Spotlighting Our Youth – January 2017

Ninth-grade students from Academy of the Canyons Middle College High School (AOC) created the “Students Against Labels Faire” at Placerita Junior High School Friday to show the younger students how people around the world face discrimination and intolerance.
The fair was born out of a reading assignment related to “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, which was given to the AOC students.  Booths were set up in the Placerita gym to present information on specific types of discrimination, efforts to overcome it that included community-based approaches, and suggestions for how students can lessen the intolerance faced by members of these discriminated groups.
The junior high students had an opportunity to visit 15 different booths set up by their older counterparts, with the hope that students would learn to understand some of the experiences of misunderstood individuals.  The booths included:
• Body Image – how we feel about ourselves based on what we think we have to look like.
• Cultural Acceptance – understanding other people’s cultural backgrounds, ideas, family life, etc.
• Cyber & Media – how television, movies, computers & the internet play in important role in our lives.
• Drug Rehabilitation – What people go through when they struggle with addiction to drugs.
• Invisible Illness/Chronic Conditions – How some people struggle with illnesses that nobody can see.
• LGBTQ+ – People who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or questioning their identity have struggled with hiding their feelings from others because of discrimination.
• Mental Health – People who have mental health issues often feel discriminated against and mistreated because the challenges they deal with are not clearly understood.
• Mob Mentality – Looking at how people belonging to a mob or gang often do so out of fear, and how they can lose their own sense of judgment.
• Poverty & Social Class – Difficulties faced by people living in poverty.
• Racial Equality – the history of racial intolerance in America, and how to move towards full equality for people of all different nationalities.
• Religious Tolerance – learning to respect religious ideas from people who have different faiths.
• Social Groups – Students can learn to socialize with other kids who have different interests.
• Special Needs – People with different special needs have various challenges to overcome, and are sometimes bullied and devalued.
• Veterans – the challenges of having to readjust back into America when returning from serving at war.
• Women’s Rights – treating women equally in the workplace, by law, and in society.