For today's class, Al Toney, from Ak Consulting, led an interactive workshop with the kids on issues around diversity such as stereotyping. Some of us had the pleasure of meeting and interacting with Al at the Student Leadership Conference in Maynard as he was one of the workshop leaders there. I was so impressed with Al's workshop in October and specifically with his ability to connect with all of the kids there around sensitive issues such as stereotyping, name calling, bullying, that I was very excited to try to get him back to our class to dive further into these issues including how the children can handle these issues when they come up. Al's own story is quite remarkable as he was a police officer for 8 years. His career as an officer ended when he was shot trying to diffuse an incident in a bar while off duty.
The ultimate goal of this class and the work with Al is for the kids to be able to first understand that we are all different in some way. And secondly, there are many things that they hear about people who are different including differences of color, sex, sexual preferences, religion, monetary status, etc that are both hurtful and blatantly false. And those of us / them who can see through these stereotypes and the fear and ignorance that they are based in, are the real leaders among us.
To learn more about Al's background and his diverisity consulting, here is his website. http://www.akconsultingservices.com/
Here are some video clips from today's interactive session with Al.
Click on a video below to watch it:
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