Airplanes.

We had an unexpected plane change in St. Louis as we traveled to Washington DC. As we stood at gate 12 waiting to board the new plane, I began to people watch. 

Airports are an odd place for me. They have caused me to cuss. They have caused me to cry. And they have caused me to have deep, meaningful conversations with complete strangers. When you are in an airport, you become vulnerable. You stand with your carry-on luggage, coffee in hand, and suddenly a strange sense of loneliness comes over you. You desire conversation-- or at least I do. 

On this day, in particular, I was wearing a Patriot Soccer shirt. A woman who was waiting on the same plane I was asked me if I played soccer at George Mason University. I don't typically get mistaken for a Division I women's soccer player. (Actually, I can assure you that I have never been asked that in my life. I think my calves are too small for people to make that assumption. And, if they ever saw me try to kick a ball, they would quickly recant.) Caught off guard, I finally responded to her that I didn't play soccer at George Mason. I was just a lame fan of a private christian school's soccer team that my boyfriend's siblings played for. She laughed, and asked if the school was in Oklahoma. I said yes, and we began to have a conversation about Oklahoma, soccer, and education. While discussing my undergraduate studies and her neat job as a turn-around specialist in Virginia, a man turned around. Interested in what we had to say, he told us that his occupation was speaking on behalf of his foundation to schools. The woman I had been talking with asked what he spoke about. I'll never forget his response. He told us his parents were Holocaust survivors. 

In rural Oklahoma, you don't encounter many Holocaust survivors. The closest thing you get to it is in a History book during school. You watch documentaries over it, and read literature about it during English, but it never really becomes personal. So for me, meeting a man whose parents were Holocaust survivors was a very neat experience. You can read Mike's story HERE. It is much better than if I tried to regurgitate it to you in my own words. 

We went and saw our new friend the next day at the Holocaust Museum, in Washington DC, and purchased his book. The book is called "Until We Meet Again: A True Story of Love and Survival in the Holocaust," by Michael Korenblit and Kathleen Janger. I quickly started it, and had it finished shortly after we returned home from our vacation. (You can buy the book HERE. I highly recommend it. It changed the way I look at life.)

The man's name is Michael Korenblit. He and his wife have created the Respect Diversity Foundation. It reaches out to students and educates them on the diversity that they all face every single day. Our world is changing. Cesar Chavez says it best about the future of our education, "We need to help students and parents cherish and preserve the ethnic and cultural diversity that nourishes and strengthens this community - and this nation." We must teach our young people tolerance. We cannot continue to allow our students to treat each other poorly simply because they are different. Everyone is unique, and has been given special talents and abilities that they can use to change the world in a positive way. You might not agree with someone, but that never gives you the right to disrespect them.

Prejudice has to stop. Our children cannot grow up in a world where hate prevails, and love is put on the back-burner. As a future educator, I don't hope to have the highest test scores, or be voted teacher of the year. I hope and pray that my students will leave my classroom year after year learning how to respect one another. I hope that my students don't think someone is less than them because of the color of their skin. I hope they learn from our world's past, and work hard to make sure that history does not repeat itself.  

I encourage you to read Mr. Korenblit's book, and search for his foundation. If you are a fellow future teacher, use the website to teach tolerance to your classroom. Do whatever it takes to make change our world for the better. 

I'll leave you with this quote by the great Pablo Picasso: 

"Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that will never be again.  And what do we teach our children?  We teach them that two and two make four, and that Paris is the capitol of France.  When will we also teach them what they are?  We should say to them: Do you know what you are?  You are a marvel.  You are unique.  In all the years that have passed, there has never been another child like you.  Your legs, your arms, your clever fingers, the way you move.  You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven.  You have the capacity for anything.  Yes you are a marvel.  And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is, like you, a marvel?  You must work, we must work, to make the world worthy of its children." 
-Pablo Picasso