Reaction Paper 3 - Video: A Class Divided, PDF

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Video: A Class Divided, ...

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Grace Dillon [email protected] Reaction Paper 3 Reaction Paper 3 In the video A Class Divided, Jane Elliott conducted an experiment with a class of third graders to teach them about discrimination. Elliott explained that one of her students came into her class one day after someone killed Martin Luther King Jr. asking why someone killed the King. She realized that she could not explain to children about it like explaining it to someone older so she conducted an experiment to explain it. Throughout this entire experiment, it made me feel bad for the kids. This teacher was teaching half of the kids that had blue eyes that brown eyed kids are less than the blue eyes or that they are not important. Elliott made the kids they were discriminating put a collar on. The teacher was teaching discrimination to these kids. After a day or two, the way that the blue eyed kids were treating the brown was bullying. They were blaming the brown eyed kids for everything. After a little while, brown eyed kids were starting to think themselves that were not good enough or smart enough. One day, a blue eyed kid were called a brown eyed kid names and started getting into a fight. The next day, the teacher told the kids that she lied to them. By doing that, it is teaching kids that it is okay to lie. Watching this video made me feel bad for the kids and a little mad at the teacher for lying and saying all these things to kids even if it was an experiment. She then switched her experiment to focus on the blue eyed kids saying that blue eyed kids are the problem and brown eyed kids are better. Being discriminated plays with your mind in thinking differently. By thinking you’re not as good as others. One kid said that they felt down or felt like, “a dog on a leash.” At the end of the video, the teacher was asking them, “does it matter the color of their skin or what someone looks like?”

When she was asking that, the kids were saying no. After she asked that, it made me feel a little better by the kids responses. By the end of the experiment, some of the kids wanted to throw away the collars and one kid ripped it up. Years later, Elliott conducted the same experiment but with prison employees. So instead of children, she used adults. The blue eyed people feel derived and were not allowed to sit in the seats while brown eyed were. By the end of the experiment, Elliott explained what was going on to the blue eyed and asked them how they felt and what they learned. Someone explained that they started feeling angry and another felt like they were in a glass cage, hopeless, and attacked. Something I felt not happy about was the experiment itself. Making people feel like they were worthless and like nothing. I understand the premise of the experiment and teaching kids the purpose but making kids feel like they are not worth like anything made me feel a little angry....