The funny thing about kids is that one minute you are talking about segregation and the next minute some kid is telling some real/fake story about how his uncle got a pistol in his back.
Or how someone threw a brick through a window because someone had been standing on somebody else's lawn and there was some graffiti about hating Mexicans (somehow those two things connected...I missed it!)
We went on a field trip to the Brown vs. Board of Ed (my school is two blocks down the street so we walked). The kids really enjoyed it.
The conversations above happened when we were talking about what kinds of things were done to the African Americans during segregation. Somehow the kids turned it into "Tell the scariest story I know and maybe embellish just a teeeeensy bit." The sad thing is that I wouldn't be surprised if there were more kernels of truth in them than untruth. Most of them don't come from fabulous homes or neighborhoods.
I guess the best case scenario is that they remember those feelings of fear or anxiety when they are tempted to treat someone unfairly or unkindly...maybe all of those "tall tales/real life experiences" will help them understand empathy.
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