Our Groups of Friends: A Mix-It-Up Day Processing Activity

Tuesday, November 10th was Mix-It-Up at Lunch Day. Schools throughout the nation participated. The event is very simple: students are asked to spend one lunch period sitting with kids they don’t usually sit with. The purpose of the lunch isn’t to send the message that it’s bad to have a group of friends. It’s to get students—and faculty—thinking about the kinds of boundaries we all put up around ourselves and our groups.

At my school this year, the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades participated in Mix-It-Up at lunch. Later in the day, each grade did an activity to think further about the boundaries they create. For the 8th grade, I created an activity that got students to examine how diverse their groups of friends are, both as opposed to their parents’ friends and in the context of their grade.

First, students met as a whole grade to discuss two simple questions. Why is it good to have things in common with your friends? And, why is it good to NOT have things in common with your friends—to be a diverse group? Next, they broke into advisory groups. Each student got a chart and were asked to follow these simple directions—with pauses so that everyone could complete the step before anyone moved on:

1. Write your own name and the name of an adult you live with.
   

2. Write the names of 5 of your closest friends. It doesn’t have to be people who go to school here—it can be anyone you consider to be a close friend, by whatever your definition is of a close friend. Then, write the names of the adult’s five closest friends. Again, you can decide for yourself what a “close friend” is. DO NOT PROCEED UNTIL EVERYONE HAS COMPLETED THIS TASK.

3. At the top of the red column, write “Race.” Make an S in the box next to each of your friends who has the SAME race you identify yourself as having. Make a D in the box if your friend has a DIFFERENT race from yours. You might not KNOW how each of your friends identifies. The point is how YOU perceive each of your friends. Do the same for your parents: S for same race, D for different race.

4. At the top of the orange column, write “Age.” Make an S next to each friend whose age is within 1 year of yours. Make a D if your friend is more than a year older or younger. For the adult, make an S next to each friend whose age is within 5 years—as you perceive or guess it. Don’t worry if you’re right! Make a D if the friend’s age is greater than 5 years older or younger.

5. For yellow, write “Gender.” Make an S for same gender and a D for different gender—as you perceive it.

6. For green, write “Socioeconomic Class.” Make an S if you perceive your friend to be of the same socioeconomic class as you, D if different—as you perceive it. Do the same for your parents.

7. For blue, write “Religion.” Make an S for same religion and D for different religion—as you perceive it.

At this point, the students were ready to process and discuss. Here are some of the discussion questions advisory groups used:

• Count your Ds and the adult’s Ds. Who has a more diverse group of friends, you or the adult? Why might that be?

• In what way are your friends most diverse? Least diverse? What about the adult? Why do you think this is?

• Why is it valuable to have friends who share your identities? Why, for example, would you want to have friends who are of the same gender, or the same age as you?

• Why is it valuable to have friends who do not share your identities? Why, for example, would you want to have a friend who’s a few years older, or a different religion?

• Do you talk about these aspects of your identity—race, age, gender, socioeconomic class, and religion—with your family? For example, do you discuss what it means to be wealthy, or Muslim, or 13 years old?

• Do you talk about these aspects of your identity with your friends?

Some of the results were surprising. One advisory group discovered that their parents’ groups of friends were more diverse than their own. A student theorized that kids have a limited group at school from which to draw their friends, but their parents are out in the world and so have a more diverse pool of potential friends.

Next came what I think is the most interesting part of the activity. Students got 25 dot stickers, 5 in each of the colors from their charts. Looking at their own friend lists, they labeled their dots with Ss or Ds, by color, according to how many Ss and Ds they had in that column. So if, for example, Molly had 2 red Ss and 3 red Ds, she labeled her red dots accordingly. Out in the hallway were 5 large posters, each labeled with the appropriate color and identifier (Red-Race, Orange-Age, Yellow-Gender, Green-Class, Blue-Religion). Each poster was divided in half, with the halves labeled “Same” and “Different.” Students stuck their dots one the appropriate halves of each poster.

Here are some more discussion questions for after making the posters. The students ran out of time, but I’m hoping they’ll get a chance to have these discussions in future advisory meetings or in small groups with teachers.

• Which “D” poster got the fullest? Why do you think that is?

• Which “S” poster got the fullest? Why do you think that is?

• Do any of the posters surprise you?

• How do you think the results of this activity would change if, instead of going by your perceptions, you had to ask each of your friends how they identify?

• Why would you want to have friends who are the same as you in some of these ways?

• Why would you want to have friends who are different from you in some of these ways?

And the results? Unsurprisingly for 8th grade, the dots on the age and gender posters were almost entirely on the “Same” side. Religion was about 50-50. Class and religion were fuller on the “Same” side. Food for thought on Mix-It-Up Day.

If you’d like to do this activity at your school, please leave me a comment (or send me an email) and I’d be happy to share the lesson plan and chart!