'Uniquely Sauk Valley's' BLIND program helps students grow healthy relationships

Sep. 28—ROCK FALLS — Students at a handful of Sauk Valley high schools are working to break down stereotypes and promote tolerance, acceptance and wellness among their peers in an effort to develop healthy relationships through the BLIND program.

"Not everyone is the same, and you can't approach everyone the same way," 17-year-old BLIND leader Carolyn Masini said. "Different people learn different ways, communicate different ways. BLIND has taught me you can't be black-and-white with everyone. Some people might need you to go into more detail or hold their hand."

Masini is a senior at Rock Falls Township High School, which is one of six area schools that host the program.

Other schools participating in BLIND — which stands for Building Lasting Impressions that Never Die — are Prophetstown High School, Fulton High School, Morrison High School, Newman Central Catholic High School and Polo Community High School. Each school has autonomy in how BLIND is presented.

BLIND is "uniquely the Sauk Valley's," said Tom DePasquale, the Rock Falls Township High School BLIND adviser. "When I read anything about schools that implement programs, I see things like BLIND, but this is us locally. It began organically, from the ground up."

The program originated in the early 2000s, not long after the 1999 Columbine school shooting, when DePasquale and the Rev. Paul White partnered to find a way to help prevent a shooting locally.

At the time, White was a spiritual director at Newman Central Catholic High School in Sterling — he now leads a church in St. Charles — and DePasquale was a teacher at Sterling High School.

"What our initial starting point with the kids was we wanted them to know their fellow students on a more personal basis," said DePasquale, now a student assistance counselor at Rock Falls Township High School. "The two main teaching points were, and are, tolerance and acceptance."

White and DePasquale hand-picked 10 students — five from Sterling High School and five from Newman Central Catholic High School — to help create BLIND. Those selected were some of the schools' strongest leaders, DePasquale said.

When the students were brought into the planning process, the two adults had a concept but no curriculum, DePasquale said.

"We were kind of vague because we weren't sure where we were going with this," he said.

The teens understood and, in the end, it was them who came up with the name BLIND, inspired by a popular music video of a cover of Marvin Gaye's 1971 song "What's Going On."

In the music video, the performing artists spend much of the song removing blindfolds that had words such as "Bisexual," "Black," "Muslim," "Addict," "Rich" and many others.

"While this song is being played, the performers were removing the blindfolds and, on their foreheads, they had sexism, ageism, racism — all the different 'isms' that are social ills," DePasquale said. "The kids said, 'Think if we could take off the blindfolds and see people for who they really are.'"

On Sept. 19, about 575 freshmen from the six participating high schools gathered at Westwood in Sterling, along with about 100 student leaders and adults for the annual BLIND freshman retreat.

The retreat was interesting, said 14-year-old Casen Grobe, a freshman at Polo Community High School. Some activities were more enjoyable than others, but overall, it was "pretty cool," he said.

PCHS is the newest school to join the program.

"I think it's great," Grobe said of the addition. "It's showing how schools need more positivity. I thought our school had good positivity, but it shows we can have more."

People should know about BLIND, even if at first glance it might not seem to do much, Grobe said.

"If you think, 'There's no one like me, there's no one in my situation,' there's many people in that situation," he said. "It's a great bonding experience."

Today, the curriculum of BLIND incorporates the 40 developmental assets put together by the Search Institute, a nonprofit based in Minneapolis that conducts mixed-method research to deepen understanding of critical issues in youth development and education.

The Developmental Assets Framework identifies 40 research-based, positive experiences and qualities that influence young people's development, helping them become caring, responsible and productive adults, according to SearchInstitute.org.

"This is a very important part of the program now," DePasquale said. "That has become our curriculum. That has become one of our teaching points. We use the assets to help bring the whole concept of BLIND to the students."

Search Institute put together the 40 developmental assets after asking students across America, "What is it you need to help you become healthy, happy and whole?" DePasquale said. The average American child gets 17 or 18 of the 40 assets, and BLIND's goal is to increase the number to which a child has access, he said.

"It's not a panacea for all the social ills in high school," DePasquale said. "It's like anything else in life; it's got to be practiced."