Thurston High School, Oregon
Oregon students issued a Mix it Up Day challenge, holding a morning filled with activities aimed at breaking down social boundaries. The event encouraged students to challenge the cliques and groups that create social divisions in their schools. Administrators feel this is an especially important initiative because they are aware that some students have been recruited as members of the Aryan Nations hate group. "We're known as the 'hate school.'" They acknowledge that the reputation that stems from this can hurt students and the school. As it is, the school has been struggling to move beyond the shadow of a tragic shooting that occurred in 1998 - a fatal incident in which a student entered the cafeteria toting a semiautomatic rifle, killing 2 students and wounding 22 others.How did some of the students feel?
- Pablo Martinez, a 16-year-old sophomore, is one of the students who sometimes sits alone at lunch. Mix It Up Day, he said, is "a chance to sit with people you normally don't sit with and not be afraid about getting rejected or laughed at." Martinez said rejection is something many kids face at Thurston, which has only a small percentage of students of color.
- Niki Schamp, a 17-year-old senior, summed it up best. "People feel comfortable in places they know they are accepted and they don't want to try anything else," she said. "But the more you do it, the easier it gets."
Read more about Thurston's event....
Trevor G. Browne High School in Phoenix
The Phoenix high school campus is considered "a working-class school," according to teachers. More than three-quarters of the student body is Latino, typical for Phoenix high schools. About 12% is white, 8% African American, and the remaining 3% Native American and Asian. While the school has a reputation for gang activity, students agree that they can get incorrectly pegged as gang members because of how they look and that other issues, such as sexual orientation, national origin, what kind of music you listen to, or how you dress, are common causes of social divisions. In response, students worked to defy stereotypes and build bridges through an elaborate Mix It Up Day festival which featured many activities designed to encourage interactions between students who might otherwise not socialize with one another.Read more about Trevor Browne's event....
Sweetwater Intermediate School in Texas
352 fourth- and fifth-graders at Sweetwater Intermediate School in Sweetwater, Texas participated in the schools third Mix It Up at Lunch event. Sweetwaters is billed as "The sweetest town in Texas," but teachers acknowledge that bitter attitudes still creep in. Children absorb attitudes like sponges and use language heavy with race and ability bias, a sign that there is still work to do in crossing borders and teaching tolerance. Nonetheless, teachers reported that students were excited. "That's what I love about fourth- and fifth-graders," says school counselor and Mix It Up facilitator Melissa Howard. "They are still so into everything." And into it they were.Somewhat more structured, students were asked to sit at tables based on the month they were born. An easy point of common ground, students were able to interact and learn new things about one another.
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Franklin Learning Center in Philadelphia
The prior year's event was so successful (it incorporated ninth-graders) that biology teacher and Red Cross Club adviser Lynn Johnson decided to include the whole school this year. Of the nearly 800 students at Franklin Learning Center, 48% are black, 24% are white, 17% are Asian and 11% are Hispanic. All were encouraged to partcipate in creative activities including scavenger hunts, which facilitated interactions with students they did not know.Senior David McKemey, participating in Mix It Up for the first time, felt the event provided is a wonderful way to meet new people and to overcome self-segregation. "People are afraid that the differences outweigh similarities," McKemey said. "It's a misguided view but, sadly, people believe it."
Read more about Franklin Learning Center's event....
Article Continues - How France Got Involved...