Brattleboro Reformer - 2 April 2003

Student group, counselor win Vt.-NEA honors

By MICHAEL NEARY
Reformer Staff

BRATTLEBORO -- Students from high-school and middle-school civic groups have said they want to speak with voices loud enough to reach beyond Brattleboro. Now, after receiving a shout back from Montpelier, they know they have.

The Vermont National Education Association has awarded its two Human and Civil Rights Awards -- one designed for students, and one for faculty -- to members of Brattleboro Union High School and Brattleboro Area Middle School. The Child Labor Education and Action project (CLEA) won the student award, and Bob Peeples, a middle school counselor who has helped students to pioneer two other groups, won the faculty award.

CLEA was formed cooperatively by faculty at BUHS and the School for International Training. Harrington "Tim" Kipp, a BUHS social studies teacher, serves as moderator.

Angelo Dorta, president of the Vermont NEA, said it was "absolutely clear that (Peeples) was leading and supporting teachers and students." He also cited CLEA's recent forums on child labor and its introduction of a resolution (in the House) that would make March 26 Child Labor Awareness Day.

"It's really empowering to be recognized by adults" said CLEA member Lizzie Krasner, a senior.

Krasner described CLEA's goal of reaching beyond the Brattleboro community and cited the Peru project, in which CLEA members are sending computers to Peruvian students, as the latest example of the group's outreach.

"This is especially important for the girls, who are too shy to speak in class," said Krasner.

Elisar Hares cited a nine-day trip to Guatemala two years ago as pivotal in her experience with the group.

"The Guatemala project is what brought most of us together," said Hares, a senior. She said the group helped some people to begin building a school, one that has since been completed.

Other members agreed that the organization, starting with clusters of students in Vermont, was slowly expanding.

"We thought it was more feasible to start in Vermont and do outreach in Vermont," said senior Ariel Poster.

Senior Delia Kipp noted that the group had also presented material at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Peeples said one of the student groups he works with -- Persons Enriching A Community's Environment (The PEACE) -- began in the wake of Columbine, as students grappled with the threat of school violence. Peeples said that around the same time, the spring of 1999, a number of bomb threats had surfaced at BAMS.

"The events of Columbine hit a lot of kids hard," he said. "They were frightened by it."

Peeples said a student approached him shortly afterwards, hungry for discussion.

"He said, 'Could we just talk about these issues?'"

Peeples said the group ended up talking about differences among students, as well as the need for tolerance. He said one issue that emerged was the experience of being deaf at BAMS, and in Brattleboro at large. The students, said Peeples, came to a realization.

"One thing that came out of that was an awareness that you can't go to the movies in Brattleboro," said Peeples.

This insight sent the students on a quest to bring subtitled movies to Brattleboro cinemas -- a quest that, as yet, has not been realized.

The PEACE also began working with CLEA, at the high school.

"The CLEA kids had gone to Guatemala," said Peeples, "and they noticed that people there didn't have shoes." The PEACE went on to work with CLEA on collecting shoes, concentrating on the middle school while CLEA focused on the high school.

Peeples came to BAMS in 1984 from the Manhassett school system in Long Island, where he also worked as a guidance counselor. Before that he had worked as a counselor in Omaha, Neb. -- at Father Flanagan's Boys' Town -- and as a teacher in Keene, N.H.

Peeples, who gave credit to his students for the award he won, noted similar experiences among students in all of those schools.

"The basic things don't change," he said.

But he also said minority students at BAMS faced unusual challenges -- challenges that helped in 1993 to spawn AWARE, the multicultural awareness student group he also moderates.

"Minority students here have a unique situation, in that it's a struggle to get a real sense of belonging because there is no minority community as such," he said. "So you are sort of on your own.

"AWARE," he continued, "tries to fill that gap and give them a place where they can share their experiences of being a minority."

Peeples cited an essay from one student that he said illustrated a discomfort minority students in town often felt.

"She said that when many of the white students talked to them they speak differently," he said. "They put on an affected -- quote unquote -- Afro style of speech. She resents it deeply. She thinks it's phony and condescending."

Although Peeples said most of AWARE's function lay with creating a safe space for students to share experiences, he also mentioned some outreach projects, including a student-made film about being a Brattleboro minority. He said AWARE students also prompted the school board to condemn the flying of the Confederate flag at football rallies, something students did several years ago.

Peeples said other projects loomed.

"There's still a need to have a multi-cultural approach in the curriculum," he said. "The Euro-centered approach to teaching social studies is still there."

BAMS Principal Andrew Paciulli agreed, with one reservation.

"The idea of the request is valid and has merit," said Paciulli, who praised the work of the groups Peeples moderates. "But on the other hand much of our content is driven by state standards."

Paciulli said he would like to see the teaching of U.S. history broadened to include a study of African populations before they were captured and brought to the United States.

"In order to understand race relations to today, you have to go back," Paciulli said. "Our kids don't have that (knowledge)."