Look around

I've always been passionate about social justice. I don't become angry easily, but my temper blazes whenever I see or hear someone denigrate another for no other reason than that he or she is different. Part of the attraction of teaching foreign language is the chance to help people learn to accept different points of view on common topics. Lord help any student in my class whose first reaction to a cultural reference is "That's dumb!" So, I've been interested in attending this conference since Severn began sending us a couple of years ago, and it is indeed as grand an event as I expected. Since everybody who attends is a believer in the need to stem the exponential growth of hatred between the peoples of our socially merging planet, you don't have to hide your passion. You are free to express what you feel and share experiences and strategies without fear of rejection. The synergy is really powerful. You see people coming out of workshops with eyes blazing with new-found zeal and involuntary smiles at the sheer pleasure of finally being able to really work on this in the open.

But the best thing to see is the transformation of the kids. You know these kids; they're the ones that often travel the halls in clumps, holding on to their small group identity while swimming through the overwhelming majority. They aren't trying to separate themselves from other, larger groups, but it's hard not to be intimidated when you are so greatly outnumbered. Here, they all belong to the majority, which is made up of their shared experiences. They relax, mix, and make new friends in an instant. Their fences are dropped, and they run with the new freedom. I see them now and then as they are moving from one meeting room to another, and EVERY SINGLE FACE is happy. Even the ones that you can see have been hardened by the need to stay strong in the face of adversity are softer, with small smiles of satisfaction lifting up the corners of their mouths.

This is after only two days. Imagine the strength of the positivity if they could feel like this all the time. That is the gift of this annual conference. Once you feel like this, you realize that swimming those hallways doesn't have to always be upstream. When you know that you belong, you can stop looking back and start looking up and over the fences. Everybody is just everybody, and you are no different.