Tuesday, February 18, 1997
ACTIVISM:
College students discuss race-related issues with teensBy J.
Sharon Yee
Daily Bruin Contributor
Often, the university is seen as an isolated community within
itself, rarely extending beyond its boundaries into the surrounding
community.
The Students Talk About Race (STAR) project seeks to bridge this
gap through its efforts to ease race relations problems that affect
society today.
Created in 1992 by People For the American Way, a non-partisan,
non-profit constitutional liberties organization, as a response to
the violence and chaos that emerged after the Rodney King trial
verdict, STAR recruits college students to facilitate discussions
among junior high and high school students on a variety of
race-related subjects, ranging from individual prejudices to media
perceptions of race relations.
"Essentially, what we’re doing is utilizing the power of peer
role-modeling in order to instill tolerance in younger students,"
said Joseph McKenna, the Southern California Director of the STAR
program.
The purpose of the program is actually two-fold. On one hand, it
serves to openly discuss critical issues involving diversity and
tolerance. But on a greater scale, it serves to help universities
and secondary schools establish a connection and build a
relationship with one other.
"They (the students) are really enamored with college students
… and talk to them in a different way than adults," said
McKenna.
What began as a small effort by James Sauceda at Cal State Long
Beach to help alleviate civil unrest (following the Rodney King
verdict) in that community soon blossomed into a state-wide
operation. During the last two years, over 900 volunteers from 30
college campuses and 20,000 students (10,000 from the L.A. area)
from 80 high schools have participated. STAR has also extended to
Reno, Nev., Seattle, Wash. and Atlanta, Ga.
"Most people think that kids don’t have a clue (about race
issues), but really, they’re quite critical at that young age,"
said Raul Ebio, a graduate student in the Asian American studies
masters program, who volunteered for STAR in 1994.
Ebio initially became involved with the program while
considering teaching as a career. He soon found himself not only
learning how to teach, but also learning to understand how students
think.
"The students were affected by where the other students stood,
thinking twice about other people’s attitudes," he said.
After attending an orientation session, college students who are
interested in becoming mediators must take a one-day, six-hour
training session at one of three southern California locations (two
in the L.A. area, one in Orange County). Training sessions are held
semi-annually and this month, they are being held at Mt. St. Mary’s
College, Cal State Northridge and Saddleback College.
Following the training session, students are paired up
(interracially, if possible) and assigned to work once a week for
eight weeks in a middle or high school near their college campus.
In the classroom, they facilitate discussion about racial and
ethnic issues and encourage students to talk about their personal
thoughts and experiences.
"In the seventh grade, no one ever asks you, ‘What do you
think?’" said Christine Gindi, a senior majoring in the study of
religion, who volunteered in 1995. "STAR provides a forum for many
students who have never been asked their opinions about such
complex issues."
Gindi said that at first, she didn’t know what to expect.
"I thought I was going to learn how to teach, but I actually
learned more … I learned about their lives and how they
experienced discrimination," she said, adding that it is generally
assumed that discrimination only happens to adults and children are
unaffected.
The use of college students, rather than adult teachers, as the
mediators for discussion, is what makes STAR unique as a program
that seeks to resolve misunderstandings between different ethnic
groups.
"I don’t know of any other program that utilizes college
students … the (young) students love it, though … they hate to
see them leave," said McKenna.
"As college students, we’re borderline … we’re not a source of
authority, but we’re also not high school students … Of course,
they’re going to relate more to us," added Gindi.
McKenna said the success of STAR is difficult to measure because
there is no statistical way to measure the impact the program has
on the students. Nevertheless, information compared from surveys
taken before and after the completion of the program suggests that
at the end of the eight weeks, students are more sensitized to the
issues and more open to learning about fellow students who come
from different ethnic backgrounds.
"Ultimately, we hope to engender tolerance and understanding in
students … and make a contribution to civil discourse," he
said.
The STAR curriculum includes a weekly theme such as stereotypes
or discrimination, from which facilitators come up with provocative
questions for the students. Often, there are different levels of
sophistication, where the same question can be asked to
seventh-graders and again to 12th-graders with the anticipation of
very diverse answers. McKenna said that the college students often
describe their experience as facilitators for dialogue among the
youth as extremely gratifying.
Gindi affirmed her reasons for why she felt the STAR program was
such an rewarding experience.
"I had forgotten what it was like to be in seventh-grade …
what matters (to them) is what happened today … I’m happy that
there’s a curriculum like this for them," she said.