For the first time since the coronavirus hit, Social Justice Day happened in person on April 5. This was the ninth Social Justice Day, with students, staff, and faculty members getting the chance to participate.
“It’s a day designed to get students thinking about their identity, topics of social justice and to get us as a school community involved,” Diversity and Community Program Manager Patrick King said. “It’s one of the only days that Upper School and Middle School students intermix with faculty and staff.”
Eighth grader Ben Frischer talked about why he thinks that we do Social Justice Day.
“To make it more commonplace for people to talk about racism and discrimination. It’s a good way to inform people,” Frischer said. “It’s important that people become comfortable talking about these kinds of things.”
King led the planning of Social Justice Day and talked about the benefits. One bonus, he said, is that everyone, teachers included, get the opportunity to share their experiences with their community through leading workshops.
“One major part is it gives people a chance to share parts of themselves they don’t always get to bring to their classroom or to their everyday lives at UPrep. It also gives people a chance to listen and learn from each other,” King said.
Results from an anonymous survey about Social Justice Day were similar to sixth grader Nadia Maurou-Dikeni’s thoughts. Parts of the day were fun and parts should be changed.
“I liked the origami workshop because we got to learn about the history behind origami cranes and we got to make them,” Maurou-Dikeni said. “I disliked the Venn diagram workshop because it was boring, we only made Venn diagrams.”
Frischer had mixed feelings about his workshops, the Postal Service Documentary and You’re Canceled. He feels that communication is key during workshops.
“There could have been more interaction. I watched the documentary, there was some conversation, but not a ton. I thought the ‘You’re Canceled’ workshop was good, it was interesting,” Frischer said.
Opinions from a poll showed that overall people wanted more options to pick from for affinity groups and to do whichever workshops they choose.
“I know space is limited and sometimes workshops get canceled at the last minute, but I would like to get the workshops that I surveyed for,” Maurou-Dikeni said.
King would like to give more students the opportunity to help lead and organize Social Justice Day.
“Next year, hopefully getting more students involved in picking the theme and the keynotes would be awesome. I would love to see middle school students leading workshops,” King said.