A new high school Facebook blog aims to strengthen and unite the community.
Cape Elizabeth High School freshman Haleema Shir, who was born in Maine but whose parents are from Afghanistan, once felt different from other students because of her background.
Shir wears a headscarf, known as a hijab, to school every day, and is the only Muslim girl. When Shir was younger, some of her fellow classmates asked her why she wore a scarf around her head, and told her she should take it off.
That experience has taught her that it’s important not to judge others based on what they wear. And, she wants her high school classmates to learn to accept others for who they are.
A new school blog might help that goal.
Created by a group of Cape Elizabeth High School seniors, the blog, called Characters of Cape Elizabeth, was launched last month.
Every Tuesday and Thursday, the blog highlights a different high school student or staff member. The featured people are asked questions – sometimes personal. Their responses, along with their photo, are then shared with the public on the Characters of Cape Elizabeth Facebook page.
The goal, said blog founder Jana Freedman, is to help students get to know their peers, and ultimately, strengthen the high school community.
“What I’ve learned in the past few weeks with the Characters of Cape Elizabeth is when I talk to people in my school community, I learn something interesting about them during our conversation,” Freedman said. “Something I would have never known if I had not taken the time to converse and listen.”
The students recently featured Shir on the blog, focusing on her Muslim background and her transition from Afghanistan to Maine while growing up. Shir was born in Maine, but spent a year in Afghanistan with her family when she was about 5 years old.
“My dad wanted better education for us, so we came back to America,” Shir said during her brief interview, which can be found on the blog’s Facebook page.
At the time, Shir didn’t wear a headscarf, she said, so her transition from Afghanistan to the United States was smooth. But after living in Dubai during fourth and fifth grade, she returned to Maine wearing her scarf and sometimes students would harass her.
“They sort of bullied me, I guess,” said Shir, whose older sister, Siarah, was the first Muslim to attend Cape Elizabeth schools. “I wrote a poem about 9/11 once. When I was in fifth or sixth grade I wrote a poem because a girl came up to me and asked me if I was a terrorist. At that time I didn’t know what 9/11 was. I went to my dad and asked him, and he told me the story.”
Her advice for bullies?
“I think that I am a nice person, and you shouldn’t judge someone by their looks or what they wear,” she said during her Characters of Cape Elizabeth interview.
In some cases, said Freedman, “What people know about each other is through rumors and word of mouth, and so sometimes people’s images of each other can get a little skewed. Things like that happen all the time here, so it really causes a bad environment in our town.”
Freedman said the blog is a chance for students and staff to share their personal lives with their community, and, she hopes, eliminate people’s negative perceptions.
The message she is trying to send is “to look at people without prejudices and to see what they have to offer – and respect people,” said Freedman.
She decided she wanted to pursue the blog halfway through her junior year, and launched it in late September. The blog is modeled after the popular site, Humans of New York, and also is similar to one run by students in Falmouth called Faces of Falmouth High School.
The blog in Cape Elizabeth, which is managed by the students during their free time, provides a glimpse into the lives of students and teachers in and outside of school. Freedman, who is co-editor of the high school’s literary magazine, Bartleby, said the blog may eventually expand to include people throughout Cape Elizabeth.
Richard Rothlisberger, a photography and art teacher at Cape Elizabeth High School, was featured in the blog in late September. During his interview, senior Stephen Bennett asked him about the “defining moment” in his life and when he felt like things “were starting to come together.”
“It was when I came out as openly gay in my teaching interview for this job here at Cape,” Rothlisberger told Bennett. “It was the first time that I had integrated my private life with my public professional life.”
Rothlisberger said he entered his position in Cape Elizabeth without feeling like he had to hide who he is. Rothlisberger has been a long-time fan of Humans of New York, he said, and supports the mission of Characters of Cape Elizabeth.
“It makes our world smaller. It gives us an opportunity to share a moment, find common ground and appreciate our differences,” he said. “Hearing someone’s story, if only in response to a simple question, has such a humanizing effect on how we perceive others.”
He pointed out that, after all, “Everyone has a story, everyone has something interesting or prophetic to share, and in doing so helps to level the playing field a bit. We all have the same needs, the same desires – to be appreciated, accepted and loved.”
Senior Sierra Aceto said the goal is to help the students who read the blog become more deeply connected with their peers.
“From my perspective, the school has high expectations and is very academically oriented,” she said. “I think the community can get kind of cliquey sometimes. I feel that we lack that sense of unity.”
McKenna Wood, another senior who helps run the blog, said the blog has been popular, and feedback has been positive so far.
“I just think it’s really important – especially in high school, where everyone is trying to figure out who they are and be accepted – that everyone realize that, even the people you don’t know have their own stories and something important to say,” Wood said. “If you just take the time to listen, they could really impress you and surprise you.”
The new blog is “the outlet to share those stories that people wouldn’t normally hear,” she added.
Wood, who admires Rothlisberger as a teacher, felt moved by his interview with Bennett, and said she looks forward to learning more about the other students and teachers at the school.
“It takes such confidence to be proud of who you are and to accept yourself, before anybody else accepts you,” she said. “I just think it is absolutely amazing.”
Aceto said she hopes the blog encourages other students, and even teachers, at Cape Elizabeth High School to be more open to meeting new people and starting meaningful conversations.
“I hope it opens people’s minds a little bit about accepting other people and their stories,” she said.
Shir agreed, saying, “I honestly think this blog can change people’s lives.”
Cape Elizabeth High School seniors, clockwise from lower left, Jana Freedman, McKenna Wood, Stephen Bennett and Sierra Aceto are the students behind a school-wide photo blog, Characters of Cape Elizabeth, which launched in late September.Staff photo by Kayla J. Collins
Richard Rothlisberger, an art teacher at Cape Elizabeth High School, was featured recently in a blog called Characters of Cape Elizabeth, which is run by a group of high school students.
Haleema Shir, a freshman at Cape Elizabeth High School, shared her story about moving from Afghanistan to Maine and what that transition was like.Courtesy photos
Send questions/comments to the editors.
