You could call them Brookline High School’s social justice superheroes. They are here to help fight the community’s villains of bigotry and discrimination.
The Warriors for Change program, which began in 2016, is made up of an eager group of students whose goal is to tackle bias and prejudice and educate their peers about the dangers these conditions pose.
School Within a School social studies teacher and co-adviser of the Warriors for Change program, Jen Martin, said that they are working on three projects for the upcoming school year: assisting with Asking for Courage Day in the fall, working with advisories at the high school in the winter and workshopping with middle schools in the spring. They planned many activities for students and teachers for Asking for Courage Day.
“So what we’ve been doing is pulling together lessons that could be 10 minutes, half an hour to an hour. We have a lot of really cool things in the works,” Martin said. “We found so many videos about different things that the students think would be interesting. We’ve basically culled through a bunch of videos because we think that’s the best way for people to start conversations in their classes.”
The Warriors for Change work with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), one of the oldest anti-bias organizations in the country, and had two full-day peer training sessions at the beginning of the school year. Associate Dean of Old Lincoln School Brendan Kobus is another faculty adviser of Warriors for Change and organized the collaboration with the ADL.
“[We worked on] just building their comfort level, confidence, and talking about complicated issues—particularly issues of bias, whether that be race, gender, religion or sexuality,” Kobus said.
Martin said the things they talked about at the ADL training were often difficult to discuss, but students were really good at sharing their personal experiences.
“They’re very personal. It’s people sharing their personal identities and how it’s impacted them,” Martin said. “This particular group was really good at talking about the issues that actually matter to them, not just the issues that the adults think should matter.”
Kobus said that his main goals for the program are to always keep these issues and conversations in the spotlight of our community.
“I think if we are not actively combatting some of these things that we’re seeing in the larger society, then we’re vulnerable. I don’t want to be reactive to incidents. I want to be proactive to prevent incidents,” Kobus said.
Junior and member of Warriors for Change Briano Ufano-Demb said that his favorite thing about being a part of this group is the things that he learns from it.
“I like learning new things and I like being able to share them with people. When I feel that I can use information that I’ve taken in to help the community, it’s a good feeling,” Ufano-Demb said.
Freshman Anya Ditkoff said that she joined the program because she observed disrespectful behavior in her middle school that she wanted to help improve in high school.
“I feel like in middle school, people were not very respectful. You can’t control their behavior, but I wonder if there’s a way that you can influence their behavior,” Ditkoff said. “So my goal is to maybe have it get a little bit better.”
Ditkoff said that her favorite part of Warriors for Change is that she gets to feel like she is taking action and actively preventing bias and prejudice at the school.
“You get to be doing something about it,” she said. “And you get to be doing something that you can feel is going to work. You get to be doing something or participating in events that you can believe will actually improve things.”
Ditkoff said that even though the high school has a good, well-intentioned administration, that won’t solve the whole problem.
“You have to have students who care about it because one of our mottos is ‘we create the culture we want,’” Ditkoff said. “So if we create a culture where that stuff happens and it goes unreported and un-dealt with, then that’s saying that it’s okay.”
Kobus said that he really likes how he can watch all of these students who are so invested in making the high school a better and more enjoyable environment for its community.
“I would call them social justice crusaders,” Kobus said. “They really want to make this school better, want to make it more inclusive and want to make it a more thoughtful and comfortable place for every student.”