By Laura Lane
Joel Levy, the Anti-Defamation League's New York regional office director, said he recently spoke at length with Arnold Goldstein, the Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District assistant superintendent for instruction. Levy said he believed the World of Difference program would come to Kennedy, and the need for it arose after one Kennedy student wrote an anti-Semitic remark and another wrote a prejudicial comment in this past year's yearbook.
Goldstein had no comment about the World of Difference Program coming to Kennedy. Goldstein did, however, say the Central district administration was doing everything possible to ensure there wouldn't be any future problems such as the yearbook remarks.
Sherry Skolnik, a former Central district trustee who retired from the board of education this past June, said district officials had discussed the possibility of bringing in World of Difference since shortly after Sept. 11, 2001.
"I know that the site-based team was looking into bringing a program for sensitivity to Kennedy after Sept. 11," Skolnik said. "When the yearbook issue happened, people assumed it was done in response to this, but this just made it more needed. It's important to help people raise their sensitivity level."
Skolnik said she received many phone calls about the yearbook comments while she was still a board member, and she was told that the students involved didn't realize the comments were offensive.
Levy said he has spoken with many students, parents and religious leaders in the Bellmore-Merrick area who were distressed by the yearbook remarks, and he believes the World of Difference Program can help raise students' awareness.
"The World Of Difference Program is the best diversity training program," Levy said. "We do it for teachers, the workplace, pre-schools and with students. Millions of students have gone through it. We teach people in a positive way to appreciate the added value of having diversity, that life is more interesting with it."
Fran Haskell, assistant director of the B'nai B'rith Nassau/Suffolk Regional youth organization, said several graduating Kennedy seniors, who thought the yearbook issue was overblown, contacted her last spring. Their e-mails surprised her.
"Basically, all these kids need sensitivity training," Haskell said. "They don't realize the power of a word."
The World of Difference Program is already up and running at Merrick Avenue Middle, Grand Avenue Middle and Mepham and Calhoun High schools. John Felicciardi, Calhoun High School's special-education chairman and the administrator chosen to take charge of CalhounÕs World of Difference program, believes it's been successful at Calhoun.
"The program was designed to make people understand
we are all different and to celebrate these differences," Felicciardi said. "In this day and age, it's the kind of thing we should all do anyway."
The ADL trained eight Mepham teachers and 25 students in the World of Difference Program last year. All attended a two-day retreat.
"The kids," said Felicciardi, "then used the strategies they learned and personalized them. These students brought the new strategies and lessons to the social-studies classes to work on in-class training. This year they will work on community-service activities, as well."
Karen Yarosh, mother of two current Kennedy students,
believes the program can help at the high school. "I feel it's needed," she said. "There are rivalries among the kids in our own town, and it's bad to see. There is a lot of underlying bias with our kids and all the kids in the United States and Europe. That's what perpetuates war. If we can stop it on the lower level, I think it will help."
Yarosh believes the use of peers to facilitate the program will ensure its success. She said the trust among students will encourage students to air their feelings and differences of opinions freely.
"A lot of the time, kids don't like to be judged," Yarosh said. "They feel if adults hear one bad thing about a child, the child will be labeled. If kids are involved with each other to deal with the differences, this will not happen as much."
Kennedy students were reluctant to speak about the Kennedy yearbook remarks. One student, a 2003 graduate, agreed to be
interviewed on the condition that her name not be published.
Of the World of Difference Program, she said, "I think the program will be good for everyone and the school." Then she paused before remarking, "But this class won't affect those two students [who wrote the remarks in the yearbook]. They have left the school."
