The Village illage
beacon
record
mount sinai • miller place • sound beach • rocky point • wading river • shoreham
Vol. 31, No. 41
May 5, 2016
$1.00
A march for justice
Locals are ready to advocate for farmworkers’ rights
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Photos by Desirée Keegan
Above, students at Mount Sinai Middle School engage with one another in a discussion about why it is important to read books. Below, public speaker Kevin Powell talks to the seventh and eight-graders inside the auditorium.
Ego boost: Middle schoolers learn lesson in diversity BY DESIRÉE KEEGAN
The Brush Is My Pen at The LIM Also: FLORAbundance show opens in Huntington
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“I am a genius.” That’s what public speaker Kevin Powell instructed the seventh- and eighthgraders inside the Mount Sinai Middle School auditorium to stand up and repeat as they applauded one another in an effort to learn about diversity. “What you get with young people is just this energy,” Powell said. “They’re open to listening, but also expressing themselves and evolving. I just wish I had those kinds of conversations when I was a teenager because it would’ve saved me a lot of angst and a lot of stress from all of the stuff
that I went through. Those young people inside that auditorium were brilliant.” Guidance counselor John Grossman said he first listened to Powell speak about a month ago in Bay Shore during a writer’s conference. Because the students in his seventh-grade peer support program were recently creating family trees and learning about diversity, he said he thought Powell’s message was perfect for the time. “His message is one that encapsulates what we want to do with our peer support program, what we want to see and how we want to see our kids interact with each other and how we want to see our community grow to-
gether, as opposed to dividing itself,” he said. “That’s the influence for bringing Kevin in.” He said he also thought that with the warmer weather comes more hostility and aggressiveness; and with the country’s hostile political climate the message was also one that would serve kids well at this time. “Labels are being thrown around all the time by certain candidates and there are kids here that see that and identify with some of those groups,” Grossman said. “Kids are being affected by what they see on television. We want to bring some compassion to each other where there doesn’t seem to
be a whole lot of it out in the news these days.” As Powell entered the room, he immediately began engaging with the kids. Instead of giving them a 40-minute lecture, he asked students questions, passed around the microphone and invited some to come up on stage with him.
Several students volunteered to address the room, and each was asked to not only tell the audience about their background and what they want in their future but to explain what diversity means to them. Isabella, of Portuguese decent, said she wants to be
DIVERSITY continued on page A7
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