For her MLK poster, Jen Hulsey chose to draw hands united. Hulsey and other students in Angel Zollars’ eighth grade English class at Washington Junior High created not only posters using quotes from the “I Have a Dream” speech by King, but also wrote about inequalities in America still today. Lindsay Owens | Times Herald
English assignment on MLK turns into life lesson
The love Washington Junior High English teacher Angel Zollars has for her students is evident from the moment you step into her colorful classroom It’s a safe place where discussions flow freely, tough questions are answered and students can be themselves. So it’s no surprise that Zollars recently challenged students to think about inequalities in America and if all Americans are truly free.
As part of a lesson on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Zollars students read King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, talked about his non-violent protests, then researched inequalities in the “land of free” today. What students discovered was eye-opening.
“We had to pick a group of people and then do our research,” said Austin Ferran, adding groups students could choose from included the homeless, as well as people who are unfree due to skin color, ethnicity, language, socioeconomic status or gender.
Through her research, Aaliyah Combs said she learned about several inequalities. For the assignment, Combs wrote, “I don’t believe that Americans are truly free. We have lost our right to privacy. More and more people were sent to prison for drug-related crimes, black people fared worse than other groups.”
Combs went on to say that according to her research, the ethnic group was 3.2 percent more likely to be arrested for possession of marijuana than their white peers, although their drug-use rates were about the same.
What Combs said may have surprised her the most though was that black men, even those without criminal records, are less likely to be hired for jobs than white men who have felony convictions.
“These are some of reasons why I believe America is not truly free,” she said. “We are all human beings and should not be judged for the color of our skin.”
Tyler Cissell said he too was surprised by the research.
“Some of it depends on where you live, but blacks were less likely to be accepted than whites who had been convicted,” he said.
Jack Fry said he was startled to learn that segregation still exists.
“I used to think that we were all free, but racial segregation is still in the heart of Chicago,” said Fry. “Chicago is where our first black president came from. I honestly thought people would have been over that by now.”
Fry said he also discovered that California State University Los Angeles offers segregated housing for black students — a move in response to the Black Student Union wanting the university to meet demands to deal with microaggressions.
While several students focused on racial inequality, Caden Wininger and Amelia Calderon chose to focus on a different type — socioeconomic inequalities.
“These days most Americans are judged because of whose child they are or who their family is,” said Calderon. “Just because kids have bad parents or bad family, doesn’t mean they are the same as their family.”
Wininger said thousands of U.S. citizens are treated like lower class citizens.
“We are treated like peasants to the rich and they think of themselves as higher class and better than us,” said Wininger, adding his research showed that 56 percent of Americans had less than $1,000 in savings and checking accounts combined. “And by ‘us’ I am referring to the entire population of America that barely get by and the people who don’t get by at all.”
But the learning didn’t stop there.
“Mrs. Zollars had us take a quote from Dr. King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ and then draw pictures to go with the quote,” said Eduardo Ortega.
Supplied with paper and copies of the speech, students crafted ornate posters that now adorn the walls outside of Zollars’ classroom.
“It’s important for our students to learn about Dr. King and that he was never violent,” said Zollars, who said students also talked about white supremacy and Black Lives Matter. “We talk about some pretty tough stuff. They need to know what Dr. King was about. For some of them, this is their heritage and for others, it’s learning more about their country and its history.”