Promoting Tolerance

America is the great "melting pot," a rich blend of cultural traditions from all over the world. Many American families can trace their histories to immigrant ancestors who traveled great distances, enduring risk and hardship, to make a home where they would be guaranteed basic freedoms.

American society was founded on tolerance of differences in cultural heritage. The differences (or diversity) that comes from people from all over the world enrich our culture, bringing new ideas and energy.

The faculty at Sacred Heart School in Rockaway, NJ prepares its students to live, learn, and work in communities that will become even more diverse. Teaching tolerance is important not just because it is part of our American heritage, but because the person who learns to be open to differences will have more opportunities in education, business, and many other aspects of life.

Mrs. Jacqueline Hendershot, 7th Grade Teacher at SHS, runs a weekly program for her students that has been in effect for ten years. The program is designed to put into action – weekly – of supporting the school’s goal of promoting tolerance for individual differences based on a student’s cultural background. In turn, this program celebrates differences and allows students to acknowledge their ancestry as a positive attribute rather than some part of themselves that they may not believe is acceptable in the main stream of life.

Hendershot states, “This weekly program also strongly supports the school’s anti-bullying efforts to establish a sense of community based on acceptance of individual differences. Ethnic comments and joking are diminished because students see that each of their classmates has a different cultural background to be celebrated.”

In addition, this program also supports the Social Studies Curriculum for identifying cultural differences and patterns of immigration in the United States.

Each Monday of the school week, a selected student brings in lunch for the class. Parents of that student are invited to come in for Monday Lunch, which gives students the support they may need to express their pride to their classmates while serving the lunch based on their cultural heritage.  In addition, it is an opportunity for all of the students to try something different for lunch. The student and the parent who provide the lunch help serve lunch to their classmates. This allows that student to have a sense of ethnic pride and celebrate their differences as well as learning tolerance for differences.

Hendershot also goes on to say, “Success in today's world — and tomorrow's — depends on being able to understand, appreciate, and work with others. Tolerance also means treating others the way you would like to be treated. Our weekly cultural lunches helps supports SHS’s goal of promoting tolerance and supports the school’s anti-bullying policy.”