I know this will sound cliche, but if we observe small children playing in a sandbox we could learn a lot. Honestly, we should be taking notes.
What would we see? We would see children playing with each other for the joy of playing. Children cooperating to get a sand castle built, or maybe a hole dug to China! Children squabbling over the way to do it, but eventually working it out.
A few years ago I tried something very interesting in class one day. For some reason we were talking about World War II and Hitler wanting to control the world and create the perfect race. Now, this would be common talk in social studies, typically in junior or senior high. But this was music class in 2nd grade. Hmmm?! Honestly, at this moment I cannot recall what in the world got us to WWII in music and specifically about Hitler and his destruction of entire populations of people. But, we did - and everyone who teaches will tell you that when you get a teachable moment, you grab it and go for it, which is what I did.
I was trying to tell them how Hitler wanted a perfect population, Aryan. Basically he wanted blond hair, blue eyes. THAT was perfect. Funnily enough a 2nd grader pointed out that Hitler had dark hair! Made me laugh!
I was trying to explain to the kids to achieve this he was willing to kill anyone who didn't meet his standards of perfect. I looked around the room and said, "you have dark hair, you're gone" "You have dark skin, you're gone" "You have brown eyes, sorry, you're gone too" The kids were horrified. They were immediately standing up for their friends saying things like, "Who cares if they have dark skin?" "Does dark hair make someone bad? I don't think so." It was amazing.
That same aged child, a different year, we ended up discussing segregation in the United States. I was teaching in a school with about a 20% Hispanic population. This was easy for me to attempt to demonstrate. I explained that "back then" white people believed that they should not be exposed to or be around black people. That the busses had separate areas, the cities had separate schools, there were 2 separate drinking fountains, etc. They looked at me like I was crazy. Why? Because 20% of their friends were Hispanic and had dark skin and they could not imagine them having to go to another school just because of their skin color.
But two years ago I had the coolest thing happen. I was getting ready for a Christmas Program with 1st graders. The program was called "A Rainbow Christmas" and was about the animals of the forest getting ready to celebrate Christmas. The problem, the black and white animals of the forest refused to let the colorful animals of the forest celebrate with them. The polar bears, penquins, dalmations would not let the blue bird, the frog or the tiger to celebrate with them. Well in comes Santa to solve the dilemma, right? Wrong, the black and white animals KNEW he couldn't be the real Santa because the real Santa would be black and white because THOSE are the only colors that matter and are important.
The kids thought this was just silly. And then they asked why, why, why. Remember, they were 1st graders, 6-7 years old, VERY inquiring. I explained to them that the composer of the program was trying to get at more than the animals of the forest, she was trying to relate it to people and our world. They looked at me like I was an alien. So I tried an experiment. I lined up a group of kids in the front of the classroom. I picked an array of skin tones to stand there. I asked the 1st graders "what makes this line of people a rainbow?"
There answers?
- They have different color hair.
- Their shirts - they are different so they make a rainbow.
- They aren't all tall.
NOT ONE child said their skin color. NOT ONE. I was awed. I seriously had to point out that person #1 had very light colored skin, person #2 had very dark skin, etc. Their response? "Yeah, so? What does that have to do with a rainbow?"
Honestly, to these 6-7 year olds, skin color meant NOTHING. Wow, was I impressed by these little people and so very, very proud.
So back to that sand box of children playing. Those kids playing like each other regardless of their differences. They don't care what church the others go to, they don't care if one is black, one is Hispanic and one is Asian, they don't care if one is super skinny and another quite chubby, they don't care if one has down's syndrome or one is rocking back and forth to comfort themselves, they don't care if one will grow up to "come out" when they are 16, they don't care if one will be a Republican Senator or a Democratic Mayor, they don't care about differences....
Children look for the similarities...they all like to play in the sand and therefore is worthy of being their friend.
We always say we are teaching our children for their future for the world they will take over when they grow up. The truly sad thing, we "teach" tolerance right out of them. Children model what they see. They see the grownups in their world treating people with differences in a different way than they treat their friends. They see people who aren't just like them being treated like lesser people. They see voting happen to take away rights of people because they are different than others. How do we expect our children to grow up tolerant when what they see modeled for them is intolerance.
You are all going to think I am a huge Lady Gaga fan because this is my second reference to her, but she really gets it right in her song "Born This Way"
"My Momma told me when I was young
We are all born Superstars"
Seriously - what parent doesn't tell their children that they are awesome and amazing and "superstars?!"
"I'm beautiful in my way
cause God makes no mistakes"
Isn't that what we are taught in Sunday School and church from a very young age. God knows what he is doing, he doesn't make mistakes.
"I'm on the right track, baby
I was born this way."
GOD made us all. He doesn't make mistakes. He made us who we are, whoever that is. Each of us is unique and special and perfect just the way God made us.
"Don't hide yourself in regret,
Just love yourself and you are set."
I find it absolutely hideous that people in our society feel the need to hide themselves and feel ashamed of who they are.
"Whether life's disabilities
Left you outcast, bullied or teased
Rejoice and love yourself today
Cause baby, you were born this way."
I work every day with kids who are outcast, bullied, teased. I work hard to tell them they are wonderful and need to like who they are and the opinions of others be ignored. But that is hard, especially for children. When they are being teased for being too thin, too fat (okay - does NO ONE win?!). Too tall, too short. Too dark, too light. The list goes on and on.
I think our society needs to look more at how our youngest children treat and accept each other. (ok, not the taking toys away stage! LOL)
Maybe instead of us modeling our lack of acceptance to them, we need to follow their model and accept all people no matter what. WHY?
"I was born this way."
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