These kids are 'Making America Great Again'

IF ANY presidential candidates want to "Make America Great Again!" I know some wise souls who can tell them how.

These sages are all underage, by the way. But you know what they say about kids: Out of the mouths of babes comes brilliant, simple advice that usually stuns the powerful, because it's not about pumping up wealth or ego.

But it can carry us farther than greed or swagger ever will.

The advice comes via students at three Philly public schools whose recent projects get to the heart of what makes for a healthy, resilient, thriving society:

Compassion and kindness. Objective listening. Generosity.

These virtues have been missing in much of the rhetoric of the presidential campaigns. And they're AWOL in Congress, whose playground brats are acting like they need a time-out.

So, as we head into Tuesday's Pennsylvania presidential primaries, let's ponder some ways to make America great again - as discovered by children who could teach us adults a thing or two.

Obliterate meanness.

That's the directive from third-graders at the Gen. George McCall School at 7th and Spruce, where teacher Lisa Hantman's class has been uncovering the root causes of some of our saddest social issues: animal cruelty, bullying and discrimination.

What the kids learned through Internet research and talks with guest speakers (including a neuropsychologist, who taught them about - get this - the subconscious mind), is that people who hurt others have often been targets of hurtful behavior.

Bullies are usually acting out some unconscious pain of their own. Same with those who are cruel to animals. As for those who fear people of other races or nationalities, if they only acted more kindly toward them, they might even become friends.

Are you listening, Mr. Trump?

The kids are engaged in a project with Need In Deed, the terrific service-learning organization that works with students, teachers and community organizations to help kids become civic-minded, capable, contributing members of their communities.

If you think that's too tall of an order for 8-year-olds, think again.

"Third-graders, developmentally, are the most special people on earth," says teacher Hantman emphatically. "People don't believe me, but it's true. By third grade, they've developed real independence and critical-thinking skills yet still have this wonderful magical thinking" - hello, Santa Claus and Tooth Fairy - "that keeps them open. By middle school, they've become so tied to the rules and regulations of life that they don't take as much in."

Lord knows I'm not suggesting that third-graders run for office. But isn't there something bracing about the clarity of the McCall kids' plea that we obliterate meanness already? Isn't that what living in the land of greatness supposed to be about?

Listen without judgment.

Here's what I love about social-studies teacher Helen Rowe's students at West Philly's Workshop School, which uses projects to define its high-school curriculum.

They think outside the box. But they feel outside the box, too.

Last quarter, as they worked on a project about conflict and resolution, they recalled how tough it had been to move from their standard-curriculum elementary schools to the innovative one at the Workshop School. It required them to work collaboratively, and conflicts often arose.

Including conflicts about how to resolve the conflicts. Mix in the hormonal highs and lows of adolescence and puberty, and you can imagine the drama, right?

So, with broad student input, Rowe's class created a peer-mediation program to help students resolve conflicts peacefully, respectfully and creatively. After researching similar programs at Olney Charter and Bartram high schools (and with help from teacher advisors), they created a training curriculum.

But where to anchor it? The growing school, already squeezed for space in its smallish building near 48th and Locust Streets, had no available rooms for meetings.

So the students expertly walled off a corner in Rowe's large classroom - using carpentry skills they've learned in workshops - and created a small, cheery, private room where students could vent in private with a peer mediator. (Rowe is always nearby, in case help is needed.)

The program has just launched, and 10th-graders Cyan Benoit and Regino "Reggie" Cruz, its key organizers, are jazzed about its possibilities.

"People need to know they'll be listened to and that they won't be judged," says Benoit, whose research into peer mediation has inspired her to pursue counseling as a career. "Conflicts happen when people aren't being heard."

Cruz thinks the program will help with student retention.

"I've known kids who've actually left the school after freshman year because they weren't used to the different structure and didn't know how to talk about it," he says. "We're hoping if we can mentor ninth-graders we can help ease them into the transition and they'll want to stay."

Think of the pride a kid will feel when, instead of fleeing an uncomfortable situation, he's given a way to work through it. All because someone took the time to hear him out, fairly and calmly.

C'mon, how great would America be if we all did this?

Embrace generosity.

Two Saturdays ago, Central High School's robotics team, the Robolancers, competed against 120 other school robotics teams in the Mid-Atlantic Robotics regional championships, at Lehigh University.

The event was sponsored by nonprofit FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology). Its winners will compete against scores of national and international teams in a global championship competition this week in St. Louis.

The Robolancers will be there. Not because their robot kicked its technical competitors to the curb at Lehigh (although the robot performed well). But because the Robolancers won the Chairman's Award, which rewards something so much broader than technical expertise.

The prestigious award (granted to two out of 121 teams) recognizes a team's commitment to community outreach. Central was a shoo-in for its ever-expanding efforts to mentor fledgling robotics teams at dozens of schools around the city; for organizing the annual Philadelphia Robotics Expo to introduce kids to the fun and possibilities of careers in science, technology, engineering and math; and even helping to finance other schools' efforts to set up their programs.

But guess what? They didn't have enough money to cover the $45,000 in costs for travel, hotel and meals for the 39 team members and nine chaperones to get there.

"We learned 10 days before the championship that we'd gotten a spot in the competition," says Central physics teacher and Robolancers coach Michael Johnson. "That left us no time to raise the money to go."

Oh, the irony: If the Robolancers hadn't spent so much money helping other schools with their robotics programs this past year, they may have had enough money to attend an event that was the reward for their generosity.

But good news travels fast. Benefactors rushed forward last week to make up the funding gap. As you read this, the Robolancers are climbing onto a bus for the 16-hour drive to St. Louis.

"The ride is going to be amazing - and terrible!" joked Robolancers acting president, senior Thomas Davidenko. "But we're excited and proud."

Davidenko was eager to tell me about FIRST's concept of "gracious professionalism" - a mindset that encourages high-quality work, emphasizes the value of others and respects individuals and community.

"We help kids on other teams, even if we're going to compete against them," he says. "The feeling of teamwork is really strong."

Most importantly (in my opinion) FIRST's concept of gracious professionalism stresses that "fierce competition and mutual gain are not separate notions. Gracious professionals learn and compete like crazy, but treat one another with respect and kindness in the process.

"They avoid treating anyone like losers. No chest thumping tough talk, but no sticky-sweet platitudes, either. Knowledge, completion and empathy are comfortably blended."

The Robolancers, God bless 'em, have been rewarded for exercising these behaviors in spades.

What if we all did? What if we were as kind to each other as the McCall kids would like us to be, and as patient and fair as the Workshop School teens are committed to being?

America would be great again.

polaner@phillynews.com

215-854-2217 @RonniePhilly