This is the first time I have seen this video displaying the teaching of Brown & Blue eyes. At the beginning of the video I will be honest I was concerned about how it was going to end. But this was a great display of teaching race at such a young age. The way the children learned and felt when they were not within the superior group was a real emotion that they could attach to when seeing someone that was different. If only we could steal a page from her book now and teach it in the schools......
I, too, thought about the ability to teach this same lesson in the schools. I fear that it might not be successful. I think parents, especially white parents, once they found out about it, might intervene. I think the lesson was effective, but I think parents today might not want their kids to learn it.
In teaching my middle schoolers, I wonder how much this experiment would effect them, or what the outcomes would be. We talk about racism and bias in our IMAPCT class. It is like a human relations period. I find that my 8th graders have a better understanding on bias, racism and how to treat others than most adults do. They are learning it somewhere. Are the adults in their lives better than our parents' generation was at teaching this, are we as teachers better at it, do they learn it from media influences? I don't think they would have followed the teacher's directions. I am also curious to how long the lessons learned on those two days lasted. This experiment was given at a different time in our countries history, and the social norms of the day would make a difference on the children as they grew.