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By Eyesight Alone

by Lois Greene Stone

Rogers and Hammerstein's 1949 Broadway show, South Pacific, addressed intolerance. Musicals switched from being comedies to vehicles of social awareness, something unique. In one song, the first line begins "You've got to be taught to hate and fear", and a subsequent stanza notes "You've got to be taught to be afraid, Of people whose eyes are oddly made, And people who are of a different shade, You've got to be carefully taught". In both the stage and the film version, we're shown that bigotry is learned.

An important task for a teacher is to ''unteach'' the discrimination-language that children often hear at home. To carefully balance not offending the parents whose put-downs of groups have rubbed off on their children, and to broaden the children to see humans as one entity needing a brotherhood of mankind rather than divisions, is truly difficult. But we teachers can have an impact on our students' awareness and values. Even if we only reach a few, it's a beginning.

Why do we feel fear and prejudice? As an excuse for our own misgivings, we sometimes say 'we can't change the world', but people can change to some degree. Shouldn't each new generation be able to learn, question, have answers, avoid bigotry and its anxiety?

We're often suspicious about new ideas or persons entering our community. Groups behave without knowing facts, and agitators speak while listeners react. Perhaps if we help our young to think, estimate, evaluate, then agitators and their propaganda might not have power over masses.

Computer e-mail has become a way for people to stay in touch without having to write. How? Jokes. Some actually send a gag a day, thinking every recipient enjoys the humor. Most jokes are about ethnic groups, residents of other countries, religious leaders, suggesting blondes have low IQ's , and such. With these words of put-down, the sender feels important because he or she isn't associated with the punch line. We can help students understand that someone is actually feeling queasy reading or even hearing these ''funny'' tales, and that these jokes are discriminatory lines.

Teachers. Our lives are affected by them.

Few children consider name-calling serious. It starts off as ''fatty'', or ''four-eyes'', or ''metal mouth'', or ''nerd'', and progresses. Teachers shouldn't use punishment for small children who provoke others via such, but slowly show that these are hurtful words. Then we can expand to prejudicial remarks. We could show how soldiers, in some cases, have trained and fought for little reason except to wipe out groups of human beings. Teachers can impress the universal mankind and demonstrate how that concept gets trashed by bias.

Before older students label classmates who carry needles and syringes as ''junkies'', have we spoken about Type I diabetes and the need for insulin? What about a pupil who spews out foul language, yet is seemingly not a person anyone would expect to have such actions? Have we told students about Tourettes disease? Did the classmate who looks bloated since summer break become ''gross'' in appearance because of eating, or have we addressed medications (such as prednisone for illness) being responsible? The teen having a seizure might have epilepsy and not one who has overdosed on ''high'' pills. As teachers, we also might help our students be mindful that everything isn't just what our eyes see.

If we can turn intolerance into self-questioning, discrimination into curiosity about what we all have in common, aren't we giving life lessons of value to our students?

Has anyone heard the question: do we run because we are afraid, or are we afraid because we run? Are we prejudiced because we don't understand, or don't we understand because we are prejudiced? A teacher's task is not to conform students, but to inform them.

Lois Greene Stone, writer and poet, has been syndicated worldwide. Poetry and personal essays have been included in hard & softcover book anthologies. Collections of her personal items/ photos/ memorabilia are in major museums including twelve different divisions of The Smithsonian.