“When the founders of University High School started this school in 1999, they placed diversity as the first and foremost core value. It is the value that feeds creativity, that feeds excellence and personal responsibility, that teaches us to be stewards, that teaches us about mutual respect, support, and trust. It is an ideal that informs how we can be an I, and a you, and a we. It is an ideal that we strive for in this building and this world not just for a month, but for our whole lives.” – Alicia LaMagdeleine, Assistant Head of School
On Friday, Feb. 3, University High School kicked off Black History Month with an assembly centered on the ideas of love, acceptance, and diversity.
Ruby Bridges & Work To Be Done
The assembly began with the story of Ruby Bridges, the six-year old African-American student who was the first to integrate into an all-white school in 1960. Lade Akande, Director of College Counseling, walked us through the school desegregation movement and told us how six-year-old Bridges became a symbol for civil rights. She showed images of protestors in the 1960s, photos of Bridges herself, and Norman Rockwell’s iconic painting, “The Problem We All Live With.”
This problem Rockwell depicted, however, is not one of a foregone era, Akande said. Tension and prejudice still exist. There are images in the news depicting hatred and fear toward African-Americans and other minority groups, and there are organizations whose sole purpose is to exclude and drive out. As an adult, Bridges has dedicated her life to activism, in part, because there is still work to be done.
The Value That Feeds All Others
That is why University High School recognizes Black History Month in such a formal way. It is a time for our community to focus on stories that might otherwise be forgotten, to push ourselves to empathize with those whose journey has differed from ours, to learn about acceptance, of openness, of kindness and love. It is a time for us to live our core value of diversity — the value, Alicia LaMagdeleine said, that feeds all the others.
Here’s what five of our faculty members had to say about the vital importance of diversity to our community.
Collin Lawrence, history teacher, read an excerpt that stuck with him from a text he read in college. In Invisible Man, a 1952 novel about a young, nameless, black man, Ralph Ellison writes, “Whence all this passion toward conformity anyway? Diversity is the word. Let man keep his many parts and you’ll have no tyrant states. Why, if they follow this conformity business, they’ll end up forcing me, an invisible man, to become white, which is not a color but the lack of one. Must I strive toward colorlessness? But seriously and without snobbery, think of what the world would lose if that should happen. American is woven of many strands. I would recognize them and let it remain so.”
Jake Thurman, history teacher, discussed the dual responsibility of the school to make students comfortable and uncomfortable. Students should feel safe enough to comfortably express who they are and what they value, but they should also be pushed to articulate, justify, change, and grow as learners and people.
He said, “When doing anything to get better, there is a time when you have to be willing to push yourself. No one becomes a better runner without being sore the next day at least once or twice. Attempting to better yourself and live a values-based life is no different. Every year, Black History Month provides us with an opportunity to push on some of these things we think we know or understand.”
Stacey Summitt-Mann, science teacher, offered an appreciation for the learning and the empathy that develops in celebrating Black History Month.
“Black History Month for me, in the last eight years teaching here, has been filled with morning meetings where I learn something every single day in February. And I get to hear how black history influences my students and coworkers lives in ways that are different from my own.”
Wes Priest, English teacher, shared his journey to University High School and how his life and values have been impacted by the relationships he’s made along the way.
He said, “One of the hundred reasons Black History Month is important — and what Lade is talking about is so important — is because we are a school that fundamentally recognizes that our community members have different and disparate experiences. We have people from all over the world at our school, and knowing those people and their experiences and listening to them — whether they are from China or Broad Ripple or Carmel, or whether they are Christian or Jewish or atheist or Muslim, or liberal or conservative, white or black — makes us not only a better community, but it makes each of us a better person.”
Finally, Alicia LaMagdeleine reinforced the idea, as indicated in her quotation at the beginning of this post, that diversity is fundamental to the University High School mission, and diversity drives the connection and conversations we value. She read Nikki Giovanni’s “BLK History Month” poem, then finished her remarks with a reference to the poem, saying this to all of the students: “We are University. You are as good as anybody else. You’ve got a place here too.”
More Than Just 28 Days
University High School will continue its recognition of Black History Month in community meetings and in classes throughout the month of February and in all other months of the year. The work of celebrating and honoring our school’s diversity is not limited to 28 days.
To continue the conversation after Friday’s assembly, Chuck Webster, Head of School, spoke to students Monday about the aspiration nature of core values. He told us that these values go beyond disparate beliefs or political ideologies to unite us as one community.
Chuck referenced a story that stuck with him over the weekend. It was the story Lade shared about her family (see video below). Lade’s grandmother is Muslim, and her grandfather is Christian, and despite their different faiths, they have been happily married for over 60 years. At her grandfather’s 90th birthday, Lade’s grandmother prayed a Christian prayer over him and read from the Bible. If they can figure out that love transcends our differences, so can we all.