Peppa Pig and Strawberry Shortcake

My 3-year-old daughter is particularly interested in Peppa Pig right now--the little girl pig who lives with her family in a yellow house, goes to school with Rebecca Rabbit and Susy Sheep, and speaks with a British accent. So it didn't surprise me when, as usual, I walked into the kitchen to find her playing with her Peppa Pig house one cold morning. What did surprise me is that Strawberry Shortcake and Minnie Mouse were playing right alongside Peppa, going places together in Strawberry's car, taking naps, watching TV and many other activities that I managed to make out as my daughter imitated the voices of each character. I wish my "big kid" students could have the same attitude as a toddler. I wish they could play together, laugh together, and talk together regardless of their differences--just as my 3-year-old united a strawberry girl, a mouse, and a pig as if it was perfectly normal. Each year I teach my students about Martin Luther King, Jr. because I want them to understand how important it is to treat others with kindness. We spend two to three weeks reading and studying about how MLK used peaceful protests to stand up for the rights of not just African Americans, but all people, and my students eagerly join in conversations about how unfair everything was back then. Yet, by the time the unit is over, I once again find myself asking, "why can't they all just get along?". More than 50 years after Martin's great speech, I, too, have a dream that one day my students can all work together in a spirit of love and unity, without judging or criticizing. Not a day goes by without me having to remind them to "be nice!", "apologize!", or "stop arguing with each other!" I wonder at what point they lose the innate idea that they can play with anyone or talk with anyone, as they did with their toys. I wonder at what point they start to believe that cruel bullying is not only acceptable, but the cool thing to do. The very differences that brought them together as kids now separate them into enemies and strangers as pre-teens. In the meantime, I continue dreaming that maybe one year I will have a group of students who truly do treat each other as friends. Is it just a crazy dream that can never come true? Or will something suddenly change in them to make them see the reality? I hope that once my daughter has outgrown Peppa Pig, Strawberry Shortcake, and other toys, she will still respect others based on their inner qualities rather than their outer ones, and I hope that I can somehow teach my already-desensitized students to do the same.