By Raymond McCaffrey

In a classroom at a private school in Annapolis, migrant worker Gerardo Reyes-Chavez addressed students who were about the age he was when he first began to work, asking whether they would leave Annapolis to labor in a foreign country.

"Would you guys leave behind everything you know to go to a country you didn't know, and know that you might not ever see your family for 10, 11 years?"

The group of more than a dozen seventh-graders at the Key School sat in silence, looking as if they couldn't comprehend the question.

"As workers, we don't necessarily come here because we want to," Reyes-Chavez continued in Spanish, as an interpreter translated. Poverty, the students learned, had forced many of the workers to go to the United States.

Reyes-Chavez, a 30-year-old native of Mexico and a member of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a group fighting for the rights of migrant workers, spoke to students in grades 7 through 12 last week as part of the Key School's in-depth study of migrant farm laborers.

Students assumed roles in a hypothetical agricultural cooperative to learn about the marketplace. Another assignment had them on their hands and knees outside, harvesting clover with strict instructions to clear dirt from the stems. The exercises were supported by more traditional study that involved reading and writing about migrant workers.

Students were allowed to sign a petition that is part of the coalition's effort to protect migrant workers' rights.

"We teach them to be critical thinkers and critical questioners," said Becky Schou, head of the middle school's humanities department.

The Key School, with classes from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade, was founded in 1958 by tutors from St. John's College in Annapolis. Like St. John's, it employs interdisciplinary teaching, said Irfan Latimer, a school spokeswoman.

In English class, Latimer said, students seek to answer questions such as: What influence does man have on society, and what influence does society have on man? In civics class, students examine the influence of people on a democratic society and how a democracy affects its citizens, she said.

Students have taken a range of positions on immigration reform and related issues, with some sympathizing with migrant workers but ultimately supporting the business side.

"They don't see any other way to make it work," Schou said.

Although last week's lectures focused on migrant workers, teachers try to make sure that students understand other points of view, such as those of the farmers and corporations, Schou said.

"I think one of the things we really try to do is present both sides of an issue," she said.

Members of the migrant farmers' advocacy group said that the students, like most everyone else, are regularly exposed to other perspectives through the media, including TV programming that focuses on the products, not the workers. "The magic of advertising also makes things like farmworkers disappear," Reyes-Chavez said.

As students listened to Reyes-Chavez talk about the battle for workers' rights, Schou reminded the class that some had supported another position -- that of the farmer in the hypothetical agricultural cooperative.

"As soon as it became apparent that you were going to have to give up something of yours, all but a very few people around this table were able to," she said.

From the lecture, students learned that the farmer is the "middle man" between the workers and the companies that sell the food gathered.

At the front of the classroom was a bucket filled with two bags of rice, which weighed about 32 pounds, so students could get a sense of how heavy a load of tomatoes is for workers to shoulder throughout the day. On a video screen, they saw images of the workers with worn hands.

Meagan Buckley, a seventh-grader from Annapolis, told Reyes-Chavez, "On a daily basis, my hands don't really look like that."

After class, Meagan said the lecture had taught her about the tough work conditions faced by many immigrants, not just those who work on farms.

"Before this," she said, "it was just in the back of my mind."