About DALT
"DALT changed me. Even people in my neighborhood will tell you. I think we need to have DALT everywhere. Not just in the schools because the people who need it the most don't go to school no more. We need it everywhere in our communities."
- Phoenix Alternative High School senior
DALT currently operates in 7 Michigan high schools. They are: Kalamazoo Central, Phoenix, Portage Northern, Portage Central, Comstock, Parchment and Gull Lake. Students from these schools participate in DALT free of charge due to generous grants and support from each school district. The DALT program is expanding as communities recognize the need for including students in the discussions of how to make schools safer, more accepting places.
"For me, this is an opportunity to make myself a better person." - Kalamazoo Central sophomore
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DALT students participate in a 4-day overnight intensive during which they educate one another on challenges faced every day such as bullying and prejudice. By listening to other students, young people gain new awareness of themselves and one another. They practice skills such as dialogue, responding to bigotry and effective communication. The connections created and positive feelings generated during the intensive and other DALT events can be translated back into daily life. We ask them to brainstorm creative ways to take their knowledge and skills back to the community and then write detailed Action Plans. Students return to school energized, excited to carry out very concrete plans.
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"On the streets you have to be tough or people will walk all over you, but now we have a way of talking that can prevent the violence." - Phoenix sophomore
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DALT addresses issues of racism, sexism, homophobia, heterosexism, bullying, prejudice, religious intolerance and class issues. Balancing awareness and education on these issues with skill-building and action-planning, we have found that being more solution-focused works well. We use the Appreciative Inquiry model of celebrating students' successes — the former bully who now stands up to his friends who use hate language, the inner-group dialogue on race relations the students facilitate while planning a black history celebration, the friendships they are making and maintaining across strict social lines.
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"I remember at the workshop we broke into discussion groups and we all were with people we didn't even know and we shared with each other. We all got real close. At the end of the week we talked about our first impressions of each other when we were still full of stereotypes and one girl said at first she was scared of me! I was shocked by that! I know I used to have a real mean tough look on my face and that's probably why she felt scared, and I am real big and real dark, but you know what I'm sayin' I been livin' with my bigness and darkness my whole life so that was real profound for me."
- Phoenix sophomore
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Our motto states, "Young people creating the ripples that change the world..." We take this statement seriously, working to empower DALT participants to impact their corner of the world. By focusing upon strengths and empowering those students to give social issues serious consideration, we create a space where the students are the teachers and can aid one another into becoming healthy and caring young adults.
"DALT is spreading around our school because we all talk to each other and people want to know how we learned to do it."
- Kalamazoo Central junior
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DALT students meet regularly at schools. They work consciously to give back to their communities in a number of ways. Throughout the year, school groups host social action programs-from a dialogue on same-sex marriage to an all-school assembly to celebrate black history month. Portage Northern and Portage Central students are reaching across a huge district rivalry to plan a district-wide Mix-It-Up Day. At Comstock, students organized a massive Day of Silence campaign, with 180+ participants and over 50% of the staff wearing "ALLY" buttons. Students at Kalamazoo Central volunteer together on various community projects-- such as collecting food for the Kalamazoo Gospel Mission, packaging food for the Greater Kalamazoo Holiday Food Drive and facilitating a children's activity for the MLK Day Celebration.
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"Ever since some of us became involved in DALT, we don't let anyone at our school sit by themselves anymore at lunch. One of us always goes over and invites the new kid to sit at our table." - Phoenix senior
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Connections students create across improbable social groups are the most affirming. A young Muslim woman from Portage Northern chats online with a young Baptist African-American man from Phoenix Alternative. A prominent athlete at Kalamazoo Central reaches out to a younger gay teen who finds himself homeless after coming out to his family. Marginalized students who attend Kalamazoo's Phoenix Alternative are connecting with Portage students in spite of vast socio-economic differences. From the private Catholic school to the public alternative school, DALT participants are proving that real social change is possible
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DALT
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