At a time when our society is a polarized as it’s ever been, with political and ideological groups working to make people “choose sides”, it’s a good time to be able to hear a historical account of tolerance and inspiring how those in history have forged a moral compass.
You’ll be able to find that later this week at the Mobile Museum of Tolerance, which makes its way to the Poinciana Library this Thursday (civil rights workshop) and Friday (Anne Frank workshop), May 22-23. Presentations begin at 10 a.m. and run every 90 minutes through 6 p.m. They last 30 to 50 minutes depending on the size of the group and its engagement.
Spreading a message that “Education is the key to breaking the cycle of hatred,” the museum’s rolling bus spent two days each at the Buenaventura and Kissimmee Hart Memorial libraries in the last week. Inside the air-conditioned bus, residents can get a free and unique opportunity to experience powerful, interactive exhibits focused on moral courage, civil rights, and education while studying culturally-defining moments in history—the Holocaust, the Civil Rights movement, and decoding online hate. It’s delivered in age-appropriate segments led by MMOT educator Katie Martinelli, who worked with the Osceola Library System prior to joining the Simon Wiesenthal Center. She said the target audience is for grades 5-12, but the material easily reaches all ages who’ve attended.
“We want people to come away with a better understanding of tolerance what does that mean?” she said. “We tend to connect with people through the Anne Frank workshop; she had a sibling, and we talk about who has siblings, and honestly, who is the one who has to be tolerated. It’s a great segue into what tolerance is and what our families have to put up with. That’s the what we want people to get coming out of the bus: tolerating people over been mean to people and bullying them.”
The workshops address contemporary issues of bias, bigotry, and discrimination. The hope, Martinelli said, is helping foster empathy, unity, and dialogue through education delivered in a unique way. (Learn more at www.mmot.com.)
“We’re trying to teach how we can make our society a better place and be an ‘upstander’ rather than a ‘bystander,’” Martinelli said. “And in the Anne Frank seminar, there’s a seminar that explains what exactly happened to her (Jewish) family during the Holocaust. I wasn’t taught exactly what the Holocaust was, but I learned about Anne Frank in about seventh grade.”
The civil rights seminar features a Martin Luther King speech, and again, while he left quite the legacy, many don’t realize the circumstances of his assassination and why his movement that inspired integration threatened a segment of society.
“It becomes a lesson of why it’s important that we integrate out society and see everyone as equals,” Martinelli said. “When we talk to people as the come off the bus, they say they wanted to make their children aware of these topics, but it helped them answer the questions of why we treat people the way we do."
