Mix It Up at Lunch Day

Students Bridge Social Boundaries

Last year, Teaching Tolerance and Tolerance.org surveyed students across the country about social boundaries in their schools. Here is what they found:

• A majority of students reported that their schools are quick to put people into categories
• One third of students said that it was hard to make friends with people in different groups.
• Forty percent admitted that they had been part of a group that had rejected someone.
• The students reported that the hardest boundaries to cross are:

  1. Personal appearance

  2. Athletic achievement

  3. Style

  4. Race

  5. Academic achievement

• They said that they see the boundaries most clearly in:

  1. Cafeteria

  2. Classrooms

  3. Bus

  4. Recreational activities

  5. After-school clubs

Some of these boundaries are visible; others are not. They exist for many reasons: habit, friendship, status, fear, and prejudice. At schools across the country, the cafeteria is a social map of the whole community. Going to lunch for some students is a comfortable and enjoyable experience. For others, the lunchroom is an uncomfortable world of familiar strangers and rigid expectations.

On Mix It Up At Lunch Day schools across the Nation are encouraging students to mix it up at lunch; to swap seats, step out of their comfort zones and sit somewhere new, with someone new - to break those social boundaries for just one day.

White Brook Middle School is joining that effort. The Talk It Out Peer Mediation Team, the Peer Leaders and members of STRAT (Students & Teachers Raising Awareness Together) are working together to make lunch on November 16th a new and fun experience.

On that day students will also be encouraged to wear mix it up/mismatch clothes to keep in the spirit of things. We hope that this will be a chance for people to see things they have in common with people they might not normally talk to or sit with.

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