DITORS MESSAGE Chris Crutcher, editor

A HAND UP Who You Callin Diverse?

A four-year-old mixed race girl (who Ive told you about many times) stands before a
sink scrubbing her arms to get the brown off so her racist stepfather will let her eat at the table
with the rest of the family and play with the same toys her younger, white, halfsiblings play with.
I witnessed that more than 15 years ago. About six months ago at a poetry reading at Eastern
Washington University, I listened to a brilliant young Puerto Rican poet recall herself in the girls
restroom of an Oregon elementary school doing exactly the same thing.
A 13-year-old gay student laments that the toughest part about being gay is, I know I
cant be loved, or touched, or show tenderness until I get out of high school. Thats six years
away. It aches.
A 13-year-old middle school boy, packing somewhere between 50 and 75 pounds of extra
weight, says, Sometimes I cant tell the difference between the hunger and the loneliness. So I
eat, and if it still hurts, I guess it was the loneliness.
A high school girl carries a piece of sharp glass in her purse because cutting her arms
with it is the only way she can feel in control of her pain. It reduces her anxiety. She laughs when
her parents or teachers discover the glass and take it. There are sharp things everywhere, she
says. I wish they understood. Im not going to kill myself. I keep this with me so I wont kill
myself.
A seventh-grade boy gets into a vicious fight and is suspended from school on the
morning of the day hes supposed to get an award for Most Improved Student. If you dont let
them give you anything, he says, they cant take it away.
I could fill my entire space with quotes, and probably should; in fact, I should probably
let the kids write this column for me. They certainly could.
But then theyd want credit.
You look out over your classroom of 30 students, give or take 5. Three of them are or will
discover theyre gay. One in 3 girls and one in 4 boys (or 5, depending on which study you read)
have been handled inappropriately sexually. Two of your students cant accommodate your
kindness, knowing that good things always turn bad, and that they can only control when. A
scary number are overweight, but you dont know the reasons, and an equal number have or are
headed for eating disorders, trying to fill themselves up or get some sense that they can influence
their own futures.
Simply put, diversity is about differences, and if you have 30 kids in your classroom,
you have 30 differences. So much of what you need to know about what makes their lives

difficult, you cant know because as out of control as many of them feel, they can at least control
their secret. So they will show you something different from what is really going on. And even if
you did know, if you tried to create rules in your school or classroom to handle any or all of the
above situations individually, youd drive yourself nuts and wouldnt get any educating done. So
it boils down to making the widest array of people feel included.
In our current cultural climate, much is made out to be black and white, good and evil.
Lines are drawn that ask us to deal with behavior rather than with expression and emotions. In
such a climate, the idea of zero tolerance looms large. Zero tolerance may not be the dumbest
idea Ive ever heard ofI have lived through the Edsel and Instant Fish and Survivor spinoffs
but its easily in the top 10. I have often said, in my smartass way, that a vice principal of
discipline in a zero tolerance school should get minimum wage, because she or he doesnt have
to exercise judgment, the quality I wish hardest for in such a person.
In the past 10 years, approximately, Ive been in schools in every state in the nation but
West Virginia (to keep from feeling offended, Ive been telling myself they dont have schools in
West Virginia) and one comment I hear again and again, in some form, concerns promiscuous
looking and acting girls. (And yeah, the comments are overwhelmingly about girls.) They are
characterized as immoral or trashy or asking for it, and they are often treated harshly by
teachers as well as students. They need to be taught to respect themselves, is a comment I
often hear. I have no argument with that. But this is a good diverse group to look at because
they tend to have a similar effect on a lot of us. The problem with teaching her to respect
herself is that we cant do it through lecture. Tell a teen she needs to respect herself and youll
likely get a duh, as in, Who doesnt know that? The definition of that word is in the eye of
the beholder. If I want to work on a young womans sense of respect, the only way to start is to
give her respect. And I mean that in a behavioral sense. I have to treat her as if I respect who she
is, which means where she comes from, and if I dont know where she comes from, I have to
find out, and I have to respect what I learn, and I have to respect the fact that she is doing her
best under her circumstances. My goal, once Ive gathered that information, is to see if I can help
her change her perspective. This can be difficult because I cant show the contempt or
disappointment or revulsion I feel when I see how she presents herself. I have to look past it to
the things I like about her. I have to listen to what comes from inside, what she thinks, how she
feels, and when I have gained her confidence, then and only then can I talk to her about how
others may see her and help her find other ways to be visible. Its easy to throw a kid away.
Its easy to say, If we let one person get away with it (whatever it is), then they will all
want to get away with it, which, in fact, is almost never the case. It is particularly not the case
when we know we are working toward creating a classroom that operates on acceptance and that
operates on Alice Millers truth that all behavior has meaning. It is crucial to find that meaning
before we act on the behavior.

I cant help but go back to story here. Reading and discussing books that depict the
problems our students have, creating that insulation for both them and us that allows both to dig
into the true meat of real problems, the depth of real problems, provides a usable strategy. In the
end, thats a strategy for dealing with diversity, because, again, diversity speaks to differences,
and whether the problem focuses on a white kid in a mostly black school or a gay kid in a mostly
straight school or an NFL football players kid in an Australian Rules Football school, it brings
up issues of competency, power, and belonging. If we deal with those, we are focusing on every
kid.
You might not be surprised to know I often get accused of coddling kids. They have to
get used to reality, I hear over and over again. The worlds a tough place, and they have to
learn to deal with reality, but every time I hear that, I put the word my right before reality
and I tell myself Im dealing with a lazy adult here. The world will provide plenty of reality,
and I believe our job is to educate ourselves as to what that is to our charges. The world doesnt
need us to supply consequences. It has plenty of its own. Most of the time we simply need to
highlight them, and we can do that by finding the commonalities in our diversity.
Its important to remember that as adults in the classroom, or in the therapy room, or just
out on the street, were diverse also. Very diverse, in the eyes of kids.