Drafts of an "Anti-Name Calling Lesson" for elementary schools and a "Stop Hate Crime" Instructional Package for middle and secondary schools were released by the Los Angeles
Unified School District. The Anti-Name Calling Lesson is designed to be delivered over two 20-30 minute time periods in grades K-3. Puppets are used to model negative and appropriate behaviors and students are
taught to recognize that, contrary to the old proverb, like sticks and stones, names can hurt. A "No Name Calling" poster is included with the lesson along with a parent notification form encouraging parents to
provide their support. The lesson is a device to impact the climate of the school as much as a tool to educate students about the importance of showing respect for others.
The "Stop Hate Crime"
instructional packet includes a middle school version of the lesson entitled "Targets of Hate" to accompany a study of the Diary of Anne Frank
in Language Arts classes and a secondary school version to supplement Language Arts or 9th-10th
grade World History class studies of the Holocaust. The lesson focuses on Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, gays, blacks, people with disabilities and political dissenters who, along with the Jews, were placed into concentration camps and executed. One of the objectives of the lesson is to enable students to recognize what can happen when anti-Semitic, racist, homophobic, and other forms of bigotry become institutionalized into government policy.
Middle and secondary school versions of the lesson "They Defied the Odds - Targets of Hate" are designed to complement middle school and secondary school topics or themes in History-Social Science, Language Arts and
English. Profiles of an athlete with a physical disability, a female Native-American leader, a gay political leader, a Latina astronaut, the first African-American major league baseball player, and a Filipino farm
labor leader are used to stimulate the completion of individual and small group exercises leading to the identification and description of role models. Some of the objectives of the lesson are to show how
individuals can challenge and overcome inequity and injustice and to help students identify important qualities in their own role models.
The lesson on "Fighting Hate Crimes" enables students to explore the
impact of hate crimes on society and victims. It is designed to blend in with 11th grade U.S. History or 12th
grade U.S. Government classes. The lesson not only provides background information on the nature and impact of hate crimes but engages students by forming them into anti-hate crime investigator teams to examine publicly reported crimes for evidence of hate motivation. The lesson is balanced by a review of free speech rights. Although it is not the intention of the lesson, a school could easily adapt the lesson to make it the basis for creating a school-based program to carry out district policies to respond to hate crimes on the campus.
For further information please contact Evangelina Stockwell, Asst. Superintendent of Intergroup Relations, Los Angeles Unified School District, 450 No. Grand St., Los Angeles 90012 or call (213) 625-6579.
