Breaking Through the Religious Divide
The 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq marked my first year of teaching. When one of my students referred to Iraqis as “towel heads,” I told him he had to do extra homework researching turbans and present a report to me the next day. It took him a week to complete the assignment, and instead of gaining insight and compassion for a different group of people, he probably just became more resentful. I now see this as a lost opportunity.
As a precursor to our social studies unit on conflict in the Middle East, I taught a unit this year on world religions. We started off studying seven of the world’s major faiths and then narrowed it down to the three Abrahamic religions: Christianity, Judaism and Islam.
There are no Muslim or Jewish students in my class, and at the beginning of our unit, it was clear to me that my students knew very little about Islam’s status as the second-largest and fastest-growing religion in the world. In a pretest, I asked students to list the three largest world religions. Islam only appeared on two or three of the tests.
Students had lots of questions about Islam: “Why do the women wear those scarves on their heads? Don’t most Muslim women wear burkas? Why did they attack us on 9/11?”
In order to break through the boundary between “us” and “them,” our study of the Abrahamic faiths had to go beyond texts and videos. My student teacher and I set up visits to three local sites: a synagogue, a mosque and an Eastern Orthodox church. Students were able to immediately compare the faiths as we went from one site to another on one day, focusing on what all the faiths have in common.
Our site hosts were generous and welcoming. The guide at the church walked the students down the aisle as if they were Byzantine royalty. The youth outreach coordinator at the temple demonstrated a bread blessing. The representatives at the Mosque (a man and a woman) not only took us into the prayer room, they also brought us doughnuts and bottled water. At no time did the guides cross the line into proselytizing, and at no time did the students offer anything but respect for the hosts.
The most memorable moment for me came during the question-and-answer time at the mosque. “I don’t know much about Islam,” an eighth-grade student said, “and it seems a lot of people are confused about it, too. If you could put the message of Islam into one sentence, to help people understand, what would it be?”
“Islam means ‘peace,’” he replied. “That is what Islam is.”
She nodded slowly, perhaps in surprise, and then smiled. I guess she liked the answer. I’m just really glad she had the chance to ask the question.
Anderson is a middle school humanities and interdisciplinary studies teacher in Oregon.
Student Posters Speak Up Against Bullying
"Don't Be a Bystander,” says one of the anti-bullying posters created by Tualatin High School students. It’s an important message for students to hear.
In an effort to combat the growing bullying crisis, Teacher Rachel Robinson showed her advanced digital arts classes Teaching Tolerance’s film, “Bullied: A Student, a School and a Case That Made History.”
Moved by the film’s message, the students decided they wanted to spread the word to the rest of the school by making anti-bullying posters. Robinson supported the idea, telling oregonlive.com, “Not tolerating bullies needs to come from the top down and the kids up. It is our moral and legal obligation to protect the kids.”
We commend both Robinson and the school’s administration for taking the students’ idea to the next level—a school-wide poster contest. The resulting 70 posters are a compelling reminder of the power of student activism.
Seeing the Child Behind the Anger
Many of my third-graders are very angry. They have good reason. Growing up in the most violent area in Oakland, many have lost family members to violence or experienced racial injustice. They distrust the people who are supposed to protect them.
Anthony was one of my angriest students. His father was in prison. Anthony told me that he wanted to kill his father because fathers aren’t supposed to leave their families. He was 6 years old at the time.
The smallest things could set him off: another student looking at him for too long, not understanding a math concept or rain keeping him from outdoor recess. When he would get angry, even older students ran away.
I tried different techniques to help Anthony deal with his anger, some more effective than others. I had a college-student volunteer who took a great interest in him. Anthony worked with the counselor at school and told me he had learned to imagine himself calmly eating ice cream and playing Go Fish with this volunteer whenever he got too upset.
One time, Anthony told me that there was nothing good about himself. I decided to create a “Ten Good Things About Anthony” list. As soon as I told him my plan, he became angry, but he didn’t leave. I’d suggest an item, type it and ask him if he had any ideas. He would yell that this was the stupidest thing he had ever heard of. It was excruciating, but we finally got to number 10.
I printed the list out and told Anthony I wanted him to know that there were good things about him. He screamed that there weren’t any good things about him, crumpled up the paper, threw it in the garbage can and stomped out.
I turned back to the computer and heard the door open and someone rustling in the garbage can. When I turned back around, Anthony’s backpack disappeared though the door. The garbage can was empty.
I lost touch with Anthony after elementary school, but recently saw him in a PBS documentary about incarcerated young African-American men.
I have no idea if anything that any of us at the school did ever helped Anthony. After he left my class, he would sometimes find me and say, “Ms. Harris, you need to help me calm down! You’re the only one who can calm me down!” Maybe it was simply that he knew I hadn’t given up on him.
Seeing him in the documentary reminded me of all this. I still don’t think it’s too late for him. As an adult, I’m sure Anthony has realized that the world, in many ways, is even more unfair that he imagined. But I hope he can also know, somehow, that there are still people who believe in him and believe that he is more than his anger.
Harris is a teacher, tutor and volunteer in California.
Why Service Is a Skill Worth Learning
I overheard two students talking in class one day about their after-school plans. One said she would be volunteering at the local women’s shelter.
I hurried over, excited to congratulate her on this great thing she was doing—being part of her community and supporting marginalized groups. Lesson plans were already beginning to form in my head: writing prompts about social awareness, student interviews with our populations of homeless, hungry, mentally and intellectually disabled and those in poverty. I imagined students writing editorials to the local newspaper about the needs of our community.
I could feel goose bumps begin to form on my arms. I was brimming with pride for her—all this goodness and altruism, and she is barely a teenager? I was nearly running by the time I got to her and asked, “Tell me more about how you volunteer! Give me details! This is fantastic!”
She stopped. Paused. Looked at me and abruptly said, “My mom makes me go.”
I went a little limp and tried not to show her that I was kind of disappointed. “Oh,” I said, “But do you like going?” I was still holding out hope.
“Not at first.” More disappointment.
“But I really like going now,” she quickly continued. “I’ve learned how to help people and a lot of other stuff.” She grinned and was obviously proud of not just what she does to help others, but maybe what she’s gained from them.
Later on, I reflected on this conversation and felt guilty that I had been disappointed that she hadn’t done it all on her own. Of course someone showed her how to do it. Very few young adults become active in the community independently, and that’s OK and completely appropriate. It’s our job as adults to teach them how to become productive citizens.
If this student was beginning to understand the importance of service, what could other students do and feel and become if given the opportunity?
Maybe we should make service learning a requirement. Sure, many school districts elect to make this part of their students’ experiences, but what if public schools everywhere made it mandatory? What if service learning became part of our standards and benchmarks? Maybe as a result, students would learn something much deeper than how to complete a project or cross things off a to-do list.
We know, as adults, the importance of understanding the needs of our neighbors and why they may have those needs. Let’s show our kids. Let’s help them to see that each of us is an integral part of our society and that we cannot thrive without each other’s help.
Timm is a middle school language arts teacher and creative workshop instructor in Iowa.
Conflict Resolution Skills Start in Preschool
In our kindergarten classroom, there are no desks. Instead, we have three large, child-sized tables, around which 20 children and three teachers can fit. We call it the writing table. Here, students can draw, write and complete phonics-based workbooks.
One morning, Greta was drawing a picture of something that had happened the day before: She and her friend Lily had made bird nests during outside recess and had placed them all throughout the yard. Greta was illustrating herself and Lily making nests. Her classmate Ellie watched her create the drawing.
Ellie said something to Greta just out of earshot of the teachers in the room. Greta went to a teacher and said, “Ellie told me I had to draw her in my drawing, but I want it to be accurate.” Then Ellie grabbed Greta’s body in an attempt to prevent her from saying anything else. The behavior was immediately addressed: “You may not use your body like that,” the teacher said.
There’s another step in this process. Instead of just putting a stop to the grabbing behavior, the teacher went one step further. She pulled Ellie aside and said to her, “You know what happens when children come to teachers with a problem. We listen. We need to listen, and children need to let us know.”
Defusing conflicts in the classroom, and in the world, involves a lot more than just ending the conflict. It demands that the reasons for the conflict be understood. That way, both players can act accordingly should a subsequent conflict occur. When young children are involved, teachers (and adults generally) are charged with building up each child’s repertoire of conflict-solving skills.
The teacher models the steps for conflict resolution. She first asked Ellie outright, “What happened?”
Ellie: “Greta was drawing a picture of Lily and her, and I wanted to be in it.”
Teacher: “I’m sorry. You must have felt left out. But Greta is really trying to draw what actually happened yesterday. You weren’t there when they were making nests. Maybe today you can be there.”
Not only did she find out the source of the conflict, but the teacher also validated the emotions Ellie was feeling.
After this, both girls went back to drawing. But there was one thing left to do. The teacher turned to Greta and asked, “Now, do you know why Ellie jumped on you?”
Greta replied instantly, “Yeah, because I wouldn’t put her in my drawing.”
The teacher offered an alternative, “Actually, Ellie did it because she felt left out—and sad. And sometimes, when we feel strong emotions inside us, we forget to use our words.”
And this is what we work on every day. It’s an ongoing process, one that never really stops. Conflicts will happen again and again, both inside the classroom and out. How we help children understand and defuse conflicts just might make the difference between success or failure when the next challenge comes their way.
Palenski is a kindergarten teacher in Connecticut.
