To learn about diversity, students can study texts and watch movies about different cultures — or they can hang with teens from a nearby town where the size of the houses, the color of the skin and the slimness of the paychecks all differ.

Nanuet, meet East Ramapo. Both under the same Rockland County sky.

The pair with the plan for the hookup is Lee Cutler, longtime Nanuet Middle School teacher and now NYSUT secretary-treasurer; and Diane Gonzalez of Chestnut Ridge Middle School in East Ramapo. The dynamic duo have twice brought together school groups for a day of games, talk and learning.

"We were wrong what we thought about them," said Nanuet student Neil Heinzer, halfway through the second visit. "We thought they got into a lot of fights and were all big, tough. We're all just kids. It's just a bigger school."

Jantell Perrault of the East Ramapo school said, "I thought they'd be sort of like private school. They're just like us."

"The secret to all this stuff is to get people to see each other face to face and get to know each other," said Cutler, former president of the Nanuet Teachers Association. Last year, he noted, there was an "unpleasant experience" during a basketball game between two schools in the county that was racially motivated. More reason for these middle schoolers to get to know each other individually.

Irene Bielski, president of the East Ramapo TA, came to observe the day's events. She said the district has a high percentage of English language learners, Latinos and other disadvantaged students.

During the day's activities, the teenage boys and girls shared hurtful moments when they had been targeted because of their ethnicity. A Middle Eastern girl said people yelled "terrorist!" at her and her sister. A Jewish boy said students threw money at him. Another boy said a bunch of eighth-graders poked fun at him for being Asian.

Cutler and Gonzalez cooked up the idea for the gatherings after being involved in projects through NYSUT's statewide Civil Rights Committee.

"We know each other through the union," said Gonzalez. She said they started thinking, "Why not try to break down stereotypes between districts?"

An activist with anti-bullying campaigns, Gonzales comes packing ideas. Her game plan is to set up conflicts that bring up other issues.

In one activity, students spent time trying to untangle each other from ropes wrapped around their wrists, working in teams of two with someone from the other district.

Then, large groups formed teams that had to evenly lower a long stick to the ground, overcoming differences in height and dexterity that made it difficult to balance the stick

Students quickly figured out some of them needed to be followers, and others, leaders.

Middle schoolers, Bielski noted, have a lot of energy. "Kids respect each other and like each other if it's channeled right."

For Cutler, the initiative goes deeper than diversity. The school get-togethers, he said, are "about understanding and making those connections. As an officer, I am more focused on this social compassion and empathy than I am on promoting surface diversity."

— Liza Frenett