Step 1

Step 1: Us & Them

The journey began with the first step, "Us and Them." 

To begin, students were asked to describe their specific peer group to students in Scotland and to their friends.  This was followed by questions asking students to describe Farmingdale High School to their Scottish peers and to their friends.

Once their work was collected, students viewed the first step on the video.

 

After viewing, there was time to discuss the core elements of the video, which describes how individuals, tyrannical leaders, and societies can create an artificial sense of power and powerlessness, of inferiority and superiority.  And while many of the students could understand that high school is not a tyrannical place, it can feel like one for the person who is bullied.

We were then able to explore the groups that exist within the high school.  Which group is perceived to be in power?  Which group is scapegoated?  How do we know that these groups even exist?

For much of the discussion, students agreed that athletes were the power group, followed by Humanities students.  PAGE students (which are the students in our alternative school) were not seen in a power position.   Although most of the written responses were quite kind to one another, particularly when describing Special Education students to students in Scotland and their friends, there were a handful of responses that echoed the idea of "Us and Them,” particularly when the students described the other groups to their friends.  The Farmingdale students were much more diplomatic when describing the peer group to students in Scotland.

A tenth grade Humanities student wrote her description for the Scottish students: "PAGE students usually need more motivation to learn and to do well in school."

To her friends, this same student wrote: "I don't know much about the PAGE program, but from what I've seen and heard, many PAGE students are misbehaved and annoying in what they say and do."

A ninth grade Humanities student continued this double edged approach.  To Scotland: "They are people who seek to get an education that isn't purely scholarly."  To his friends: "They're people too lazy to get a real education."

In describing his Humanities group to Scotland students he wrote: "Humanities students are more dedicated students, devoted to understanding history, culture, literature. . ."  To his friends: "Humanities kids are smarter and take harder classes."

The "Us and Them" idea seems to also travel both ways.  Here is an excerpt from a tenth grade student enrolled in the PAGE program describing Humanities to Scotland: "A child who is dedicated to school and gets really good grades."  To friends: "Nerdy."

In addition, she was especially kind to her own peer group in her responses to Scotland and friends.  "A [PAGE student] is a child who once either messed up or had depression and wants to get their lives back on track."

The discussion also gave the students a chance to examine the structure of the building, and how groups of students have taken over certain areas, especially during lunch.  For example, our ESL students occupy one piece of hallway, fringe students have adopted the area in front of the library, athletes are on the benches.  All students agreed that it would be very difficult to cross the unwritten boundaries that exist in these areas of the building, and that it is equally difficult to be forced to leave "their" spot.