The New York Civil Rights Coalition’s Unlearning Stereotypes: Civil Rights and Race Relations Project was established in the wake of the infamous racial confrontation in Bensonhurst and killing of 16-year-old Yusef Hawkins in December 1989, the project trains and deploys teams of volunteers (mostly lawyers, law and graduate students, community leaders and civic-minded professionals) to team-teach our award-winning Unlearning Stereotypes course at public high schools and junior high schools in New York City. Our program has been housed in some 40 public high schools throughout the five boroughs and two junior high schools in Manhattan, and continues the effort to confront the problems of bias and discrimination before they manifest into acts of violence and hatred.

Participation in our Unlearning Stereotypes program entails a weekly commitment for the Fall 2008 school semester, October-December. Volunteers will be assigned to two-person teams and will co-teach a regular high school or junior high school class. In order to visually promote our message of interracial cooperation and harmony, we try to make each team bi-racial, and, usually, co-ed. Classes last approximately 40 minutes and are mostly held in the mornings, prior to working hours. However, the actual teaching schedule depends on the availability of the classes at the participating schools matching with the volunteers’ schedules. Including transportation and preparation time, our volunteers commit to approximately two to three hours per week.

The teaching approach of our program is non-traditional, and each class is intended to be a forum that develops students’ awareness and critical thinking through open dialogue and debate. Our volunteers do not lecture, but serve as facilitators of candid discussion—about current events and controversial topics of interest to the students, such as race relations, gender discrimination and religious bigotry.

Our volunteers use a type of interactive Socratic teaching method, role-play exercises, and courtroom scenarios, including mock trials. The aim is to promote critical examination by the students of their own attitudes—as well as their classmates’—thereby learning about themselves and each other.

Our objective is not only to get high school and junior high school students to directly confront and evaluate the stereotypes and prejudices that contribute to ethnic polarization and intergroup conflicts, but to give them the knowledge and much needed opportunity to express their opinions and to think critically about the important issues of our day.

Our volunteers do not necessarily need to have formal teaching experience. Rather, individuals who are dedicated to the careful examination of social problems and who have a broad knowledge of civics, law, and civil rights issues will be well-qualified to lead the weekly discussions. In addition, the curriculum in our program covers various other discrimination topics, such as sexual orientation, age, and disability matters. Thus, knowledge of the legal system is helpful, and we feel that lawyers, law students, and paralegals are ideally suited for this unique classroom teaching experience.

Interested law students will need to contact us right away for training prior to placement. They should email us at sgeller@nycivilrights.org, or call us at 212-563-5636. In order to be accepted into the program and assigned to a school, all volunteers must register for and participate in a training session; trainings are held in September and early October.  Classes start up in October.

The New York Civil Rights Coalition (www.nycivilrights.org) is a non-governmental, non-partisan, not-for-profit organization