DIVERSITY DAY CELEBRATED BY SOME LOCAL STUDENTS
Midland Daily News,
March 30 2006
Recently 8th grade English and history students at Jefferson Middle
School participated in an annual “Diversity Day.” The day was part of
“Prejudice and its Consequences,” a unit in which students read “The
Diary of Anne Frank” and “Flowers of Algernon” as well as several
novels with prejudice-related themes; learn about World War II and
the Holocaust; and research and write about a different kind of
prejudice. They learned first hand about the value of diversity in
today’s world.
Thirty-three presenters held a total of 80 sessions, running
concurrently during four 20-minute time slots. In groups of 8-10,
students went to four different sessions to hear about the different
kinds of prejudice. Ranging in age from 16 to 91, presenters came
from Mount Pleasant, Midland, Grand Rapids and Detroit.
Students heard from people who had experienced being a POW and fighting
in the Battles of the Bulge, working as a “Rosie the Riveter,”
being in Memphis during the assassination of Martin Luther King,
living with a disability and being among the first African-Americans
living in Midland, among others. Stories of others’ battles against
prejudice covered Armenian genocide, the Japanese internment camps,
landmark civil rights Supreme Court decisions, the 6,000,000 paper
clip project and more. Students also had a chance to test their own
gender stereotypes in a “Men are from Mars” game and learn about
working with people with mental illness and physical and mental
disabilities from professionals in those fields.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
