Hayes Librarian Sarah Ressler is teaching a newly added Multiple Perspectives Literature class to encourage students to be more empathetic towards each other.
In the Multiple Perspectives class, students read books and discuss them and how they tell people’s stories from different walks of life.
The Multiple Perspectives class was started after Ressler started a book club for Delaware City Schools educators following the Black Lives Matter protests that took place in 2020.
After the book club, educators wanted their experience to reach the students.
“The goal of the Multiple Perspectives class is to have thoughtful conversations,” Ressler said. “To also grow as an individual and recognize your place and hopefully think more broadly, and gain more knowledge about the other cultures that are within the United States and gain perspectives that we wouldn’t necessarily already have.”
The class is available for sophomores, juniors and seniors, and it takes place in the LRC. Ressler said that the people coming into this class should be ready to empathize with people and experiences foreign to them.
“I want people to come with open hearts,” Ressler said.
Currently, the class consists of seven students, which has brought them even closer together than they would have been if the class was a regular-sized class.
“There are not many people in our class …” senior and Multiple Perspectives student Abdullaahi Musse said. “I have learned a good deal about my classmates and their experiences with individuals’ lack of sympathy and empathy.”
The class starts with the Black perspective, then it moves on to the Latinx. After that, they talk about the perspective of Indigenous people, followed by Muslim and Asian and Pacific Islander. Lastly, the students get to have a choice of what perspective to do.
Students in the class are learning to be more sympathetic and compassionate about what
other people are going through.
“My biggest takeaway from this class is to be more sympathetic,” Musse said. “I don’t mean thinking from everyone else’s point of view 24/7, just trying to be compassionate when others are going through a difficult situation.”
Hayes Principal, Ric Stranges, said he has been waiting for years to start a class with a goal similar to the Multiple Perspectives class.
“I think it offers students at least another avenue to learn about diversity, celebrate diversity, and a lot of it’s through literature which is a great way to learn, and share and grow,” Stranges said.