Every Thursday, Connie Carter visits three middle schools in neighboring communities with the same goal: to help students at each school see past the negative stereotypes they might hold about the other two communities.
Once a month, she also brings the students from Orono, Old Town and Indian Island together at one of their schools as part of Operation Breaking Stereotypes, a nonprofit the 71-year-old former teacher co-founded and runs, so they can get to know each other and discuss difficult topics.
It’s an idea Carter hatched with her daughter two decades ago to help students from different backgrounds understand each other. Its original design has since changed, but the underlying idea hasn’t — that students have more in common than they might realize with students who come from backgrounds that, on the surface, appear insurmountably different.
When Operation Breaking Stereotypes started, Carter was a teacher at Orono High School and her daughter taught in the Bronx, so the first partnership was between Orono High School and the Bronx’s Walton High School.
But Carter later shifted her sights to pairing up schools within Maine.
“There are schools within Maine that don’t think they have anything in common as well,” Carter said. “We thought maybe we should start working within our own state and try to build some of those bridges and break down the perceived boundaries that are there.”
She started two partnerships in the 2015-16 school year, bringing together students from Lewiston High School and Maranacook Community High School in Readfield, and the students from Old Town’s Leonard Middle School, Orono Middle School and Indian Island School.
Every year since, she has presented a different social issue for the middle schoolers to learn about and discuss. In 2016-17, it was climate change, and the next year it was gun violence. This year, they’re tackling racial and cultural stereotypes. Students from each school bring their perspectives, learn from each other and Carter, and take a better informed view back to their communities.
“I know that we’re all different, but we’re still capable of getting along,” said Leonard Middle School student Olivia Neely, 14.
At a round of Thursday meetings with Carter earlier this month, all three groups of students agreed that they have found a lot in common with students from the other schools. They said they have consistently found their hosts at the other schools welcoming and friendly. Those experiences break down stereotypes even more than the Thursday meetings do, the students said.
“We can observe and understand that we’re all similar rather than talking about it,” said Athena Saucier, a student at Orono Middle School.
Last month, Leonard Middle School students hosted the other two groups. In their discussion with Carter, the hosting students said they were glad their visitors realized the Old Town students’ reputation for being “troublemakers” was untrue.