Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue

When I was in 5th grade in the Henrico county school system, we had two high school students come and visit our classroom once a week to "teach" us something. At least that was their goal. We never thought of it as a lesson, though. To us, it was an hour a week where we got to hang out with High School kids, and that was cool. The organization the students belonged to was called S.O.D. A. ( Student Organization for Developing Attitudes) I knew from that moment on when I got to High School, I wanted to participate in that organization, and I did. My junior and senior year of high school I was on a SODA team that went to elementary schools, specifically 5th grade classes to "teach" When you become part of SODA, you are given   reference material that has several examples of lessons to use with your class. Most are activities that all have underlying themes to teach the right attitudes toward ourselves and others. One of the ones I remember was "Warm Fuzzies/Cold Pricklies" My partner and I made little fuzzy characters with google eyes and had a bag of the prickly "gumballs" that fall from trees. Each student was given 1 of each, and asked to describe what holding each one felt like. Then we would talk about our words and how they can be just like warm fuzzies or cold pricklies, and how we should speak to each other with kindness. You get the idea. We had a lesson like that one each week through the whole school year. By far, the most powerful lesson we ever did, was the Brown Eyes/Blue Eyes lesson. My partner and I came into the classroom as we had done each week, and without any explanation, we asked all the children with Brown eyes to raise their hands. My partner then asked them to line up at the door, and he took them outside. The blue eyed group stayed in with me. In a fairly stern voice, I told them all to take out a piece of paper. Questions were asked where the other group was going. I told them they were going outside to play. When questioned further about why they couldn't go, I told them it was because they had blue eyes. They had to stay in and do work. Harsh warnings of "NO TALKING!" were given. The Blue eyes were treated less than nice. Both my partner and I were active in our school's theatre department, so we played it to the hilt. After 20 minutes or so, we reversed the groups and they were given the same treatment. The children came back in and then we all discussed how they felt when they were the group being kept inside. No one said they liked the way they were treated. I'm sure you have figured out that this was a lesson on discrimination. That was back in 1981, a time that was past the civil rights movement and huge strides had been made, but it was still a powerful lesson about being treated differently for being different. There is a video floating around Facebook right now of a classroom teacher, Jane Elliott, who created and did this exact experiment with her third graders ( all white) back in the 1960's in response to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

I watched it today. There are parts that actually made me cry as you see the looks on the faces of the students who are being discriminated against. I did not know that the SODA lesson I was teaching 20 years later actually began when I was a child myself. I'm sure these children's lives were changed after what Miss Elliott taught them or better yet let them see, firsthand, what it was like to be treated as a lesser person, to be called stupid or slow just because you were different. Some groundbreaking events are happening this week that deal with exactly this issue. We should all be ashamed of ourselves that the highest court in the land needed to tell us the simple truth that Miss Elliott tried to teach her third graders in 1964 and I tried to teach my SODA students in 1981, that we should all be treated the same, equally, no matter what our differences are. What color are your eyes?

Look for the Helpers

Yesterday something terrible happened! People were hurt and some even died. To add to this, the people that were in harm's way were there because they were celebrating an event. They were there to encourage, to help, to cheer on others. In an instant, all that joy turned to sorrow and confusion and devastation, as not one, but two explosions went off at the Finish line of the Boston Marathon, an iconic race, that has been in existence since 1897. As I saw the headline come up in my newsfeed on Facebook, I immediately thought, BOMB. Unfortunately this is the first conclusion we all jump to, someone meant to do this. Someone sat down and calculated fear and causing injury to another human being. I stopped myself, praying that maybe it had been a gas explosion, no less tragic for those lost or injured, but easier to accept the fact that no one was behind something so horrible. But...as news reports started to roll in, my first fear was confirmed. They were bombs. The first question we always have is WHY? We feel confused, hurt. Then it transforms to outrage and anger at the world and the evil in it. I felt all of those things yesterday, and then I read this post by a friend. It was a picture of the beloved children's program host, Fred Rogers, with a quote from him. Here is the quote: "When I was a boy, and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.' To this day, especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother's words, and I am always comforted by realizing that are still so many helpers -  so many caring people in this world."  Evil exists. It always will, but so does good! And that's what we have to hold onto. It is the only thing we can hold onto. Another very wise man said this, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." ~ Martin Luther King, Jr. What happened yesterday was awful! It wasn't fair, it wasn't right, but we cannot dwell on that. Instead we have to focus on healing and helping people cope to somehow move on. Don't give up! Look for the helpers!

In the Name of Love

Yesterday marked an anniversary of sorts. I hesitate to use the term anniversary, because that always indicates celebration to me. This was not the kind of anniversary one would celebrate. Yesterday was April 4th. See if these lyrics by U2 jog your memory:
                         Early morning, April 4th
                         Shot rings out in the Memphis sky
                         Free at last, they took your life
                         They could not take your pride
Bono was, of course, talking about Martin Luther King, Jr. who was assassinated on that day in 1968. I remember several years ago when my oldest daughter was in elementary school and we were studying for her end of the year "Standard of Learning" tests. She had some flash cards, and the one side of the card said, "He was one of the most influential people in the Civil Rights movement." She gave the correct response, "Martin Luther King" Me, being the kind of parent I am, I didn't stop there. I asked her a question that wasn't on the little cards. "What is the Civil Rights Movement?" She didn't know. They hadn't been taught that. The powers that be in charge of testing had decided that all of this man's wonderful, history changing work should be boiled down to a sound byte. Well, this parent wasn't letting it stay that way. After we had a brief discussion about what the Civil Rights Movement was, I then, through the amazing tool that is the Internet, pulled up a video of the famous "I Have a Dream" speech. That day she learned WHY he was "one of the most influential people in the Civil Rights Movement." Like so many other great men and women who have tried to bring about change for the good and betterment of mankind, their life was ended because of what they stood for. Yet, they had the courage to fight for that change no matter what the threat or consequence. Another person who fought for the right peacefully, Mahatma Ghandi, said this, "Be the change you want to see in the world." How many of us have the courage to be that change?