Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC)
Taking a cue from our kids
Sometimes, when we’re looking for role models, we ought to look down and not up. Children often exhibit the best in humanity—and I think that’s because it’s instinctive to trust one another, to listen, and to be kind. Kids do that pretty naturally. They see the good first.
With division at a high in communities across our country, we can all learn an important lesson from students at Rockwern Elementary School and Hays Porter Elementary school, who are getting to know each other by reading the same two books.
“The all-school, two-school read at a suburban Jewish academy and a Cincinnati Public
School that mostly serves African Americans from low-income families is designed to build bridges between communities that are just 14 miles apart but rarely intersect,” wrote WCPO’s Bob Driehaus in a November 7 article about the partnership. “Leaders of both schools can’t tackle the divisions that threaten to tear the country apart on the eve of the presidential election. But they can and will give their students the chance to walk in different shoes.”
I invite you to read more about this remarkable partnership, and I challenge you to take a walk in someone else’s shoes, too. Seek out people who may think and feel differently than you do. No one person can bridge a nation-wide divide. But we can each do our own part to live up to our children’s example, one empathetic conversation at a time.
Jewish and predominantly black schools plan to bridge divides starting with reading a book together | Published on WCPO.com on July 14
West End’s Hays Porter Elementary gets excited about partnership with Kenwood’s Rockwern | Published on WCPO.com on October 3
Rockwern Academy students dive into all-school book reading with empathy as a goal | Published on WCPO.com on November 7
