MLK Day is about 'accepting people's differences'
An Emily Brittain Elementary School teacher on Friday told her third-grade class about Martin Luther King Jr.'s first experience with discrimination when, as a child, he was barred from playing baseball with his white friends.
For the past week, Krystal Epps-Abdulhafith taught her students about King's efforts during the Civil Rights Movement as a way to commemorate Monday's federal holiday.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a federal holiday that President Ronald Reagan signed into law in 1983 following various efforts to commemorate King's birthday that began soon after his assassination in 1968. For the Emily Brittain Elementary School students, the day is a chance to learn about equality and not judging people by their race or appearance.
Earlier in the week, Epps-Abdulhafith presented the students with an image of a tattooed man in a tank top. She asked her students to come up with words to describe the man. Some said dangerous, and other negative connotations were made.
In the next image, she showed the same man wearing a lab coat and told her students the man was actually a doctor. This changed the way the students perceived the man.
“We made all these judgements without knowing the person, which led us to our discussion of Martin Luther King Jr.,” Epps-Abdulhafith said.
She then used the baseball story to talk about segregation in America and the fight for equality.
“King knew this was not right,” Epps-Abdulhafith said.
The students analyzed a section of King's 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech.
One student said the point was not to judge someone by their skin color or the way they look.
Epps-Abdulhafith agreed, saying, “Everybody is unique. Everybody has a unique look in here. We judge people on how they treat us.”
She continued, “(King) had a dream for the whole world. He had a desire to make the world equal for everybody.”The students then worked on their own dreams and why they're important to them.Student Lennon Griffith wrote down his aspirations: “I have a dream that farm animals don't have to turn into meat. This is important to me because it hurts me when people eat animals.”Epps-Abdulhafith has been a teacher for 10 years. She said she began doing a version of this writing project five years ago as a way to help students engage with King's lessons.“We try to teach accepting uniqueness,” she said. “We're not focusing on the Black-and-white thing. It's about accepting people's differences.”This kind of learning will continue into next month for Black History Month, when the students will research and learn about various figures, such as Rosa Parks.“We have a mix of kids here, so it makes them more empathetic to each other,” Epps-Abdulhafith said. “I love this time of year. I get to help them be more accepting citizens.”Epps-Abdulhafith said these lessons are especially important in the current political climate.“There's a lot going on in the world,” Epps-Abdulhafith said. “It's on us to make a difference.”She said that many of the figures they study help her students understand their own situation and provide them with inspiration.“These kids have struggles of their own,” Epps-Abdulhafith said, “and they get to see these figures who overcame their own struggles.”
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