Teacher Offers Youths Crash Course in Getting Along : Education: Students are required to write about race relations and stereotypes. The teen-agers--all of them new to the United States--often hold stunning views of one another.

The classroom assignment seemed simple enough. After reading the “Diary of Anne Frank” Helene Zaslove asked her University High School students--all of them new to the United States and just learning English--to write a passage describing how they viewed each other’s race, religion or nationality.

“Blacks like to fight with foreign students and are not polite. . . . Hispanic boys always hit on girls,” wrote an Iranian girl.

“Iranians don’t talk to Mexicans because they think we are inferior. . . . Jews discriminate against Catholics because they think their religion is best,” wrote a Mexican girl.

“Hispanics like to party and don’t have much of a competitive spirit. . . . Blacks are good at dancing and sports. . . . Iranians put on airs,” wrote a Korean boy.

While rewarding her students with A’s and B’s for their good grammar, a stunned Zaslove realized what they really needed was a crash course in race relations. What shocked her the most was how quickly the students had learned racial stereotypes in their new land.

“These kids are totally bewildered about each other and the new world they live in,” Zaslove said. “And here we are in school teaching them content and not really letting them look at each other.”

From that day on, Zaslove decided that learning English would also mean learning about each other. When the students wrote poetry, the topic was racism. When they practiced speaking, they talked about their backgrounds.

Without enrolling in special training courses or spending a dime, Zaslove--like many other committed teachers--was able to bring multicultural education to her students, incorporating it in her everyday curriculum.

“I had to do something. How could I ignore it? It’s not business-as-usual anymore in the classroom,” said Zaslove, who is also a licensed social worker.

The roll book for her course, designed to teach newly arrived immigrants the English they need to hold their own, reads like a United Nations roster, with students from Peru, Korea and Hungary. Others are from El Salvador, Iran, China, Belize, Mexico, Israel, Japan and Taiwan.

Divided by language and culture--and burdened by their own experiences with prejudice on campus--the students were somber and withdrawn when the school year started last fall.

“Right away I see everybody getting categorized at school,” recalled a 16-year old boy. “I came from Israel two years ago, but people think I am from Iraq and love Saddam Hussein.”

Zaira Rodas, 18, said when she emigrated from Guatemala two years ago, she “thought race didn’t matter. But this is no different than Guatemala, where you have very rich social classes and then the poor.”

For these students, simply speaking up in class is an act of courage. Fellow students--and sometimes teachers--have laughed at their choice of words or rudely questioned them because of their accented English.

“You try not to pay attention to it all, but it hurts you,” said a 16-year-old Mexican girl. “It makes you feel like you are falling down all the time.”

But in Zaslove’s classroom, they have learned to speak freely and insist that the stereotypes they noted about other students do not apply here.

“We all have the same problem,” one student explained. “We understand each other.”

Education experts say what has happened in Zaslove’s class is the up side of what can transpire in a diverse schoolroom.

“Stereotypes are reduced when multiracial teams work together on a common task,” said Reynaldo F. Macias, director of the Linguistic Minority Research Project for the University of California and a specialist in multicultural education. “Students learn about group membership in ways that are not prejudicial.”

Before Zaslove’s class, “I had never met anyone from Korea or Iran,” said Mauricio Sanchez, 18, from El Salvador. “Now I know them. They are cool. They are good people. It makes me feel good to know them.”