are violent, hate filled and inhuman. These four teenagers travel around to elementary, middle and high schools to make presentations. In these presentations, they try to help the students understand that the so-called "enemy" is really very much like themselves. For some of the kids in the room, the two presenters who are not from their group are the first people from the other group they have ever met. By the end of the presentations, the students in the room often have an entirely different point of view about the other side. They, for the first time, do not think of the people in the other group as entirely horrible people. The idea is that these kids will be less likely to blindly take part in violence when they are of the age to join military and militant groups The second story that I would like to tell involves a boy who I will call Sam. Sam dreaded going to school, he hated it. Each day he would get on the bus and the same things would happen. of Sam because he is overweight, telling him that he couldn't sit next to them because he wouldn't fit. People made fun of Sam all day long. They made remarks about Sam's difficulties in school, calling him a retard and an idiot. Sam's classmates would whisper horribly hurtful things to him and about him everyday day. And each day he would hate coming to school even more and would have more and more trouble concentrating on his school work because he was so troubled by what people said to him. One day a girl from Sam's school overheard some of this language and walked over to Sam and the kids who were harassing him and told them to stop harassing Sam. The girl then went and talked to a teacher in the school about Sam's harassment. The next day, the teacher talked to Sam and found out what the issues were and talked with those kids who were harassing him. From that point on in the year Sam did not have to hear the language often at all, and when he did, he knew that there was someone he could go to. The girl in the story, the one who stood up for Sam and told the teacher about what was happening, was a member of her school's Civil Rights Team. You know, I think that this story happens in all of your schools because people like you are standing up and sticking up for those who are being harassed and standing up for what you all know is right. You are all leaders much like the person in my story about Sam and the people in my story about the kids in the Middle East. You are leaders in your communities who are working to try to make People would yell awful things at him. They would make fun your schools safer places to be. I think these two stories, which sound pretty different, are really very similar. They are both about young people making real changes and fostering greater respect in their communities. It seems like lately there has been this rallying of youth around the state and around the world to try to teach and spread understanding. It's like a movement of the younger generation, of our generation. There is now a movement of younger people who are working hard for civil and human rights. You are certainly part of that movement. A couple of days ago I was in my history class. We have been spending time talking about the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S., as well as the Civil Rights Movement in South Africa. Someone in the class started taking about tolerance and diversity in our high school. All of us are seniors in this class and we realized that since we began in ninth grade, the high school had really been becoming a more accepting and safe place to go to school. The teacher in the room added to this and said that she had noticed that the school had been changing for a number of years, since the Civil Rights Teams began. She believed that the Civil Rights Team was responsible for the changes. We thought about this for a little while and then I raised my hand and said, "I think that the Civil Rights Teams have changed the schools but I don't think that it is because of the high school Civil Rights Teams, but because of the one in the middle school" Every year it seems that the class coming from eighth grade to the high school is more tolerant and open to new ideas and people. I really do give the credit to middle school Civil Rights Teams. It's pretty amazing, pretty cool that this happens. There's actually a lot of power and responsibility you hold as members of the Civil Rights Teams. You see, you may think about your mission or goal as one that is only important to your middle schools. But I know that I certainly did not realize, when I was on my middle school Civil Rights Team, how much of an effect it would have. What you do not only makes the halls and classrooms of your middle schools safer places but you change the high schools as well. I would imagine that even after graduating from high school, in jobs or in college or wherever you may find yourself, people who have been affected by a Civil Rights Team in middle school are more open and accepting. Every time you stand up and speak up for people and ideas you help to change the experience that people have, not only in middle school, but also in high school and beyond. I know that I certainly appreciate what the Hall-Dale Middle School Civil Rights Team does because my high school experience has been made more bearable by a greater sense of tolerance. A lot of people go through school feeling like they don't fit at all. They feel harassed and discriminated against. It's so important that people don't have to feel this way. We all go to school to learn and to get something positive and it's impossible to do this if you are always being made to feel sad and scared and that school is the worst possible place that you could be. What Civil Rights Teams are doing is so important because you help to make the experiences of these people much better. It is important that people in school who are made to feel like they are not as valuable know that they are important and that there are people who care and who are willing to help. That is why you all are so important and why it is important that each one of us speak up, and speak up loudly. Every time the teams hold Civil Rights Days or Diversity Days, you raise awareness among people in your school. Every time you bring someone in to your school to speak about diversity or about respect you better your school and the people in your school. Each time you have school announcements or discussion questions in homerooms about civil rights, you change your school. And every time you speak up for people being harassed, you help to create a place where each person can go to school without fear. For the last three years I have been involved in Seeds of Peace Camp. The four Palestinians and Israelis whom I told you about before are also part of Seeds Of Peace. The camp brings teens to a summer camp on a lake in Maine. The people who come to the camp are from all over the world. They are from countries where there are wars and brutality and deep, deep hatreds. Places like Palestine and Israel in the Middle East, Indiaand Pakistan, countries in the Balkans and other countries. They come here so that they can talk about the issues in their countries and begin to understand the people who are supposed to be their enemies. They leave having learned that these people who they have been told to hate are really much like themselves. What is so great about Seeds of Peace is that it takes young people very seriously and actually expects them to accomplish something. The hope is that the SOP participants will not go back to their countries and continue war but rather they will spread ideas about tolerance. The same ideas apply to the Civil Rights Teams. The mission for both is to make life safer and to help people to be more respectful and understanding of differences.
There is a lot of talk by people who are in power, like teachers and presidents and others, about how we are the future and the next generation and how great we are. But in reality, sometimes we get ignored and made to look like we are not important. The truth is, we are important and we have a lot of power. People in the Civil Rights Teams are dedicated activists who are changing the negative realities of life. We hear a lot about people who have caused change in history. Well you know what, forty years ago in the Civil Rights Movement it was young people, 18, 19, 20 year olds who struggled so that black people were allowed to vote in the South. Thirty years ago it was groups of young people who marched and protested and brought an end to the Vietnam War. And right now, it is and it will be this generation - our generation - that will fight so that all people can feel safe in their schools and their communities.
• Outright of Lewiston-Auburn (786-2717) • Maranacook Community School/Interactive Theater and Diversityleadership - Maggie McKinney at Maranacook Middle • Auburn Middle School Civil Rights Team (784-1356) - Snevens@auburnschl.edu • Seeds of Peace; Otisfield, Maine (www.seedsofpeace.org) • Teaching Tolerance/Southern Poverty Law Center - (www.splcenter.org) • "Not In Our Town" (www.pbs.org/niot/) • Holocaust Human Rights Center of Maine (287-5620) - Holocaust Education and the Diversity Leadership Institute at Bates College • "Don't laugh at Me" (www.dontlaugh.org) • Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence (207-780-4756) - (http://www.cphv.usm.maine.edu) (cphv@usm.maine.edu) • Maine Attorney General's Office/Tom Harnett - Maine Civil Rights Team Project 207-626-8800 - (www.state.me.us/ag/crt/crt.htm) • Institute for Global Ethics (207-236-6658) - (education@globalethics.org) (www.globalethics.org)
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