New Friends and Fair Play for classroom integration partnerships—a group learning experience aimed at helping students build relationships, gain a new respect for themselves and others, and learn skills for positive interaction. Facilitators and teachers guide students in partnered classrooms through engaging activities and group discussions in a safe and stimulating environment.
Students will:
- Get to know each other and build new relationships
- Acknowledge and appreciate their own and others' cultures and identities
- Stretch their comfort zones
- Gain insights about how differences affect thoughts, actions, and words
- Work together to bridge differences and reach shared goals
New Friends and Fair Play sessions are tailored to your partnership’s values, approach, grade level, and academic needs. We begin with relationship and community building, creating a safe yet challenging environment. Workshops introduce age-appropriate diversity topics, use a variety of challenges and creative expression, and can include the exploration of oppression and social justice issues. Students practice skills and behaviors that strengthen integration partnerships and increase students' ability to build relationships and work effectively with others across differences.
New Friends and Fair Play sessions take a community building approach, described by Laurie Frank in
Journey Toward The Caring Classroom. We draw on the counter-oppression alliance building work of the
Todos Institute and the
Making The Peace Program. Milton Bennett’s developmental model of intercultural sensitivity (DMIS) also guides our approach.
All
New Friends and Fair Play facilitators are committed to multicultural education, have strong facilitation skills and experience working with K-12 students.