Dianne Campbell, Connecting Diversity

When White River High School psychology teacher Dianne Campbell realized that the school’s students with disabilities were isolated in a classroom and being taunted by other students, she decided to do something about it. Working in a nearly all-white school in Buckley, Wash. (pop. 4,145), Campbell started a program called Connections in hopes of teaching her students to increase their acceptance of diversity.

Every Friday, she invites differently abled students into her psychology classes, and the students all work together on various empathy-building projects. They talk together, laugh together, work together, and play together. Sometimes they do things outside the classroom such as bowling. One year, several of Campbell’s Connections students went to the prom as each other’s “dates.”

“My goal in everything I do with Connections is just plain acceptance,” she says. “People are people, and you have something to learn from each and every one.”

Now, six years into the program, in addition to reaching out to students with disabilities, Connections students “connect” with “little buddies” in a nearby elementary school, with elders in a rehabilitation center, and with chronically mentally impaired patients who’ve been committed to Western State Hospital in Steilacoom, Wash.

“In Miss Campbell’s Connections class, I learned how to speak up for students with disabilities,” says Liz Randall, 17. “When one of my friends called the bus they ride ‘the retard bus,’ I said, ‘please don’t say that because it hurts my friends.’ I think I surprised him. And then he said, ‘I have friends like that, too.’”

Gina Clinkingbeard, 17, who says she’s always been shy, credits Connections with getting her to open up and show her feelings. “I had to come out of my shell in order to get the special needs kids to come out of their shells,” she says.

When Clinkingbeard attends Campbell’s class, she knows it’s going to be uplifting. “If you go in there in a bad mood, you can’t stay in a bad mood because Miss Campbell puts out so much positive energy. She’s always willing to go the extra mile for someone else.”

Joe Blas came to White River High School shortly after arriving in the United States from Guam. He says Connections helped him adjust to a school where he was one of very few minority students. “Miss Campbell promoted diversity in every which way possible,” he says. “She was the first to jump on the bandwagon about race.”

Blas, 18, says he was deeply moved by working with students with disabilities in Connections. “People who are differently abled bring out the emotion in me,” he says. “To see them smile—it’s one of the most important things in my life.”

In light of the backlash against Muslims brought about by last September’s terrorist attacks on the United States, perhaps Campbell’s lessons about stereotyping people are more relevant than ever. Now in his first year at McPherson (Kan.) College, Blas says he recently heard two fellow students shouting threats at two young Muslim women working in the college cafeteria.

“Now I try to go up to those two girls every day and ask them how their day is going,” Blas says. “When I see them smile, I hope they really mean it. I hope they know I’m trying to show them my support.”

The modest Campbell is not big on singing her own praises. Despite receiving two prestigious awards and a grant for her work in Connections, sometimes she seems not to fully realize the magnitude of her contribution to her students and the community.

“I offer energy,” she says, “but this program could be duplicated anywhere.”

Blas says Campbell is the genuine article. “No matter what she’s doing, she’s always teaching us,” he says. “She talks the talk and walks the walk.”

Laurel Holliday is a frequent contributor to American Profile.

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