Earlier this month I was given the opportunity to moderate a student panel for Mira Costa’s yearly Diversity Assembly. The assembly consisted of the Museum of Tolerance’s four steps of counteracting bias, interspersed with student experiences relevant to each step. The goal of the assembly, in a sense, was to try to make Costa a better place for every student.
The student panelists and moderators played a significant role in producing the assembly. Reflecting on the assembly, I’m proud of what we were able to accomplish in only a couple of weeks, but I realize that there’s a lot to work on for next year. Since these types of assemblies aren’t going away any time soon, I think it’s important that next year’s students learn from our biggest mistake.
The biggest complaint that I saw from both students and teachers was that the Diversity Assembly wasn’t diverse enough. While the students at the assembly were diverse, the topics covered at the assembly weren’t. Last year’s Assembly day had four rotating assemblies discussing topics like suicide, racism, and sexual assault. In comparison, this year’s assembly only had one panel which discussed diversity.
When we were receiving questions from students at the end of the panel, one person asked about mental health, something along the lines of: “How can we be more inclusive of neurodivergent students?” Reading that question out loud, I realized that my panel never mentioned the phrases ‘mental health’ or made any significant reference to it. I don’t think that was a decision made from ignorance. Frankly, we couldn’t deeply explore that many topics.
While it had its own set of problems, I think the old style of assembly is definitely something that should be revisited. Separating the assembly into four parts really lets each group go into enough depth. It also allows organizers to choose a style of assembly that’s most appropriate. Last year’s heavier topics were in the form of presentations from professionals. That type of flexibility is something we could really benefit from next year.
I’m not saying we should completely go back to the older style of assembly. We need to take the benefits of last year’s assembly and combine it with the benefits of this one. There were other technical reasons our assembly schedule changed out of the control of students and teachers, but next year there should definitely be a dialogue about incorporating a diverse list of topics.
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