Ciara Was does an experiment with her kindergarten class at Haine Elementary School on Thursday morning, showing them that the inside of every egg is the same despite the color of its shell. Shane Potter/Butler Eagle

Eagle staff had the privilege of attending a hands-on lesson with a kindergarten class at Haine Elementary School on Thursday that “celebrated the rich colors of diversity.”

The teacher, Ciara Was, gathered her students to discuss Martin Luther King Jr. and his mission during the civil rights era in the 1960s. They reviewed the story of Rosa Parks and read the story “The Color of Us” by Karen Katz, which likened each character’s skin color to a different food.

Was also cracked eggs of varying shell colors into bowls in order to reinforce that everyone is the same on the inside.

“They are all the exact same,” Was told the students. “Are we all the same on the inside? Do we all have a heart? A brain? Feelings?”

The lessons serve as reminders to us all in a time where the world seems so torn.

They prove that more places than we think are teaching children to respect other races and ways of life when media is reporting on more division in major cities.

Teaching children these lessons is key. Societies evolve from the ground up, with children’s formative years shaping healthy outlooks later in life.

Though we are still dealing with discouraging news almost daily, and it is very real, lessons like the one we observed in Was’ classroom help shed a little light on a situation that sometimes seems impossibly dark.

To top off the lesson, Was helped the students make handprints in their own skin tone, which she cut out and made into a heart celebrating diversity.

“I hope they all learn to accept each other and understand we are all here to learn together,” she said.

We commend Was on a fine lesson to her students, and hope many more take something away from it as well.

— CM