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Thank you for joining us for today's Spotlight program. I'm Marina Santee.
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And I'm Joshua Leo. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no matter where in the world they live.
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In 2002, a group of scientists from the University of Ulster did a study of school children in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland has a history of hate and violence between the members of the Catholic and Protestant religions. The scientists chose Catholic and Protestant school children from around Northern Ireland. They asked these children questions.
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These scientists learned that very young children already had opinions about people who were different from them. These opinions are called biases. They learned that by the age of three, Catholic children from the north had formed bad opinions about the police. Also by the age of three, some Protestant children said that they liked the British flag more than the Irish flag. The scientists learned that by the age of six, children already identified with a particular community. And 15% of these children even made hateful comments about people who were different from them.
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This study in Ireland shows that every person can be affected by hateful thoughts or feelings. Even very small children can have harmful opinions and biases. Young children can learn to judge people who are different to them. But should people accept this? Where do these children get these ideas? And more importantly, how can people stop these harmful biases in children?
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Today's Spotlight program is the ninth in a series of ten programs. In this series of programs we have been looking at ten ways to fight hate in your community.
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Hate is powerful enough to destroy people and communities. So Tolerance.org has made this list of ten ways to fight hate in your community. On today's Spotlight program we will look at the ninth way to fight hate in your community: Teach Tolerance.
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Tolerance means accepting people for who they are. It means accepting and respecting different opinions and beliefs. Tolerance.org believes that children need to learn tolerance. And they need to learn it when they are very young. It is a terrible thing to teach a child to hate. And studies like the one in Ireland show that children can learn to hate at a very young age.
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Tolerance.org says that one very important place to teach tolerance to children is school. School is a place where many different children come together in one place. In school, children talk, laugh and learn with other children. And children want to learn more about people who are different to them.
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There are many ways to encourage children to celebrate differences in school. Tolerance.org describes how one teacher in the United States uses art to teach tolerance to her students. She asks her children to paint pictures of their faces. They mix different color paints together to make their skin color. Then they name the colors they made. Children learn that everyone has a different and beautiful skin color.
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Another way to teach tolerance is to have children tell stories about their families. By doing this, children learn about each other's culture and traditions. They learn to value the different kinds of families that people come from.
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Teachers can also teach tolerance by asking children to imagine what the world would be like if there was no hate. You may have heard of Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a famous black preacher. He fought for the rights of black people in the United States in the 1950s and 60s. He gave a famous speech called "I Have a Dream." In that speech he talked about his dream for the future. Here is an example from his speech.
"I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!"
He dreamed that one day white and black children would play together and hold hands peacefully. Many teachers ask their children to write their own "I Have a Dream" speech. They ask children to imagine a better and more tolerant world. Then children write about their hopes for the future.
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Older children and young adults can learn more about tolerance by studying popular media sources like films and television. They can look at how the media presents different races, religions and ethnic groups. They can decide if they agree with the films and television programs. Some films and television programs use stereotypes. That is, they present groups of people as being all the same. People can see the dangers of presenting a group of people using stereotypes.
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These are just a few ways that Tolerance.org talks about teaching tolerance to children in school. But school is not the only place for children to learn tolerance. The most important place for a child to learn tolerance is from adults, like parents and members of their community. Every adult is a teacher to children. Children copy the actions and words of adults in the community. You can teach a child tolerance by being a good example for her to follow. Show tolerance for the people you work with or meet in your community. If you are a tolerant adult, your children will be more tolerant too!
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Tolerance is important for people of all ages to learn. You can examine your own thoughts and opinions. Are you tolerant of people who are different to you? Are there people in your community that you avoid, ignore, or try to forget? These things can be just as harmful as treating someone badly. We can all work to be more tolerant people. And we can teach tolerance to everyone we know. You can encourage other adults to be tolerant too. Parents can teach tolerance to their children. Teaching tolerance today can help stop hate tomorrow.
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This is the ninth program in our series of ten programs on ten ways to fight hate. This list is from Tolerance.org. Here are Tolerance.org's ten ways to fight hate:
Act, Unite, Support the Victims, Do Your Homework, Create an Alternative, Speak Up, Lobby Leaders, Look Long Range, Teach Tolerance, and Dig Deeper.
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Keep listening to Spotlight to hear the complete series. And be sure to visit Tolerance.org on the internet!
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