I was shocked at how quickly the children in this video accepted the teacher's words as truth and began to act on them. To me, this demonstrated just how much power and influence adults have in a child's life, and how easily bias is transmitted generation to generation. I can remember my white grandpa, born in the south to immigrant parents, making intensely racist comments and no one standing up to him. I remember my dad making less overt comments, but were racist nonetheless. I remember my mom ushering us away when there was a "scary" black man nearby, and reminding us to always lock the doors and keep our heads on a swivel when we went downtown. All of this, in combination with growing up in a nearly all-white community, have contributed to my biases. Despite my own belief that I am "good" and "not a racist," I clearly have work to do.
I hope the lesson from the experiment stuck with the children in a meaningful way, but I suspect that there were other influences in their lives that had stronger sway, such as parents, relatives, and other teachers who weren't as open-minded.
I too, was impacted by the power of an adult's words on these children's perceptions of themselves and their peers. So many of us were influenced by the times in which we grew up, and the culture/society of our neighborhoods.
I also grew up in a mostly white community, and there were very few people of color in my school. I know this impacted my perceptions of others, whether consciously or not.
I owe it to myself, and my students, to counter biases when I see them whether in myself or others. Another member of this forum aptly quoted Maya Angelou, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
Yes, exactly. I had a conversation with a friend last night, about another friend whose business was called out for previously supporting anti-BLM individuals, and was struggling to find a response. It certainly doesn't make it any better to claim, "But I didn't know!" because, obviously we should have known, but I hope we can at least give ourselves and each other the grace to recognize that NOW THAT WE KNOW, we're TRYING and we will make mistakes, but the point is that we're trying.