A Class Divided Analysis

In the video, A Class Divided, a third grade teacher, Jane Elliot, used eye colors to separate her class in an attempt to make them feel the way people of color feel when they are discriminated against. In the exercise all children with blue eyes were considered smarter, more fortunate, and over-all better people than the children with brown eyes. During recess, only the children with blue eyes were allowed to go on the playground equipment, and brown eyed children weren’t allowed to talk to the blue eyed children. At the end of the day the class took a test, and it turned out that the blue eyed children got better test scores. Also, many of the brown eyed children were upset, and one boy with brown eyes even punched one of his friends for
Neither of the groups, children or adults, liked being treated differently, and they reacted in different ways, but in the end it had the same effect. I think prejudice continues today because children are born innocent, but learn these behaviors from adults around them. Nobody is born prejudice, they start a habit after seeing others do it. I haven’t personally experienced any severe prejudice, but I have definitely have been told that I can’t do things because I am a female. My brothers and dad occasionally make comments about my attitude, the way I talk, the way I sit, or even about dressing more feminine, but they mostly are joking around and I know they don’t mean any of it. I fit into the stereotype of being a basic white girl, that spends all my time shopping and drinking lattes from starbucks. In reality, I’m lactose intolerant so I don’t even go to starbucks, and I would much rather be at lacrosse practice in at my dance studio then wasting time and money at a