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Social Justice League at Mount Everett seeks to educate educators

When Raszl was approached by senior Cece Caldwell, who was keen on diversifying the school library to reflect a more inclusive spectrum of authors and perspectives, the seeds for the Social Justice League were sown.

Sheffield — When Mount Everett Regional School librarian Michelle Raszl organized a community read for summer enrichment, her choice of titles proved serendipitous: “Stamped from the Beginning” by Ibram X. Kendi and the remix “Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You” by Jason Reynolds reinforced her identity within the school community as someone willing to take action. “I was approached by a couple of students who were disgusted by the injustices that they had been seeing perpetrated across our country and dismayed by curricula that neglected to represent the full scope of American perspectives,” Raszl wrote in an article that will appear in the Massachusetts School Library Association winter newsletter. When Raszl was approached by senior Cece Caldwell, who was keen on diversifying the school library to reflect a more inclusive spectrum of authors and perspectives, the seeds for the Social Justice League were sown. As to the current task at hand? Turning the proverbial tables to educate educators.

“Educating students does a lot, but educating the people who do the teaching of students is key,” Caldwell explained during Tuesday’s meeting before adding: “If given biased, racist and offensive [information], we won’t get anywhere.” When Bob Dylan wrote “The Times They Are a-Changin’” all the way back in 1963, he was onto something: The times are changing, and the younger generations are rife with lessons to be gleaned by all of us. Case in point? “Like normalizing asking for pronouns,” said Caldwell, calling the practice “something that is often overlooked as we are such a small school … something [some think is] not needed, but it absolutely is.”

Juliana Lopez called the Social Justice League a good cause, citing “there are so many things that need to be done … even if we make just a small impact [by] show[ing] what needs to be done,” it will be a helpful start. The first half of this week’s SJL meeting was spent in conversation with the Mount Everett GSA, a group that seeks to unite LGBTQIA+ and allied youth to build community and organize around issues impacting them. The agenda item? Creating a gender-neutral bathroom at school. “The idea is really new,” said founding SJL member Lucia Ciecrchia, but “how we can make it safe and accessible to the public [as well as] for teens who are not out [and] can use it without putting themselves in danger” are incredibly real and timely issues for today’s youth. Ciecrchia pointed out another layer of the discussion: “How sad it is that the word ‘gender neutral’ implies that it is for someone gender nonconforming rather than everyone,” which, at its core, underscores the importance of students stepping into the role of educators — a role reversal that inevitably requires navigating difficult conversations (like the fact that the school’s current answer to the gender-neutral bathroom issue, a lone stall tucked away in a corner of the nurse’s office, is neither an acceptable nor inclusive remedy).

On Nov. 28, members of the Mount Everett Social Justice League led 32 participants through a walking tour of 11 sites significant to the indigenous peoples of Stockbridge, the Stockbridge-Munsee Community. At each site, students read passages that speak to the sullied history and injustices that they faced at the hands of colonists. The tour ended at the Burying Ground, an ancestral sacred site, that is often visited by members of the tribe. Photo courtesy Southern Berkshire Regional School District/Facebook

“[There are] so many things to bring out into the light,” Lopez said in a nod the recent Thanksgiving holiday. ”The real story isn’t as great as we were told [and] education [is required] to actually tell the truth,” Lopez added. This issue was addressed last month when members of the SJL organized the Stockbridge-Munsee Educational Walk to raise awareness around the truths of the band’s relocation to land in Wisconsin. “We … reached out to local tribal leaders to move forward with this initiative and have received their full support,” said Raszl. The Stockbridge-Munsee Community has created a walking tour, complete with 11 stops, as part of the Native American Heritage Trail. On Nov. 28, students took turns reading the history related to each site important to Mohican cultural history along the 1-mile walking tour of Main Street in Stockbridge.

Lopez was one of a pair of students who, when doing reading for history class, were incited to spread awareness. “We found the material very outdated [and] racist toward indigenous people of this land,” Lopez explained, adding that “[when] we reached out to our teacher, we did not get the answer we were hoping for,” which, while disappointing, comes with a bright side: “A lot of people are starting to find their voices,” said Deisy Escobar, another founding member of the SJL. “We all have opinions, we want to be heard,” said Escobar, who added: “I am honored to be part of a club where we can actually make things happen. I’ve never had the platform, [or known other] people who feel the same way.” Bringing disparate voices together for a common purpose can create a glorious sound, not unlike that of the Mount Everett chorus under the direction of Chris Clark. “One [teacher] I really admire is doing a lot to address social justice through music,” Caldwell said of Clark, who, at the start of the school year, traded the traditional singing of the national anthem for “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” long considered the Black national anthem (first penned as a poem by civil-rights activist and NAACP leader James Weldon Johnson, whose historic homesite is on Alford Road in Great Barrington). “It’s so cool how [Mr. Clark] is always trying to expose us to different cultures and perspectives,” said Caldwell.

Suffice it to say the conversation is ongoing. “It’s good to be in a group that wants to make change and educate themselves further,” said SJL founding member Ivy Webster-Ben David. “As we have more conversations and do more research, we can begin to use that research to help others in our community to become more aware.” For Raszl, who was initially approached as a teacher ally due to her interest in social justice initiatives, opportunities for increased awareness abound. “It’s amazing to see how much [these students] have done in this really short — and extremely stressful — time, leading the charge and taking on these issues in our predominantly white, middle class community,” Raszl said, adding admiration for the “compassion and passion” with which the group has addressed tough issues.

“I am so thankful for this group and what we have done so far. I know a lot of us have been wanting to get our voices out there and help make change, even if it’s small,” said Webster-Ben David. It’s a sentiment with which Lopez agrees: “It’s up to us … our teachers are trying, but we still have a lot of catching up to do. [The world] is changing, and we need to change with it.”

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