After viewing A Class Divided, consider how you personally, IHA, and your future colleges (and other organizations you belong to) are attempting to minimize prejudice and discrimination. What policies, clubs, activities, procedures are in place to do so. What are your thoughts/reactions to this exercise? Be prepared for an in-class discussion.
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Source: "One America in the 21st Century: Forging a New Future," from the Advisory Board Report of the President's Initiative on Race, September 1998. The report is available online athttp://clinton2.nara.gov/Initiatives/OneAmerica/cevent.html.
1. Make a commitment to become informed about people from other races and cultures.
2. If it is not your inclination to think about race, commit at least 1 day each month to thinking about how issues of racial prejudice and privilege might be affecting each person you come into contact with that day.
3. In your life, make a conscious effort to get to know people of other races.
4. Make a point to raise your concerns about comments or actions that appear prejudicial, even if you are not the targets of these actions.
5. Initiate a constructive dialogue on race within your workplace, school, neighborhood, or religious community.
6. Support institutions that promote racial inclusion.
7. Participate in a community project to reduce racial disparities in opportunity and well-being.
8. Insist that institutions that teach us about our community accurately reflect the diversity of our nation.
9. Visit other areas of the city, region, or country that allow you to experience parts of other cultures, beyond their food.
10. Encourage groups you can influence (whether you work as a volunteer or employee) to examine how they can increase their commitment to reducing racial disparities, lessening discrimination, and improving race relations.
After watching A Class Divided, I realized how powerful prejudices can be and what kind of affect discrimination has on people. Personally, I think that I am exposed to a minimal amount of cultural diversity, because of the area that I live in. It isn't very diverse, but I know that I would not discriminate against others because even though I don't have a diverse town, I have grown up in an area where people know that discrimination is wrong. Prejudices on the other hand, I think are common around my town. Even personally, I think that I sometimes make generalizations about other races that I don't know a lot about. I think by getting myself more exposed to other races would help this a lot. At IHA, I really don't think there is a lot being done to prevent prejudices from forming. We have culture clubs, but other than this I don't really know of anything else being done. I really don't see discrimination at IHA though, which may be why we don't have efforts to stop it. As for colleges, I think in general they are trying to make them more diverse. They are offering more and more scholarships to minority races, which is bringing more of those other races into their student body population. As for the study overall, I think it was really interesting to see how quickly people change when they think they are superior or inferior to another race. I think this can somewhat be seen as good and bad thing. Its a bad thing because of how deeply it affects people in negative ways, but its a good thing to see how quickly people can bounce back. Obviously, theese studys were only a few days long, so it doesn't really parallel the way Americans made blacks inferior for hundreds of years, but I think it shows that there is SOME hope for the black american population and other minority groups.
ReplyDeleteIHA is attempting to minimize prejudice and discrimination by sending positive messages that everyone is accepted and loved and that all of the students and faculty should not judge someone else, but appreciate them for who they are. I am attempting to minimize prejudice and discrimination by not judging people or being biased towards certain groups of people. I make it clear that I do not condone any form of discrimination and that everyone deserves the same rights and opportunities as the next person. At IHA, we have a club called Kindness Above Malice (KAM) that discusses bullying and other forms of discrimination and how we, as a society, need to rise above that and care for one another instead of harming each other. I thought that the exercise done by Jane Elliot was really inspiring and smart. I thought it was very intelligent how she did not just tell the children that discrimination is wrong, but she actually showed them how hurtful and unfair it is. Starting a young age, she helped them realize how wrong discrimination is and that they can know the true harms and consequences of it through this exercise. I also think that the children were able to carry out these values in their future lives and help to stop their society from being so prejudiced. Of course discrimination will never disappear fully, but exercises like this can really help to decrease it.
ReplyDeleteAfter watching this exercise, I was fascinated as to how quickly the third graders changed. Before this exercise was preformed, blue eyed and brown eyed kids were friends and friendly classmates. In 10 minutes, the most favored colored eye people became nasty to the other colored eye people. IHA is attempting to minimize prejudice/discrimination by holding assemblies and creating new clubs for students to get involved in. There is this culture club IHA has that looks at different cultures. Colleges are minimizing discrimination by trying to make their college more diverse. I minimize prejudice by accepting and talking to new people, regardless of there race, religion, etc.
ReplyDeleteI really loved this exercise that the teacher did with her students. I was surprised that the students reacted the way they did. I feel like America has come a long way in improving itself and ending discrimination. Although race discrimination isn’t completely gone, there has definitely been an improvement. IHA has a group called Culture club that raises awareness and appreciation of other cultures. SUNY Plattsburgh, the college I will be attending next year has majors/minors in Africana Studies, Asian Studies, Canadian Studies, Judaic Studies, and Latin American Studies. I think this is great because it offers options to learn more about your heritage or about someone else’s heritage. There are also many clubs that you can join, like Culture Club at IHA, that celebrates individual cultures.
ReplyDeleteAfter watching A Class Divided I was very surprised at the children's response to the experiment but I do believe any class of third grade students would have the same, if not, a very similar reaction. This experiment further prove the idea that no one is born with discriminatory thoughts in mind. Discrimination is learned and influenced by the people around you and one's environment. I grew up in a town with much diversity and have been surrounded by people with different races and ethnicities my whole life. I believe i am very accepting of all people and I was taught not to discriminate. Of course not everyone has the same outlook on this topic and I have witnessed the different prejudices that are present around me that at times i may be guilty of. I believe that at IHA I am surrounded by people of many races but I also believe we could improve the diminishing of racial prejudices that people may have by expanding the diversity. I do not witness discrimination at IHA but the school does provide culture clubs and activities for these clubs throughout the school year. Many colleges provide scholarships and opportunities to minority groups in order to expand their diversity all over the world. I do not necessarily agree with the idea that doing this gives minority groups advantages, I believe it is providing everyone with equal opportunities he/she may not have been able to receive before and is beneficial for both the students and the school.
ReplyDeleteAfter viewing A Class Divided I have become to realize that people are brought up nurtured regarding the way they view other people. It involves a sociological position in society that creates these discriminatory thoughts and actions. The students weren't born thinking that blue eyes were better than brown eyes and vice versa. Likewise, the students weren't born with discrimination or prejudice towards other skin colors. What I am really curious about is to see how this divide between races started and where it grew from. How does one race think to completely dominate over another? When the teacher in the documentary mentioned how a white reporter was talking to African Americans about who will lead their "people" after Martin Luther King Jr was shot, I found the situation incredibly strange because we are all the same people. It was creating this sort of unnecessary divide that only encourages discrimination, and in a way made me worry that the race would not be able to stand on its own after the death of Martin Luther King Jr. In IHA I feel as though we have a variety of different clubs that decreases discrimination and delves into the expansion of other cultures. We have Culture Club and Bridges Club which brings to light the struggle of developing countries from all over the world. We also have a Korean culture and language club, French club, and Spanish club. On top of what I have mentioned we also have a bunch of volunteering opportunities to help those who are less fortunate and attend guest speaker events that promote equality. I feel as though IHA has a great variety of clubs that benefits the knowledge of students and other cultures around us, while also trying to minimize discrimination and prejudice.
ReplyDeleteI attempt to minimize discrimination by not treating people differently based on labels or preconceptions I may have about them. I know that I can be prejudiced and when I think of certain people I do associate them with stereotypes, but I do not let this affect my treatment towards them. IHA takes steps to minimize discrimination by celebrating different culture through things like the Asian Culture club and the French club. Also, schools in general celebrate black history month and women's history month. Most of the colleges I am looking at have majors focusing on the study of different minority groups. These majors or minors include Jewish studies, Asian studies, Russian and Eurasian studies, women's studies, and a school in Canada has American studies. Studies in these different cultures breaks down some of the ethnocentrism that all people experience. I thought the exercise was very telling about human nature and the tendency of people to conform. One blue eyed boy on the first day said at the beginning that it is not right to judge based on eye color, but he easily went along with the teacher. This shows a scary truth about our society and the pack mentality that people will just go along with something because everyone else is doing it. While watching this, I kept thinking that adults would never just go along with this, but her experiment worked on them too. I think it would be interesting to see if this would still work with adults today. As far as our society has progressed in the fight against discrimination, I would like to say that it the adults would not become discriminatory, but I think it may be human nature to act in such a way.
ReplyDeleteIn the Class Divided episode, it surprised me how the children acted towards their peers when they were separated by brown or blue eyes. This just shows how people in our world get mistreated just because of the color of skin. This was a good lesson that the teacher taught the kids because it made them realize what happens to people of different races or ethnicities in real life situations. I attempt to minimize discrimination by treating EVERYONE no matter what they look like or the color of skin they are with equal dignity and respect. I am going to try and make a conscious effort to get to know people of other races and see their perspective. IHA tries to help end discrimination and has efforts in minimizing it with certain clubs like the culture club. It celebrates people of all different cultures and backgrounds of where people came from without any judgments towards people. The college I would like to maybe go to in the future is Sacred Heart University and the diversity there is very little. It is predominantly white dominated by 66%. According to this website, 5% are African American, and 2% are asian. 6% are hispanic and 1% are international. This really surprises me that there is little to no diversity at this school. This is a little sad to me because there should be more diversity in colleges like this one. However, On this website, it also shows the percent of how many people are accepting and 60% are very accepting of others. Even though this is a lot of people, there is still that 40% that are accepting except for a few cases of intolerance. I would really want to try and promote diversity around me in my life.
ReplyDeletehttp://colleges.niche.com/sacred-heart-university/diversity/ (info from this website about Sacred Heart)
DeleteAfter viewing "A Class Divided," it is definitely important to reflect on race issues all around you. Whenever I watch this, I am always surprised by how quickly, not only the supposed superior students, but also the supposed inferior students, assume their respective role in society. It is a perfect manifestation of the idea of learned helplessness, but it is scary to think that it can happen so quickly. I started thinking about prejudice around me. I'd like to believe that personally, I try to see past trivial prejudices by making a genuine effort to consider life from another's point of view before judging them. While skin color and other surface details like that may make it easier to classify an individual, it trivializes their complexity as a person. At IHA, it appears there are a lot of organizations and institutions put in place to help prevent prejudice. We have groups such as KAM-kindness against malice-that help promote fairness and kindness amongst all students. In addition (And personally I think this is very important) we have a number of clubs that promote diversity and cultural awareness. We have Bridges, Culture Club, as well as clubs for many specific cultures. Promoting awareness about different cultures encourages people to see the positive and interesting sides of a race or culture rather than discriminating against them. There are also many policies against bullying and hate crimes of the sort. Policies against hate crimes are particularly effective, but one must also wonder is they in and of themselves are a form of discrimination, saying that the crimes of this category against these people are more severe specifically because they are against these people. In any case, it does seem that the best way to promote the decline of discrimination is education about other cultures and races, something that every school now does. Hopefully this will prevent people, both children and adults, from turning so quickly against one another on no basis.
ReplyDeleteAfter watching the Class Divided episode, i was very surprised at how fast the children's opinions of the opposite eye color changed. It also shocked me how the students who were the inferior eye color adopted the mindset that they were really the traits the teacher said they were. This was shown in the phonic card exercise. It is fascinating how a label can change someone's mentality and affect performance. I didn't realize until after watching the video that it takes so little to affect they way people form opinions and judge one another. Discrimination, unfortunately seems to be very easy to arrive at for people. I attempt to avoid discrimination by looking past outward appearances, and accepting all cultures and people. I see attempts to minimize prejudice and and discrimination in my school. Culture clubs, language clubs and other school activities provide ways for students to learn all about different cultures and people.
ReplyDeleteAfter watching "A Class Divided" I realized how easily simple things, such as the color of our eyes, can tear a society apart if they are made important enough. It amazes me that adults act the same way towards people of different races as the third graders acted towards there classmates when they believed one eye color was better than the other. Personally, I would like to believe that I am completely exposed to all different races but truthfully I am not. My immediate social circle is mostly of the same ethnicity and same with my town. I tend to make assumptions and buy into stereotypes but I would never treat someone a certain way solely based on their race. At IHA I do not think discrimination is a problem from my point of view. I have never witnessed or heard about any discrimination between girls here. I think that by offering us languages as subjects exposes us to cultures that are common in the United States, for example French and Spanish. Also, IHA is adding Chinese as a class next year for incoming freshman. It is very interesting to learn about cultures that differ from the one I am comfortable with. Presently colleges are trying to make their student bodies more diverse and want to accept students who have interesting backgrounds. Colleges offer scholarships to minority groups who maybe immigrated from another country and are just beginning to work as Americans. There definitely are clubs and groups in action that are helping to stop lingering discrimination in society, but I have not heard of any specific ones. In politics, there is an African American president which is a huge step forward in the fight against discrimination. It proves that being an American does not depend on your skin color. I really enjoyed this exercise and learned a lot about discrimination. Whether I admit it or not, incrimination is still a major part of society today and people still live by the stereotypes that were created years ago. Escaping discrimination is difficult, but not impossible. As generations advance and as adults begin to teach their children about equality, and their children teach their children, there will be a discrimination free gene ratio before we know it.
ReplyDeleteAfter watching the video "A Class Divided" in school, I began to really contemplate how today's institutions actively work against any still existent prejudices and discrimination in our society. This video was fascinating to me and revealed so many important performances of people that are affected by being the outcast or being considered inferior to others. The fact that the children considered the inferior group of one day would not perform as well on the flash cards activity as they would when they were said to be superior clearly demonstrates that discrimination and prejudice have effects on the day to day lives of people.
ReplyDeleteTo prevent myself from ever discriminating against certain people, I plan to ignore stereotypes and vow to become acquainted with the person and actually get to know him or her before judging him or her based upon preconceived ideas and prejudices. I also plan to become more active in correcting people when they say offensive racial slurs. It bothers me and I try not to be rude, but I realize that I must correct them. I also will work to support all the groups in society that promote and advocate for racial inclusion. I want to become more educated on cultures just to enrich and deepen my knowledge about the fascinating customs of other races. I consider all people to be equal and always work to treat everyone equally. IHA strives for racial inclusion and prevents discrimination and prejudice by establishing clubs such as the Korean Culture Club, the Spanish club, and the French club. These clubs help to teach more about the customs of people in different areas of the world to educate IHA girls on beliefs and practices other than their own, therefore diminishing ethnocentrism. I would like to attend the University of California, Berkeley. This university strives for equality between races and attempts to inhibit discrimination by establishing clubs and groups, such as the African American Studies Programs and Asian American Studies Programs, that work to educate the students on different cultures and therefore dispel ignorance and prejudice. The ability to be educated about the different customs and practices of different cultures enables one to expand his or her mind and understand things in a different light, allowing him or her to be more tolerant and accepting. There are also rules in place that you cannot discriminate against someone based upon race.
I think that this exercise was very fascinating and was an excellent way to illustrate the detrimental effects of racism on the individual and on the inferior group as a whole. It was seen in the videos that both the children and adults were affected by the cruel and undeserved treatment of the others based upon a physical characteristic that they had absolutely no control over. I think that Jane Elliott, the teacher who performed the experiment, is an extremely intelligent individual because she excellently demonstrated the absurd reality behind racism to the children so that they would understand what it was and what people who were discriminated against had to go through every day of their lives. She made them "walk in someone else's moccasins. I really enjoyed watching this video in class.
After viewing A Class Divided, consider how you personally, IHA, and your future colleges (and other organizations you belong to) are attempting to minimize prejudice and discrimination. What policies, clubs, activities, procedures are in place to do so. What are your thoughts/reactions to this exercise? Be prepared for an in-class discussion.
ReplyDeletePersonally I have tried to always remember to hear someone's perspective out before making a group judgment about a race or ethnicity. People forget that all people in one group don't think alike, and will disagree and debate. It's that individuality that you always have to strive to see in every person. I also stay informed on racial issues in the United States, like unfair trials and police violence against young black boys. I also tend to be especially open to the plight of Latin Americans in the United States because although I am not the stereotypical latina in the United States, I have seen family friends struggle with issues such as poorly paying jobs and legal issues with documentation. Seeing people's lives first hand, people you care about, then hearing others say hateful and calloused things, made me be more fair on a personal level.Of course, I want to meet more people of different ethnicity. The college I will be going to does have a large international population and tries to make the campus safe for everyone. In Canada especially, it has been my personal experience that the country is more open to different cultures and people and less xenophobic, just at the level of the people I've met.
At IHA unfortunately we don't have much racial diversity, and this is probably due to the institutional, long term effects of racism. I think this does limit how culturally aware we cn be because we simply don't have a lot of diversity. Most students will try to be more aware if they are shown videos like this one. We have several culture clubs in IHA. However, some students really don't understand racism as an institution and tend to be very bitter about things like affirmative action. (Myself included, although I do believe in it, I am a bit bitter when I personally feel someone abused the system.)
After viewing A Class Divided, it completely opened my eyes to how easy it is to prime others, especially young children, into believing something about those who appear to be "different." I thought it was extremely proactive of the teacher to complete this exercise because children are not born with hate, they are raised to act with hate. With that being said, if the opposite - acceptance and love, that is - is being taught in schools, that environment and mindset will be the one that is remembered and practiced for the rest of their lives.
ReplyDeleteAt IHA, though we are located in one of the most diverse and populated areas of the country, it does not take a rocket scientist to determine that we are a predominantly white school. However, I do not think it is due to the attitudes or prejudice of the administration, I do believe it is due to the impact that racism and prejudice has had in the past.
I believe that nowadays with the atmosphere we're growing up in, class division, and culture in general are things that have become apart of our daily routines. We don't notice that the person across from us in class is muslim and the person sitting next to us is African American. The average person would not be affected or intimidated by someone because they are a different race. Although I am starting to notice that more colleges, especially public colleges, are advertising pictures with people of all races. This is to show that they accept all races into their colleges and universities. You will also see on most of these basic information sheets a question asking about you ethnic background, and there's almost always the question, "are you Hispanic?" I believe that the IHA community does not bring much attention to the diversity of cultures as a whole because we aren't extremely diverse for the size of our school. We have a culture club which is ran by students in our school, but I don't believe that it is a very strong effect on the school system as a whole. I personally believe that people's prejudice ways can only be broken if they are surrounded by a diversity of people, therefore, I think it is important for schools and big organizations to recognize diversity and the beauty of it.
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