STUDENTS TAKE ACTION AGAINST STEREOTYPES

By SUZANNE M. SCHMIDT

Christian Williams, a 10th-grader at Wiregrass Ranch High School, said he has learned his lesson when it comes to stereotypes.
“I can see the difference between people,” Williams said. “I see what I have been doing wrong and how I need to change.”
Williams, along with about 64 other students, participated in the first ever Unity Day at Wiregrass April 13. At Unity Day, students learned about stereotypes and how to take action against them.
“It was a lot of fun,” Williams said. “I liked how we brought up stereotypes and were able to laugh about it. It was not very emotional. It was a fun and open atmosphere.”
The whole point of the exercises and group activities are to teach students ways to take action to prevent further stereotyping. Williams said he has a few ways he plans to change.
“I will try to hang out with a diverse group of people,” Williams said. “I am no longer going to naturally assume a stereotype when I look at someone.”
Pathfinder Inc. visits schools in Pasco to teach Unity Day. Donald Taylor, Jr., diversity specialist, was at the school helping to run the Unity Day program.
“We are doing some team builders and icebreakers first in order to lay the groundwork to safely talk about stereotypes,” Taylor said. “We will then talk about stereotypes and how they affect the community, where they come from and whether they are good or bad. Then we will talk about what they can do to take action to reduce stereotypes.”
At Unity Day, about 65 students participated; 15 students were from the Unity Club at the school. Students were selected to attend the program by peers, teachers and staff based on their leadership skills.
Sherri Dunham, supervisor for safe and drug free schools with the district school board of Pasco County, said the students need to be good leaders.
“Our activities are fun, but they are meant to raise awareness about the diversity in the community,” Dunham said. “We want students to build friendships here and hopefully come up with ideas so that they can go out into the community and teach others.”
Students who attended Unity Day, which is funded by the Pasco County school district, participated in various exercises.
“We will provide them with blank sheets of paper with classifications of people on the top,” Taylor said. “We will then have them write any stereotypes down they have ever heard or seen. We want this to be as student-driven as possible. Then we will have them share the stereotypes with the group. We will discuss where the ideas come from, whether or not they are positive or negative and what purpose they serve.”
At the end of the day, students discussed ways to take action against stereotypes.
“We want them to learn there are no positive stereotypes,” Taylor said. “A stereotype doesn’t allow people to be individuals. It doesn’t do us any good to just talk about issues if we don’t discuss ways to take action.”
Taylor said at other schools he has been to, students come up with the ideas together and then take one idea and make a plan of action.
“The students at Land O’ Lakes planned a multi-cultural community event with food and entertainment from other countries,” Taylor said. “The Wesley Chapel Unity Club had a Unity Day at John Long Middle School. That is the type of thing we like to see when the students are planning these activities.”
Mitchell Davis, pastor at Church of God In Christ in Dade City, was at Unity Day in order to help the students.
“I have been doing this for six or seven years now,” Davis said. “I had children attending Land O’ Lakes High School when something was happening that worried me. There was some racial name -calling, bullying and harassing. I got involved to see what I can do. There are all these students with different backgrounds and different cultures and we have to somehow help them to make them work together.”
Rubey Maldonado, a tenth-grader, said she enjoyed the machine exercise the best. Students were put in small groups and then told to come up with a machine. Then the students acted out what machine they were and the other students had to guess. Maldonado and her team pretended to be a toaster.
“Instead of working with the same people, it is nice to work with different people,” Maldonado said. “I liked doing the machine exercise because we all got to work together and pitch in ideas. I think this day was a smart idea; it really opened my mind.”
Michael Moran, another tenth-grader and a member of the Unity Club, agreed with Maldonado that Unity Day was a good idea.
“It opened my eyes to what really happens and it has given me ways to fix it,” Moran said. “Stereotypes are bad; there needs to be more unity.”
Moran said he thinks by teaching young people about the negative affects of stereotypes, then the future will be a better place.
“We are the youth and because of that we are the future,” Moran said. “If we don’t convince the youth stereotypes are wrong, then who knows what will happen. Hopefully, what we have taught this small group of people, they will teach their friends.”
Moran attended the summer camp the Pasco County School District hosts at the Day Spring Conference Center in Ellenton.
Dunham said the camp is one week a year during the summer where students learn about gender bias, discrimination and racism.
“They come out for a weeklong camp with Pathfinder,” Dunham said. “We spend a week doing team building and leadership competitions. We try to give them the skills they need to become better leaders.”
Carie Brown, Unity Club sponsor and student discipline instructional assistant at the school, said the event is the first but not the last.
“This is my first time ever being a sponsor of a club and it is just great,” Brown said. “This is our first Unity Day, but we plan to do this every year from now on.”