High school Tolerance Day dubbed a success

Danette Goulet

CORONA DEL MAR -- They didn’t tell students to be tolerant of others.

The Tolerance Day speakers know the more than 500 students at Corona

del Mar High School who took part in the student-run event Wednesday have

already heard that message.

Instead, presenters asked students to admit to and look at prejudices.

Tolerance “is a personal experience,” said Kathaleen Collins,

assistant director of the peace studies program at Chapman University.

“It’s not going to happen because a teacher tells you.”

Collins was one of eight dynamic speakers invited to Corona del Mar

High by senior Josh Ludmir.

The creation of Tolerance Day, which Ludmir hopes will become a

tradition at the school, was Ludmir’s senior project. But he did not

organize the diversity symposium to get a grade or fulfill a graduation

requirement.

Having gone to a Hebrew school, then a Hebrew all-boys school, before

coming to Corona del Mar High, Ludmir said he went from one homogeneous

atmosphere to another.

He was bothered by the fact that only Santa Claus appeared at Corona

del Mar High’s annual holiday rally and that no other religion was

represented, he said. And that had been the case for 32 years.

This year, his additions to the rally, which included a rendition of

Adam Sandler’s Hanukkah song, were the first changes to diversify that

program.

“There has always been the presence of Jews and Latinos [at Corona del

Mar High], but no one has ever been outspoken,” he said.

It was the first of two huge steps toward tolerance at the school this

year, thanks to Ludmir.

The second -- Wednesday’s tolerance workshops -- was the realization

of a three-year dream and many months of planning. Gary Levin, the

assistant director of the Anti-Defamation League in Orange County,

offered students hate crime statistics before presenting them a series of

exercises that first had students interact and then silently show where

they stood on such issues as interracial relationships and gender roles.

In another room, there was a panel of religious leaders, which

included the Rev. Kusala, a Buddhist monk, Rabbi Stephen Einstein of the

congregation B’nai Tzedek and Pastor Gary Collins from St. Mark

Presbyterian Church.

Although the administration “watered down” the cast of speakers, which

originally included a gay and lesbian rights group speaker and

ex-skinhead T.J. Lyden, Ludmir said he still felt it had an effect and

was a success.

Students agreed.

A group of eighth-grade girls said they were impressed with Collins’

workshop.

“It’s really positive -- the effect it has on us,” said Caitlin Fenno,

14.

“We go to CdM, which is pretty much white,” said her friend Courtney

Clark, 14. “We’re pretty ignorant.”

The girls said Collins’ stories hit home. It was the first time they

had someone other than their parents explain why some comments are wrong,

Fenno said.

“I think about things I said before, and it makes me kind of sick,”

Courtney said.