On Friday, November 16, 2017, NAHS History Department Coordinator, Brian Sheehy, escorted four of his AP European history students to the National Race Amity Conference in Boston. The National Center for Race Amity (NCRA) was established in January 2010 to promote insight and understanding of the moral and scientific truths that humankind is innately equal. The Center is based at Wheelock College in Boston, Massachusetts and receives its founding grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.  The Center develops forums and initiatives to advance cross-racial and cross-cultural amity that impact the public discourse on race. The NCRA overall mission has the cultivation of race amity as its key tool as well as its end goal in advancing access, equity, social justice and unity. 

Kenna Fokum, a NAHS senior who participated in the event, describes her experience in part as follows: At this conference, listening to speakers from several different backgrounds share  their  concepts  on  race and their outlook on  Amity,   helped   enlighten   my   preconceived notions about race. . . . As a black woman living in  a   predominantly   white   community,   the  

opportunity to discuss controversial topics regarding, race, especially as it relates to the black race, is rare. This, I believe, is due to the fact that people for the most part lack the knowledge and experience with race and hence are uncomfortable discussing matters relating to race.

High School Junior Soumil Dhayagude wrote that it was "pretty cool" to listen to sports writers from ESPN and said . . . it rocked my preconceptions on modern day politics. . . . Speakers like Eddie Moore and Debby Irving challenged my quasi-conservative views and made me think about the idea of privilege. While I don't agree with them fully, the discourse made me realize that the path to a peaceful future is not black or white, but grey. . . . Regardless of where one is on the political spectrum, the event encouraged you to unknowingly challenge your preconceptions, which as history students, is extremely important in the long run.

As a result of the students' involvement the conference, Mr. Sheehy and the students who attended the conference, Ms. Marx, and Ms. Keenan from the Stevens Memorial library are 

DISTRICT SPOTLIGHT

Earlier this year, the Knightly News spotlighted a program sponsored by the Boston Celtics' Shamrock Foundation in which students from Lawrence and North Andover engage in dialogue about diversity and inclusion. The topic of the January 15 workshop was the "power of the bystander." Students from the Wetherbee School in Lawrence and North Andover Middle School traveled to the Celtics' practice facility and completed the work they began in October in designing a "playbook." This handbook features a variety of troublesome scenarios that kids might find themselves in and ways they might intervene. The scenarios include fictional incidents of casual racism and bullying, gender bias, and insensitivity to religion, disability, and orientation. All students at the January workshop were given a green t-shirt and treated to a pizza lunch in the team's conference room after watching the team practice. The students each took home a copy of the finished playbook, printed on heavy stock and designed to look like a coach's clipboard. The third and final event of the series will be held at North Andover Middle School on March 19 when students will pass along to elementary student the insights they learned and celebrate their accomplishments. 

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