What Is Jane Elliot A Class Divided Reflection

I was amazed by the courage of Jane Elliot, and awed by the outcome of her discrimination lesson as I watched A Class Divided. In the beginning, it was painful to see the children suffer from the experience of discrimination, but the lesson taught them a beautiful thing – the intrinsic value of human life and the dignity of every human being. I believe that with such profound a lesson, it was/is an experience worth suffering through. Discrimination is an idea constructed in peoples’ minds, creating concrete barriers that are difficult to overcome. Elliot, constructed the thought that blue-eyed, then brown-eyed, people were superior into the minds of her students, and it was powerful enough to cause a divide amongst the children. I was surprised, and frightened, by how quickly the blue-eyed children adopted the belief of their superiority and began abusing the brown-eyed children. Elliot says that she “watched wonderful, thoughtful children, turn into nasty, vicious, discriminating little third-graders” (Peters

The brown-eyed adults were treated as superior. Then they turned, just as the children, and discriminated against the blue-eyed adults (both black and white adults with brown eyes discriminated against the blue-eyed adults). I would think that a majority of the adults in the lesson would speak up for those with blue eyes, knowing the evils that arise from discrimination. But that was not the case. I think that all the false stereotypes and illusions we have about certain ethnic groups, get hard wired into our minds, with frequency of exposure. That changes how we perceive, and that is not so easily overcome. Children “…demonstrate that racism is not human nature; it’s a learned response…” (Elliot, 2012). Their minds have not been exposed as much to these falsehoods. As teachers, we have the power to begin early and teach that all human life is