Lesson 10: Taking Action to Reduce Hate

Rationale
By developing individual and community service projects, students will identify concrete steps they can take to make the world a safer, more tolerant place and learn how to work together to encourage respect for diversity. Research shows that both cooperative learning and community service can help reduce prejudice.

Materials
Print and computer references as needed; access to the Internet and telephones; names and contacts of local human rights agencies

Procedure: First Class Period
• Explain to students that by developing community service projects to inform people about the harmful effects of prejudice, they can demonstrate the power of individuals taking a stand against hate. There are a variety of ways students can work to promote peace in their school and communities, including peer mediation. For examples of middle school students who have promoted positive responses to hateful actions, contact the Center for the Prevention of School Violence in North Carolina (800-299-6054 or www.ncsu.edu/cpsv/), which sponsors the free national program known as Students Against  
Violence Everywhere (S.A.V.E.).
• Review types of projects that students might develop:
Media - Write letters to local newspapers and television or radio stations detailing your efforts to reduce prejudice. Ask for an opportunity to write a guest editorial, convene a teen forum on hate crimes that reporters could cover, or write the script for a public service announcement.
Research - Investigate the activities of hate groups in your community or state and write a report about it. Follow the issues over time by clipping newspaper articles, asking local human rights agencies for background materials, and monitoring Web sites sponsored by hate groups and the organizations that seek to expose them. A good place to start is The Southern Poverty Law Center - (www.splcenter.org) - which lists hate crimes self-reported by each state and monitors activities of hate groups across the country. The U.S. Department of Justice's Uniform Crime Report - (www.fbi.gov/ucr.htm) -lists reported hate crimes by state, bias motivation, and type of offense. You can improve the collection of data about hate crimes by sending newspaper clippings to the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project, 400 Washington Ave., Montgomery, AL 36104. Include the name of the newspaper and the date the article(s) appeared.
Business Outreach - Create posters showing positive responses to discrimination and ask local businesses to display them. Ask local grocery stores if you can decorate some of their paper shopping bags with these illustrations.
Community Action - Increase public awareness of discrimination and increase the community's respect for differences by doing some of the following: Publish an article about your research on hate groups in a school or community newspaper; create a multimedia slide show about hate crimes and the positive ways young people can act to stop them, and demonstrate your work at a school board meeting or other local events; volunteer at local human rights organizations; invite people from those agencies to speak to your class or school; sponsor a dinner where people can bring dishes representative of their ethnic heritages.
Education - Arrange to place a question box in a public place so people can deposit their questions about other cultures, religions, races, and genders. Research the answers and post them on a bulletin board near the box.
• Separate students into groups of four or five and ask them to decide on a project. Explain that each group will be responsible for presenting their findings to the class at a later time. Review the requirements and time frame.

Procedure: Second Class Period
Devote this session to the group presentations. Afterward, ask students to discuss the problems they encountered and how they resolved or attempted to resolve them. Ask them to reflect on their ability to reduce discrimination and hate.

This lesson was adapted with permission from Healing the Hate: A National Bias Crime Prevention Curriculum for Middle Schools, published by the National Center for Hate Crime Prevention, Education Development Center, Inc. in Newton, Massachusetts.

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