Blue-eyed v brown-eyed

We watched a short video, just over an hour long, about a class reunion in Riceville, Ohio, in 1984. The class were re-united with their 3^rd grade teacher and together they watched a film of lessons they had received from this teacher 16 years earlier.

In 1968, following the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King, she tried an experimental lesson, dividing her class into blue-eyed and brown-eyed children. On the first day she gave special privileges to the blue-eyed children, at the same time imposing restrictions on the brown-eyed children. On the following day she reversed the process, favouring the brown-eyed children and discriminating against the blue-eyed.

The reaction of the children was startling. Divisions, mistrust, resentment were all clearly evident in a previously harmonious, cohesive and cheery cohort.

On the third day, the teacher got the group back together, asked for their reactions and put across the point that being discriminated against, for eye/skin colour, ethnicity or whatever, was a deeply unpleasant experience.

As a teacher, I worried about the possible effects of such (admittedly temporary) alienation on very young, impressionable children. However, when the teacher got the class back re-united on the 3^rd day, they all seemed to agree with her about the negative aspects of discrimination. When the adults, viewing themselves as children, were asked whether the lesson they had learned had been worth the agony of the learning experience, they unanimously said yes.

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