I have never heard of “A Class Divided” before this lesson. This lesson impacted me immediately, partially because I am a teacher of young children. The teacher has created a way to have children experience discrimination first hand. When you feel discrimination first hand, you can feel how terrible it is. When the teacher did this experiment with children, the children completely begin to change and turn against their friends because they are deemed “lesser”. Then when she did this experiment with adults, I was astonished how the adults reacted. Even the adults could learn this lesson, and it did change their mindsets. We often feel as if adults are stuck in their ways, but these adults felt the discrimination in an hour and a half.
The children were split into two groups brown eyes and blue eyes, then they were told that one group was superior over the other. This experiment solidifies the ideas that Bandura explained with his Bobo Doll Experiment. Children model behavior they see others do. These children quickly began name calling and outing the children in the other groups, after seeing the teacher treat the children this way.
The powerful lesson in this video makes me feel as if we all can try harder to help end discrimination. As a teacher, I feel as if I can use my voice to teach children about discrimination. The students expressed “feeling like a family” after going through their discrimination. This explains why minority groups unite together, and feel so deeply when someone in their community is targeted. These individuals all share the fact that they are discriminated against regularly. They can relate to that person on a deeper level. This video really has spoken to me, and has made me want to be trained to teach this lesson to my own students. I feel like this training is relevant, especially now. The teacher expressed how she wanted her training to be completely wiped out, but I think it needs to become worldwide. I wonder how much could change, if this was implemented in our schools.
References
Frontline. (1985). A Class Divided. Retrieved online at: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/divided/