County Schools Mark King’s Birthday in Variety of Ways

Though some of the messages had a few grammatical errors, students in Patricia Gradias’ bilingual second-grade class in Fillmore tried their best to convey their dreams.

“My drem is every budy be friends and so god code be alive Forever. In our horts,” one 7-year-old girl wrote on a cloud-shaped piece of paper.

Using felt markers and crayons, Jose Lira, 8, wrote: “Yo sueno que los ninos y ninas que no fuman y es mas mejor que paren de pelear,” or, “I dream that the boys and girls don’t smoke and that it’s better to stop fighting.”

From San Cayetano School in Fillmore to Cypress School in Newbury Park, Ventura County educators held activities Wednesday to teach students concepts such as racial equality, civil disobedience and cultural oppression, in commemoration of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday.

The slain civil rights leader, who would have turned 68 on Wednesday, called on all Americans to judge individuals by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin during his “I Have A Dream” speech in 1963.

At Oxnard High School, students listened to twins Dwayne and Dwight Mooney, motivational speakers who addressed King’s support for Christian love and harmony during a large assembly.

But scattered through most of the county’s schools, individual teachers held smaller activities for their classrooms--everything from writing essays and conducting skits, to making a special trip to the library to read stories about King.

“Our student council is doing a ‘word of the month’ and the word is respect, so they have kind of tied that into Martin Luther King Jr. in terms of showing respect for the great man that he was and the leader of the civil rights movement,” said Marilyn Bayles, principal of Maple School in Newbury Park. “We think it’s a very important part of history.”

Over the years, numerous schools report, King’s life has become a regular part of social studies and history curriculum, rather than something a few teachers may mention occasionally.

“I think everybody respects his contributions,” said Neil Snyder, principal of Cypress School in Newbury Park. In the school’s social studies classes, King is studied regularly, just as is George Washington, Snyder said.

In addition to lessons about King, many teachers also incorporated another civil rights leader into their lessons Wednesday: Rosa Parks.

In 1955, the African American seamstress was arrested in Montgomery, Ala., for refusing to give up her seat in the front of a city bus for a white customer. A resulting bus boycott was a landmark event in the fight for civil rights and racial equality.

And teachers such as Patricia Gradias related their own experiences to students to make the idea of racial inequality real.

“I even told them about how I didn’t begin to learn Spanish until I was in high school because when my mother was in school she was punished for speaking Spanish,” she said. When Gradias asked whether the struggle for racial harmony and peace is over, she received a mixed reaction.

“Is the fight over?” Gradias asked.

“Yesssssssss,” they roared in unison.

“Yeah?” Gradias asked.

“Noooooooooo,” the kids answered with equal conviction.

In another class at the opposite end of the school, Hope Chavez’s kindergarten class sang songs about uniting people of different colors before she began a little experiment to teach the students about the unfairness of judging people by outside appearances.

“I see that some of you have a color that I don’t like and I don’t want you to sit here,” she said as everyone sat cross-legged on the floor. She directed all the students wearing blue to go to the back of the reading circle.

Michael Cervantes, 6, hesitated. “But I’m wearing white,” he said, pointing to the long white-sleeve shirt underneath his blue jersey. But he was sent to the back, too.

Finally she brought all the students back into the circle and told them it was a pretend situation, but she wanted them to learn about the lesson Martin Luther King Jr. had for them.

“Even though he’s gone, we still need to work on getting along and do you know where it starts?” she asked. “Right here, when you’re playing with each other.”