(Vol. 1, No. 2 - Spring 1997)

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A sensitive teacher and a misplaced essay
help bridge one school's racial divide

By John Norton

Chance events can trigger wars and cataclysms. And sometimes they can spark actions that make the world a little better place to be. That was the case when a careless student dropped his social studies essay in Francine Curtis' 7th grade classroom last spring.

But we're getting ahead of the story.

For several years, Francine Curtis had been searching for solutions to recurring racial conflicts at John Marshall Middle School. She was motivated both by her personal commitment to racial understanding and her need to create a better learning environment for her kids.

The diversity of the Long Beach student body often presents instructional challenges for teachers, who work daily with students from dozens of racial, ethnic and cultural groups. In middle schools, where students regularly work in teams, the challenge can be something as seemingly simple as "who to put with whom."

Curtis had "always felt that when I started putting kids together in groups, there was a respect issue, the issue of working together or getting along." The relations among some students were so strained, she says, that racially mixed "cooperative learning" groups often found it difficult to succeed as teams.

Curtis also wanted to use her 7th grade world history class as a vehicle to explore cultural diversity and understanding, "because it's a great fit." But she knew that before she could help students examine the many cultures represented in her classroom, "I needed to establish respect for everyone's differences."

Curtis had pursued her own interest in cultural diversity through self-study and intensive training in the California International Studies Project. But she was still struggling with the everyday conflicts in her classroom.

"For a long time, I told my students that 'I'm not your referee; you need to solve your problems for yourself.'," she says. "But I started realizing that I needed to give kids some tools for problem-solving. I started seeing that the students needed an outlet to be able to have a dialogue and take leadership on these issues."

She began by having conversations in her 7th grade classes -- and then chance intervened and provided a larger opportunity.

"We were following the presidential primaries," she recalls. "The students had several assignments, but one of them was to write about what you would do if you were President. One of my students wrote that he would get rid of all the illegal immigrants.

"His essay fell on the floor when he left the class one day, and two of my Mexican-American students found it. They became enraged. The next thing I knew, they were going to jump him, and all of a sudden we had this all-out racial issue happening in the school."

Curtis saw it was time to take her 7th graders' exploratory conversations to the next level and apply them to a 'hot event.' So the first meeting of what would become the Marshall Middle School "Diversity Ambassadors" convened around the issue of the mislaid essay.

"The students who had the conflict sat down together. They talked and listened to each others' point of view, and they explored everybody's feelings about the immigration issue. And they solved it. The conflict was settled between them."

"His essay fell on the floor when he left the class one day, and two
of my Mexican-American students found it. They became enraged.
The next thing I knew, they were going to jump him, and all of a sudden we had this all-out racial issue happening in the school."

By this time, however, the conflict had spread throughout the 8th grade. "The rumor mill was hard at work, with 'this kid said this; we're going to jump him,' that kind of thing. So I decided we had to take it into the 8th grade classes."

Curtis and fellow teacher Howard Fineman assembled a group of her most able 7th grade leaders and split up the 8th grade classes between them.

"We just did impromptu workshops. The students started talking about their experiences with racism, what it meant to them, and also how people can misunderstand each other and jump to conclusions.

"That totally told me that kids wanted to talk about these issues and wanted to listen to each other. The problem among the students disappeared; the conflict was over, the child was safe. It ended there."

The core group of envoys to the 8th grade became Marshall's first Diversity Ambassadors. "From there, we started doing peer mediation and conflict management training. And we operated informally to help solve problems."

When a teacher told Curtis the conflicts between African American and Latino students in her class were so bad "I can't teach anymore," Curtis "grabbed the DAs, and we did a workshop. That made a huge difference in her classroom environment, but there was still a conflict between two particular students , so we had them work individually with the DAs."

Curtis does workshops for teachers at other schools who are interested in emulating the Diversity Ambassador idea. Among the tips she offers: Always have a DA from each racial background represented in the conflict. Set up training opportunities for the DAs using well-known conflict management and peer mediation techniques. "We include the component of tolerance, of understanding and respect, and we dialogue on it," Curtis says.

Her DA's also visit the Museum of Tolerance and help stage the school's annual "diversity assembly," a celebration where groups like the Latin American Club, the Cambodian Club and others present traditional dances, songs and other activities that represent their cultures. "We try to touch on as much as we can," she says.

One of Curtis' most potent classroom activities attacks name-calling, a real conflict-starter in middle school. Students begin by filling out a sheet that helps each student identify the various ethnic groups in their backgrounds.

"And then there's a 'label junkyard' where you write down all the hurtful things that have been said to you," she explains. "It's not just about race, either. There's also the issue of the large kid, the small kid, the kid who wears glasses, the girl with blonde hair. Some people just dismiss these as 'middle school stuff,' but we know there are a lot of adults walking around who were wounded by these kinds of experiences in childhood."

Once the kids have jotted down their list of hurtful words, Curtis asks them to say the words out loud. "You have to be very careful with this because they are horrible, filthy words like 'beaner' and 'nigger.' The kids are uncomfortable even writing them."

Curtis compiles the words on butcher paper and talks with students about how each word makes them feel and why people say them. "At the end of the activity, the paper is covered with all of these horrible things, and you ask the class 'what are we going to do with this?' And often they say, 'let's burn it' and other middle school answers. But I guide them to 'why don't we tear it up?'

"I really let them get into it. Everybody tears off a piece and they stomp it and rub it into the floor. Then we throw it in the trash. At the end, we say, 'Okay, we've created a safe place within this room where labels aren't going to used.'"

Curtis serves on LBUSD's middle school advisory committee and has help set up a subcommittee focused on diversity issues. She want her kids to have more opportunities to visit other schools, talk to students and teachers about the positive changes in relationships at Marshall, and spread the Diversity Ambassador idea.

"Last year, when the DAs talked to our district committee about the conflicts they have been dealing with, it was really eye-opening for a lot of teachers and administrators. Now we want to give them the chance to talk to their own peers throughout the district. Our kids are facing these conflicts everywhere, and believe me, they want to hear this message that things can be better."

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Read an interview with four Diversity Ambassadors

Read the verbatim interview with Francine Curtis