Futures Builds Empathy By Going BACK TO THE PAST
Service Learning students at Futures High School develop empathy by taking oral histories from immigrant family members and sharing those stories with each other, the school community, and surrounding communities.
NORTH HIGHLANDS, California. May 17, 2018 - Every year, Service Learning students at Futures High School in North Highlands, a charter school that is part of Gateway Community Charters, determine a focus for a campaign that will improve the climate and culture of their campus. This year’s students identified “lack of empathy” as the top problem, and they decided that problem wasn’t limited to their campus.
Borrowing from an incredible idea created by Fresno Unified’s “ArtVenture Academy” to “give voice to the voiceless through the power of visual storytelling,” Futures students, the majority of whom come from immigrant families, chose to build empathy by sharing immigration stories. First they would learn the details of their own immigration stories and build empathy vertically with family members. Next they would build empathy horizontally by sharing those stories with others and discovering similarities between people of varying backgrounds.
Said a Futures student who immigrated from Russia in her artist statement about her piece titled “Connections,” “All things are connected… I hope to portray the diversity of the cultures in our community.” From a student whose work is titled, “Goodbye Nigeria, Hello America,” the courage it takes to thrive during a major change is a major theme: “My artwork… shows the community that once we overcome the fear of change, we will see the world.”
Students will display their work and the interviews that inspired them at their “Back to the Past” immigration art exhibit in the library of Futures High School in North Highlands from 6:30pm-8:00pm. The event is free and open to the public, and the students’ video announcing the event can be found here: https://youtu.be/cL4Y9Fion3E
