Review of "Healing the Hate"

As many human relations practitioners know, there is only a select number of successful curriculum dealing with bias crime prevention in our schools.  One of the most comprehensive examples of instruction- and activity-based  programs is the Education Development Center's (EDC) Healing the Hate:  A National Bias Crime Prevention Curriculum for Middle Schools.  Funded by the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), Healing the Hate is published by the EDC's National Hate Crime Prevention Project out of Newton, Massachusetts, and written by EDC's Project Director Karen McLaughlin and Curriculum Director Kelly Brilliant.  With an Advisory Board consisting of such bias-prevention veterans as Northeastern University's Jack McDevitt and Boston Police Department Deputy Superintendent Bill Johnston, the program was pilot tested in diverse settings ranging from an inner city school in New York City to a  more rural environment in Dade County, Florida.  In each school the curriculum was well-received by both educators and students.

This flexible and adaptable curriculum is based on hate crime profile research literature as well as research findings in both violence prevention and prejudice reduction.  Integrating many well-established yet not universally used concepts as cooperative learning, media literacy and critical thinking skills, students are not simply instructed about bias and hate violence, but learn in heterogeneous groups that hate is not always as blatant as a KKK rally, and that bias is indeed subtly pervasive throughout many unchallenged facets of our daily lives.  Understanding institutional prejudice, usually a subject rarely discussed, is fundamental to many lessons in the curriculum. 

The 215-page book is designed to constructively stimulate students as well as guide the teacher through the challenging effort of questioning and preventing bias in the classroom.  The 10-Unit course, design to be achieved in several weeks or over the coarse of a school year, deals with issues such as "Hate Crime Perpetrators:  Why They Do It," "How It Happens:  The Development of Prejudice and Intolerance," "Seeing the Big Picture:  Institutionalized Racism," and " What Can We Do?  Coalition-Building to Promote Social Change."  Outside of videos that can be rented at a local video store, the book supplies everything a class needs to carry out the course with an impact.  For example, in Unit 4, "Examining the Media's Role in the Development of Prejudice," not only is the teacher provided with the necessary handouts, but is given suggested teaching points and hopeful student objectives.  But the program is not merely traditionally carried out by the teacher to a class of silent students; rather, the teacher acts as a facilitator, with the children providing as much written and verbal input in lessons such as "The Power of the Young," and others involving role plays and dramatic presentations designed and acted out by the students.

The course ends with a separate Unit on sharing insights, feelings and lessons learned, as well as the results of the main project:  creating a grassroots organizations, complete with realistic activities and programs, to reduce hate violence and prejudice in their community.  For any educator, student, parent or individual concerned with reducing bias in the middle school (or any level), Healing the Hate is marvelous tool!

For more information, contact the Education Development Center at (800) 225-4276.

CAHRO Activities Update

Students at California State University at Fresno, stunned by Klan activity and hate crime on the campus worked to change the environment by designating April 27^th to May 1^st as Hate Crime Awareness Week.  The week included presentations by Morris Dees, Director of the Southern Poverty Law Center and The Intelligence Project (formerly Klanwatch) and provided an opportunity for people seeking to address hate violence and hate crimes in the Central Valley to participate in a half-day training session presented by CAHRO.

CAHRO's Director, Fred Persily, opened the training session for representatives from San Joaquin, Merced, Fresno and Kern Counties.  He described CAHRO's strategy to involve cross-sections of a community in the organization and operation of anti-hate violence networks as a way of promoting ongoing intergroup relationships.  The Fresno State training session was used as an example of CAHRO's work to open opportunities for people working locally to address hate violence build relationships with others working in their region and throughout the state. 

Reva Trevino, Staff and Co-Chair of the Los Angeles County Network Against Hate Violence, described her experiences building programs and operating the network.  Reva highlighted her presentation with techniques she learned to keep people engaged in the work and the nuts and bolts of making sure people attended meeting and were accountable for carrying out work assignments.  Reva's presentation was followed by updates on the work occurring in Kern County, Fresno County and the Stockton-Lodi area of the San Joaquin Valley. 

For information on Central Valley efforts to address hate violence and hate crimes call the CAHRO Central Valley Organizer, Felisha Bearheart at (209) 645-6017.

CAHRO and the California Commission on Peace Officer's Standards and Training (POST) hosted a needs assessment on school police training and school policies for addressing hate violence on the K-12 campus.  School police agencies and state and federal school policy makers attended the two day session in San Diego.  Steve Chaney from POST and Regina Sneed, from The United States Department of Education Office for Civil Rights played a major role in preparing for the session. 

There were two primary outcomes from the session: