Mix It Up

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This activity is based on "The Children's March." (Download the Teacher's Guide here.)

Objectives
• Students will identify the social boundaries of their own school and community.
• Students will act to cross boundaries and borders.

Materials
• An ongoing schoolwide project kicking off or culminating in the fall
• All Mix It Up materials— activities, posters, clip art—are available free as downloads 

Framework
The labels, such as jocks and nerds, are as old and familiar as schooling itself. New labels appear with each new school year. And, unfortunately, crossing boundaries between groups is a difficult task to accomplish for many students. It’s just “safer” to stay with one’s own kind.

Step One Have students list the different kinds of groupings that exist in school. Explain that you’d like them to do this without giving commentary about each group or judging them. In other words, “Be kind.”

Step Two Ask students the following questions:
• What group do they fit in?
• Do they fit in more than one group?
• Do groups get along? Why or why not?
• Do groups have soft boundaries (meaning you can move from group to group) or do they have hard boundaries (meaning you can’t move from group to group)?
• Can some people move from group to group and others can’t? Why do you think this is so? What do they have that allows them to move?
• Where do you most often see groups pool together, e.g., cafeteria, after-school events, etc.?
• Why do people pool together?

Step Three Explore boundary-crossing with students:
• What benefit is there in crossing boundaries from one group to another?
• What opportunities are there to cross boundaries at your school?
• Do you want to cross boundaries? Why or why not?
• Why might it be important to learn the skill of crossing boundaries now? How might it help you in the future?
• Who do you know personally that crosses boundaries well? How do they do it? What can you learn from them?

Step Four Introduce Mix It Up, a nationwide program that believes in the power of youth to create and sustain real change. It provides ideas and tools to help break the walls of division in your school and community. National Mix It Up at Lunch Day, held in the fall, encourages people to swap seats in their cafeteria for a single day and meet new people.

Explore these action possibilities with students and support their efforts to implement the program.

Follow-up Activity
This follow-up activity aids students in having complete ownership of the project. Focusing on the interaction between students and adults, ask students the following question: What do adults do that impede or help you?

Either have students discuss this in small groups and then come together to share it with the whole group or have them do a quick-write first and then share. The following is a list that may guide you in getting the conversation started:
• Sometimes adults see us as weak when we are strong and reliable.
• We want adults to share openly with us about power and how it operates.
• Respect us.
• Don’t do things FOR us, do them WITH us.
• Admit it when you make a mistake, be open.
• Trust us to be powerful.
• Listen to us, don’t just lecture to us.
• Don’t co-opt our ideas.
• Be flexible.

After students have generated a list of ways adults can help them, why not take a marker and sign it in front of them, making it a binding contract?

Invite your students to write about how adults help—or impede—their activism.