AISNSW Creating Cohesive Communities Podcast

SNIPPET:

Respect and dignity shouldn't be dependent on that you are a mirror of me, but that I actually see you as you are with all of your difference. And we come together to celebrate our humanity and our diverse humanity.

JJULIA:

Welcome to the AISNSW Creating Cohesive Communities Podcast series, developed by the Association of Independent Schools NSW.

My name is Julia Gyomber.

KATE:

And my name is Kate Xavier.

JULIA:

Today we are joined by Dean and founder of together for Humanity, Rabbi Zalman Kastel. Rabbi Kastel was raised in the Orthodox Hasidic tradition in Brooklyn, NY, as a young adult in Australia, Rabbi Kastel’s encounters with Christians and Muslims transformed him and commenced his life journey, passion for working across communities to develop better understanding between the major faiths he founded together for humanity in 2002, and in 2020 he was made a member of the Order of Australia in recognition of his work. On interfaith and intercultural understanding.

Join us as we explore being comfortable with difference and finding common ground through interfaith and intercultural understanding, education and encounters.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY:

Before we begin, we would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands and airways in which we are meeting and broadcasting today as we share our learning, we also pay respect to elders both past and present, as it is their knowledge and experiences that holds the key to the success of our future generations.

JULIA:

Welcome. It's so great to see you today.

ZALMAN:

Good to see you, Julia and Kate from AIS. It's great to be here today.

KATE:

Zalman, you're the Founder and Education Dean of Together for Humanity. What exactly inspired you to start your own interfaith and inter intercultural Education Foundation in Australia?

ZALMAN:

Yeah, it's been a long journey with lots of stops along the way. So the first point in this journey was a conversation with the late Joe Sheridan, a Catholic man and we're talking just as people from different faith communities about meaning and purpose. As odd as that sounds, I haven't had that experience of that kind of deep conversation about what really matters in life outside my own faith community. So to have this kind of conversation, within a Hasidic community we'd call them Farbrengen, that people would sit down with a plate of herring and possibly some vodka and sing songs and talk about life and meaning. And here I was with this Catholic man and there was just something that I felt really deep in my soul. There was this deep connection that, you know, Joe said it was about compassion, but it was about spirit and it was about human connection. So that started the journey.

And then I guess overtime this began. The work began in 2002 in the shadow of September 11 in the United States, there was anti-Muslim prejudice at the time. We recognise that there was a need for people to have deeper conversations, not just that diversity is good because you can have different kinds of food but that we can really understand each other and connect, at least initially on a values level that we have shared values.

JULIA:

Amazing. So and from there. Together for Humanity sprouted. So and what was the? The early iteration of Together for Humanity?

ZALMAN:

Yeah, Together for Humanity began with this idea about shared values and commonality and you know. In learning about difference, it's important not to exaggerate difference. In some research, Peterson has done a kind of summary of the various research and literature review and she has this phrase of, you know, different but nice. And sometimes people are focused so much on the difference that you lose sight of the fact that, apart from all the difference, there's so much that is really, really significant. It's significantly common.

And that was the beginning of our work was this. We called it goodness and kindness. It started outside. I was working at a synagogue at the time called Chabad House of the North Shore in Saint Ives and it started as activity of helping young people realise that goodness and kindness could be experience and expressed by anyone, whether they have a faith or don't have a faith, and if they did have a faith, whatever faith that was. But we didn't stop there because it became clear to me that goodness and kindness was not the real essence of what we were trying to do, that was one detail in terms of embracing difference. And so, we moved on from that. We rebranded. We called it Together for Humanity.

And while we still could talk about how we have things in common and help young people connect to that commonality, either in into school, kind of cultural exchanges, we have children from different backgrounds come and talk to each other and learn about each other or it could be with adults from different cultures coming into a school and giving children that sense of connection.

But we also want young people to embrace difference. Respect and dignity shouldn't be dependent on that you are a mirror of me, but that I actually see you as you are with all of your difference. And we come together to celebrate our humanity and our diverse humanity.

JULIA:

Yeah, the diverse and the common humanity.

ZALMAN:

Yeah, both, but I guess another part of the journey which I think is important is that I and I remember distinctly the moment that we turned again. It was in Castlereagh Street, sitting around a round table, and Mohammed Dukuly was there. He's a Liberian man, does a lot of cross-cultural education. He's lived through civil war. You know, he's seen a lot and he's a leader in his community. That did a lot of work with starts. Heather Lawton, an Aboriginal leader from Alice Springs, myself and Donna Jacob Sife, the Jewish storyteller, and the four of us were sitting around the table and trying to find the one word that would be the essence of the work that we were doing. And both Muhammad and Heather said it was belonging.

And I think sometimes for those of us who are part of the majority, sort of, population however, you want to phrase that however you want to define that, can sometimes not see what it's like, what the impact of prejudice is like on people that are subjected to it, that if you, as some boys have told us in Punchbowl what it feels like to see themselves described in the media particular way. If you haven't had that experience, you don't understand the impact. And for Mohammed and Heather, the point was about belonging, about having a sense that you can participate, that you're not on the margins.

So for our work, that was the turning point, the recognition that it wasn't just about teaching people to embrace the other, but it's also about supporting young people to think about where their place is and to develop resilience, to develop accurate understanding of the world, that there is prejudice. And there are people that have the wrong ideas about you, but you also have choices about how you navigate that world, and you have opportunities. So it's not one or the other.

JULIA:

Yeah, it almost sounds like it's the antidote to the othering. Belonging.

ZALMAN:

Yeah, I think. Belonging is when othering stops cutting deep. It means that whatever othering is going on is not causing significant harm to the person who can feel that they belong.

JULIA:

Thank you. You have mentioned a few programs, so I just want to circle back because you mentioned young people.

So, in that context, we're talking about obviously running programs within school spaces. So, would you be able to elaborate over the years, what are some of the programs that have developed?

ZALMAN:

Sure. And I should also say that that we work with teachers as well as students. So, I guess I'll give a couple of examples.

One is a program related to the history syllabus for migration stories, and we'll have people from different backgrounds come into school. One of the funny things that we've been doing, and we've done this across various ages, is asking children to guess which of us is Australian. So, if the three of us walked into a school, they probably would guess that only Kate is Australian unless you said your name was Katarina, in which case you wouldn't be Australian either.

Children in Australia and this goes from Bullsbrook in WA right up to the North NE tip have conflated the idea of being Australian with being white and Anglo. This idea that you can have Australian as a nationality regardless of your faith or culture or ethnicity or skin color is something that many, many children and teenagers have not got the message.

So typically, a lot of Together for Humanity programs will begin with it just a a a mild invitation to think about prejudice and so we'll ask them. You know, if I soar, there might be a Muslim person in a hijab or an Aboriginal person, but it's typically sort of team of three or four people standing front of group of students, which of us is Australian and inviting children to guess. And if we are or not Australian and then standing behind a barrier or standing inside of a box and saying you've put us in a box, you've assumed that we're not Australian and to invite the children to think about the impact of those kind of assumptions.

We were in Bullsbrook actually and there was a child, there had been suspended from school for some kind of racist incident and he just come back. And the teacher overheard him saying, as we were having this conversation about the different meanings of the word Australian, and he was listening to his peers suggest that to be Australian you needed to have a beer with your mates in the pub. He said well, by that definition, we're not Australian because we're underage.

So that's one kind experience that we have done with children and then in terms of the migration stories program, we'll have the presenters tell their stories about why they've migrated. We'll also often talk about values that will have values clarification, exercise, how important the different values to you like freedom. How important is it for you to be free to do things, live your life in the way you think you should and then circle back to, say, an Afghan refugee who's escaped the Taliban and talking about what are reasons for people moving across the world and how in this particular case with this Afghan presenter facilitator. The story she told about how her freedom was curtailed under the Taliban and how much she values being free in Australia to live her life in accordance with her own beliefs. So, the stories I mean, there's so many beautiful stories.

ZALMAN:

So, one of the programs that we have been running is kind of intrapersonal and interpersonal learning. So, sort of having a longer form experience with students to spend maybe a day or a one lesson a week for a series of weeks to think more deeply about things.

We're working with an Independent School next week where we're going to look at the nature of power, good power and bad power in that particular school, which is a very sensitive faith-based school, we're actually going to barely talk about faith except for the faith of that particular school, because for them, their particular school ethos is quite strict in terms of they're uncomfortable talking about other faiths and that's fine. That's, you know, we can work with all kind of different schools.

So, this one we're going to be looking mainly at culture, prejudice. But we're beginning with the conversation about power, good power and bad power influence and how power works then taking from that to going into the how power interplays with prejudice and then looking at First Nations experiences and then looking at men and women.

If this is an all-boys school and how the males and females interact in ways that are appropriate, our theme is Honour and Power so quite bespoke in some ways, but also kind of taking children on a learning journey that is quite rich. That's one kind of program I wanted to mention and another one is bringing students from different schools, backgrounds together to learn about each other, to have fun together, play together and discover commonalities and differences.

JULIA:

You mentioned that mild invitation and I think that's something I think is really important to unpack because the sense that I get is that it's effectively engaging with young people to open up a conversation instead of being stuck in a particular space and it just seems like the one of the multiple examples you gave, one that really stands out is the telling of stories and people being able to speak their truth.

How important is storytelling in terms of this process?

ZALMAN:

Storytelling is, I believe, extremely important. One of the elements that makes the biggest difference in terms of countering prejudice is empathy. You know, putting yourself in someone else's shoes, really feeling the connection with that person makes a big difference and one of the greatest ways to evoke empathy is through storytelling.

You also kind of alluded to the mild invitation, and I want to say something about that. I think it's important. I think children often are told that racism is bad, and they know that they're not supposed to be racist. But they don't necessarily have an opportunity to explore those kind of mild prejudices.

So, they know that, you know, racism is not socially acceptable, which is a valuable learning. But when they do have preference, if they can't kind of unpack them, challenge them in a way that is not, you know, heavily judgmental. Or shame in using, it just is driven underground. You know that those prejudices are never explored, never, never examined and challenged and discarded.

When you have a playful approach, when you know, guess which of us is Australian, then we're standing behind a box or whatever it is. It's a lot easier to explore prejudice and ways of thinking about Australian identity or ways of thinking about others.

JULIA:

Yeah, it. It seems like it's sort of speaking to, providing a culturally safe space to start to explore some pretty at times confronting and difficult topics and situations.

So, you know that's a great example that you know activity that's introduced to make it accessible for young people or for even adults for that matter. Do you want to speak a bit more about experiential learning and how helpful that is as part of the journey?

ZALMAN:

So, I mean one of the activities that we did in a in a regional town, it's actually an activity we got from Kate, the mask activity, but we did in a particular way in this school so this was a a middle-class school of mostly Anglo students, what we could see. And we gave them a piece of paper, a piece of cardboard, and on it was a a mask with a a line drawn through the middle of it. And we asked them to draw on one side of the mask, how they saw themselves, their inner identity, and on the other side, how do they present themselves to their peers?

We also gave some inspiration here. You might be and the inner identity might be cloudy and the external might be sunshine and things like that, so you know, just giving them some visual scaffolding to think about the differences between our inner identity and the one we present to our peers. And then we asked them. Of those two masks, a water representation that people have of you as a young male student or female student or your faith or ethnicity or whatever it is. You know, studious or sports, whatever it is. What are some representations people might have of you. People who don't necessarily know you will but. Perceptions that they have of you and some of the students reflected that.

There was a significant degree of alignment between all three identities that the way they presented themselves to their peers was not very different from the way they thought of themselves, and the way other people perceived them was not so d ifferent from the way they perceived themselves. And so that was one phase of the exercise.

We then asked them to think about another town just a few kilometres away, where there was a high percentage of low socioeconomic families, high percentage of Aboriginal young people, and we asked them, OK, now try and put yourself in their shoes and think they're doing the same exercise you've done, you've just done. And what came out is that they recognised that the representations that these young people their same age as 5 kilometers down the road, would be grappling with would be far more harsh and bleak. You know, things like delinquent and various other very negative descriptors and that that would therefore impact the way that they would feel comfortable to show up and present themselves because they're under attack.

And the way that they would see themselves as well, so all of all, both of their, their identities that you know to some extent is their choice or their inner way of thinking and presenting themselves would be significantly curtailed by other people's prejudices. So that was a very rich exercise to think about to, you know, to empathise, and to imagine, to understand how there, there's so much of an interplay between external representation and the way that you're able to feel inside of yourself and the way that you're able to present yourself.

JULIA:

Yeah fascinating. That's really speaking to that those intersections that occur and it starts to also speak to structural implications where that always comes up. And the impact that has and how that's internalised, what sort of narratives do young people internalise and carry with them because of of those situations and those structural implications, as well as more sort of micro interactions as well.

KATE:

I'm hearing through these stories that there's a real link there to the ACARA intercultural continuum and starting on the fact that in order to develop these intercultural skills, we start with ourselves and an understanding of everybody has a culture and that everybody has to understand themselves before they can start to understand others. So that's really valuable link there to helping young people develop some of these intercultural capabilities.

ZALMAN:

Absolutely. And you know, one of the things that we've done with teachers is ask them to think about sort of words like time or sort of sentence stems like, you know, conflict should be or you know authority should be dealt with in a particular way. And to recognise that that we all have a culture. Because some people think of culture as something for non-English speaking background people. OK you come from somewhere else, therefore you have a culture. But if someone's from An Anglo background, I haven't got a culture because my culture is invisible. But in fact, culture is the way we think about it, or the way we sort of encourage young people to think about it is, culture is just the way things are done around here.

And so each of us has various norms, and of course, one of the things we love doing with that is the evening meal and it's such a rich conversation. What does an evening meal look like in your family? I think Donna Jacobs Sife did a lot of work with that. Some young children in Lismore at an Independent School and they talked about. One child was saying well and in my family we have a rule that you can't watch TV when you're having dinner. But when my mom's favorite TV show is on, then that rule doesn't apply and that's such a rich sort of cultural kind of, you know, there's a whole bunch of layers about what the culture, the family culture, that child is living with.

KATE:

I love that. When we work with teachers, we often use that analogy of when you start a new school and you walk into the classroom and you know you, you teach your lesson. Imagine it's the last period of the day. What do you do with the chairs? And I remember one time, asking the students to put their chairs up on the desk. And boy, did I quickly learn the culture there. And you know, sometimes culture can be seen and other times it's unseen.

So it's really great to use those analogies that young people are familiar with, such as the evening meal to help them understand some of these complex ideas such as culture, which sometimes they think doesn't apply to them.

We want to ask you now, what advice would you give school leaders and teachers who are trying to improve intercultural understanding capabilities of their students and staff?

ZALMAN:

I guess one of the one of the insights that we we've come to recently is that often in a school you have these different teachers at different points of their journey, or different ways of relating to difference. And you have some teachers who are not engaged with it. They don't see it as important. And other teachers who do and they'll have different perceptions of what's going on in the school.

One of the things that that that's been quite powerful in some of the schools we've worked with as part of our professional development, but anyone can do this is to create a survey to ask teachers to share what they've noticed about their school.

So, do you notice prejudiced behavior, racist behavior in the school, and if you do, how often is it once a week? Or is it once a month? Or is it never? Rarely you know these kinds of. Options and. Just and then also if you do see these. What's happening? What kind of prejudice are you seeing? Is it homophobia or is it, you know, religious based discrimination? You know, racial, you know, so, so kind of getting a bit of a sense of the specific forms that it takes, but also really interesting is it student towards another student? Is it a student towards objects? Sometimes children can kick a rubbish bin and say some kind of racist comment while they're kicking the rubbish bin. Is it students, towards staff and is it staff towards other staff? And what do schools that have done this kind of exercise with our support? But again, I think people can do it themselves.

I've found is that the perceptions of what's going on in the schools varies greatly between teachers. But then it's a really it's a great teachable moment for teachers to notice that their peers have a very different experience to theirs, and so the teacher who might think OK, well, there's nothing to see here. We're fine. We don't have. Well, maybe you don't see a problem. But maybe 20-30-40 percent of your of your colleagues do, and therefore that is part of the picture. So the question of right or wrong it, I mean it could be as well, but apart from the question of right wrong, it's also a question of the complex reality of your school, that there are experiences that teachers are saying where there is pain and there is harm, there is a discomfort that is that is disruptive to the learning environment.

The other part of that survey is also a question about how equipped do you feel to fulfill your obligations, whether it's to respond to a racist comment or it's about encouraging respect for diversity, the Australian curriculum general capabilities, however the school defines that obligation of teachers, that responsibility for teachers. How equipped do you feel to meet those obligations or responsibilities?

And that also brings out often a very high percentage of teachers say we don't really know what you want from us? We did some work in a regional center and you say, look, I'm trying my best, but I really don't know what what's expected of me. And so I don't know how to fulfill these responsibilities. I know how to teach, you know, numerous illiteracy and whatever else. But these other things I just don't know. And I think once that could be uncovered where you can see maybe 70% of your staff have some questions or have some awareness of a gap in their knowledge. Then you can go to the next stage. OK? What are some specific questions you have and then you can start to see a whole scope of transformation.

The other piece of advice is from some research that we did with a dozen schools in Victoria, led by Deakin University. And that was the absolute imperative of it being an integrated approach.

One school that had a stand-alone approach, a unit in year nine, so global citizenship. They could find 0 evidence that that really achieved anything in terms of counting prejudice, in terms of embracing difference.

We all know that school culture is important. You know, you got the expression, but something like culture eats policy for breakfast or whatever it is, you know. We know that culture creates consciousness. It influences behavior. If we want to have an inclusive school, we need to look holistically at what happens in that school, which voices are heard.

We were talking earlier about a teacher, Ola Issa, and she wrote a paper called My Grandmother didn't grow up in Gully Gulch. And talking about her work with students in a private an Independent School, an independent Islamic school in Sydney with young children in a primary school and that a lot of the literature that they had in their English reading just didn't align with the children's own experience. But there is a lot of literature out there. There's so many stories, there's so much, and we could, you know, we could ensure that our practices and our culture that what happens in the school aligns with our ideals.

KATE:

Absolutely. I think I was. I was watching the Matilda's game the other day, and one of the players said or an ex-player, I think, he said. If you can't see it, you can't be it. And that idea of representation and whether that's in books, in the colored pencils, or the paint, whether that's in the canteen, food or you know for an early childhood setting, are you seeing chopsticks? Are you seeing, you know, spaces to pray or whatever else? So having that being seen and having those funds of knowledge valued is really important for that sense of belonging. So thank you for sharing that.

JULIA:

Amazing. Thank you so much for opening up such a powerful conversation and with your incredible body of work and expertise and connections with all that you do, it's just great to know that this journey is still going on and that we have Together for Humanity and all your amazing team to continue the good work.

JULIA:

If there's anything else that we might have missed out on in terms of this very important conversation that you'd might want to share with the listeners.

ZALMAN:

Come and visit us. Togetherforhumanity.org.au. Stay in touch. We'd love to support your school and we will have another round of partnerships for schools. We have some federal funding to give to schools that are interested in addressing intercultural or interfaith challenges, inclusion, cohesion, if this is something that's important to you, do stay in touch. We do have some other grant grounds going, and we tend to work with 100 schools in partnership, providing advice, support with working with students and teachers. Also for the school to have their own initiative, and there's also an opportunity for funding with that.

JULIA:

Great, excellent. Thank you.

Thank you for listening to this episode. For further information on the AIS NSW Community Cohesion Podcast series and project or any of our guests, please see our show notes.