Adapted from an email message from Tom Gibian, sent to all faculty/staff before a called Meeting for Business to continue discussions begun during our Professional Development Day. Marilyn Gilmore and Jen Cort led the diversity training workshops for all SSFS faculty/staff on Oct. 20, 2o14. You can find out more about the diversity training online: http://www.ssfs.org/about/diversity/index.aspx

I remember being in third grade and having to line up and pair off with a classmate to walk down the hallway to some destination beyond our classroom. At Sherwood elementary school, there might have been 29 or 30 nine-year-olds and one teacher. On the day I'm recalling, I was paired off with a kid named Sammy. I was new at Sherwood and someone warned me that Sammy had sweaty palms. As we headed down the hallway, he took my hand. His hand was sweaty, but it didn't matter. We held hands without embarrassment. We were not self-conscious. We were little, at least relative to the world we were living in, and it could not of been more natural to reach out, to partner, to connect. Later, Sam would be one of the first friends of mine to get a muscle car in high school. That is a different story!