No Day But Today...

We watched a documentary today in our Education in a Multicultural Setting class called A Class, Divided.  Awesome documentary; here's the whole documentary in parts (the opening is a bit slow, but around the middle of this part the experiment starts).














For those who don't watch the video, to give a quick summary: in the 60's a teacher decided to present her lesson/unit on discrimination to her grade 3 class by doing a social experiment.  The first day, students with blue eyes were considered the "good students" - they performed properly (and better), they got extra time at recess, they got to go up for seconds in the lunch line,  and they received constant praise and approval while the students with brown eyes were constantly put down, teased, had to wear a collar on top of their shirts so they could easily be identified, got less or no privileges etc.  The teacher fueled the behaviour with mere suggestions and outright statements that obviously placed the blue-eyed students on-top and the brown-eyed students below.

The second day, the teacher reversed it: the brown-eyed children were now the ones on top while the blue-eyed children were forced to wear the collars and be on the lowest rung of the social ladder.  Later that day, the students were debriefed.  The things that came out during that debriefing as well as throughout the whole experiment were jaw-dropping.  Students who, moments before the insinuations were made on behalf of the experiment were best of friends, turned enemies with a single comment (something easily done in elementary years anyway, but this was on a whole new level).  The teacher herself in an interview in later years said that "[she] watched what had been marvelous, cooperative, wonderful, thoughtful children turn into nasty, vicious, discriminating little third-graders in the space of fifteen minutes".

The whole documentary itself is based on a book she wrote relating her findings, and uses the original filming from I believe the third time she performed the experiment.  When the documentary was put together on film, 14 years after the filmed portion you see here, it marked the 10 year reunion of this class of students and so that is what the experiment itself is padded with here: the grown-up grade three students who years later, still remember the very important and life-changing life lesson that Ms. Elliot taught them.  In the later clips, these now grown-up people reflect on what the experience was like at the time and how it has permanently influenced the rest of their lives.

The final 3 videos are an interesting twist on the experiment, also led by Jane Elliot years later, done with adults who work as staff in a correctional facility.  Note: people...these are all real reactions, that come sadly, as a part of how our society has been structured, almost naturally.  Given the proper situations and with a few prompting insinuations or suggestions, discrimination amongst those who were friends becomes immediately evident and scary.

For all you psychology people out there, a similar social experiment was done at the Stanford Prison and made into a documentary entitled "Quiet Rage: The Stanford Prison Experiment".  The basis was a study of the psychological effects of either being a prison guard or a prisoner and how the darker side of human nature can be easily unveiled with simple insinuations and suggestions.  Here's the first ten minutes to give you an introduction to what it was like:



Now, I think that's enough videos, as well as enough jaw-dropping material to last quite a while.  Hopefully everyone will watch at least part of each documentary...they really are both videos that everyone should see at some point in their lives.  It brings a whole new level of understanding to discrimination.



Thoughts? Comments? Please leave them....both as someone with a degree in psychology and a teacher-in-the-making, I'd love to hear people's stance on this topic and these videos.

xo