Highland Park students learn about Civil Rights Movemement

Kindergarten students at Highland Park Early Primary School learned about Martin Luther King Jr. during their library session this week from local AmeriCorps Vistas Nancy Kastning and Teresa White.

Kastning, who works as a local food systems coordinator in the area, showed the young students a children's book that talked about the discrimination Black and dark-skinned people in the U.S. faced before King and the Civil Rights Movement he lead pressured the country to change for the better.

She talked not just about how people in the U.S. were treated worse for the color of their skin, but that this senseless practice was legally codified throughout much of the U.S.

She talked to the children who all agreed that the rules at that time didn't make sense and were unfair.

Kastning talked about the impact these laws had not just on dark-skinned people, but light-skinned people who lost friendships because the laws separated the groups for no godd reason.

But she also talked about King, and the work he did helping to forge a movement of people to combat discrimination and pressure the U.S. to change its rules.

She said everyone has the potential to change the world in a positive way like King did and she asked students to think about what they can do to make people's lives better, and what they can do to make up for the times that they have been mean to people.

Kastning said everyone has been mean to someone at some point and its important to do things to make up for it and be sincere while doing it.

During the presentation Kastning also introduced her service dog, Leili, who helps her get around, talking about what service dogs like her do, how they help people and how people like her.

After the presentation she said it would be impossible not to talk about Leili with so many young children in the room, but it was also a good opportunity to talk about another group that hasn't always been treated well in the U.S., disabled people.

Kastning said she and her fellow AmeriCorps Vista Teresa White, a Teachers of Promise Pathways expansion coordinator at Montana State University-Northern who helped with the presentation, like to do things like this in the community as part of their organization's mission.

She said AmeriCorps does non-military service for the U.S. federal government that seeks to improve conditions in areas facing significant economic or social challenges with whatever they need.

She said she spends her time working with the Native American tribes at the Fort Belknap and Rocky Boy's Indian reservations to improve local food systems, improving food security among the people there and working to make the communities as a whole self-sufficient.

White said she works at Northern with a program designed to create a pathway for local students, including those from small communities, to train as teachers and educators who can go on to work in local schools.

However, both said they enjoy doing things like this because the goal of their organization as a whole is to affect positive social change in the areas they work, and talking to younger children about the legacy of people like King, and the fact that they can do great things like he did can do a tremendous amount of good.

"I love hanging out with the kids and trying to introduce those ideas, that you too can make a difference in the world ... it feels good," Kastning said.

White said they had spoken to six groups of students that day and they would be back the next day and next week to see more.

She said things have been going extremely well and the students have been extremely receptive, focused and engaged even at their young age.

She said the Montana Campus Compact, an intermediary organization that helps coordinate many Montana Vistas activities, has been doing things like this for years and its great to be a part of it.

She said she remembers many of the lessons she learned as a young kindergartner and how formative a lot of those experiences were, and being part of that for someone else is a great experience.

White also talked about their experiences working in the community in general and she and Kastning emphasized that their organization's philosophy is to work with groups of people to address their needs, not to tell them what to do.

"You are a guest in the community and you are there to support them in any way that you can," White said.

She said working with the school's librarian Kathryn Holt was great and it's nice to show people that it isn't just teachers who support the public schools.

Holt said the idea to do this event was brought to her by Havre Public Schools Board Chair Curtis Smeby, also a professor at Northern, and she couldn't have been happier for the opportunity.

"I was all for it," she said.

She said talking to students about things like the Civil Rights Movement and what things were like for so many Americans before the movement is important, even if they need to heavily simplify the subject so they can understand it.

She said they can talk about the more complex facets of issues like discrimination when they are older and better able to understand, but laying the foundation for those discussions early can be extremely helpful for their understanding later.

"It will still be percolating in their little minds," Holt said.

She said children at the kindergarten age tend to be fairly racially color-blind, noticing that people look different but not really putting any weight on such things, but as they get older they will start to notice the effect that such superficial differences have culturally, so instilling the value of non-discrimination at a young age is important.

She said watching entire groups of young students grow year by year is a unique experience and she knows full well how much can change in 12 months so having opportunities like this are wonderful, especially in a place like Havre that can be a little isolated.

She said it was also interesting to see the issue of disabilities and service animals talked about, too, saying it's important to teach children how to see connections between these issues and give them practical knowledge about how to interact with them properly.

"If that's the only thing it did, that's wonderful," she said.

Holt said having guests come in to talk about these kinds of things also gives students the opportunity to see her in a position of being a listener and learner, which is important since young people are especially receptive to people who lead by example.