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Brett Larsen
Educ 2120
Unterreinner
September 19, 2010
A Class Divided
Biggest Surprise
A class divided was an interesting video over how a teacher changed how
the kids viewed different races. She made them just judge by their color whether
they are white, black, or any other color. The biggest surprise to me was how
open the kids were about saying racial slurs. She separated them into two
separate groups. One group was brown eyed and the other one was blue eyed.
She made one of the groups not be able to do anything that the other group
could do. The kids did not like this at all as they were calling each other names or
hitting one another. A class divided was a good video and good material to teach
the kids on how to treat other cultures other than you own that you are a part of.
The teaching of this needs to be in all younger classrooms o teach the kids its
okay to be different and to accept the other cultures not to judge by skin or how
they are dressed.
What did I learn from this? I learned how people could quickly betray their
friends and not like each other. The kids were friends at the beginning but when
the teacher separated them they did not enjoy the atmosphere. They did not
enjoy not having as much recess as the other group. They also could not drink
from water fountain they had to use cups. I also learned how rude the adults
could be about this. They did not do what they were told to do. They also had
horrible grades on the work they had done.
Negative Stereotypes
The teacher put a lot of negative stereotypes on blacks in this experiment.
She said they are lazy, not smart and ignorant. She put these labels on the kids
and made them see what it was like to be inferior to whites. She also put the
label of the whites as smart, not lazy and better than blacks. The superior made
fun of the inferior and showed them how it felt to be down.
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No win Situations
She made is a no win situations for the inferior. She did this by saying you
cannot do this or cannot do that. They could not do anything they wanted to do.
She proved they were not superior by the way they did things. Like the one kid
who forgot his glasses. She said it was because he was forgetful and because he
was in the inferior group. By doing these situations she made it a no win situation
and the kids or adults could not do everything they wanted to do. They were
forced to do what the teacher said and she made them feel inferior and not
important. She did a good job of making it seem like it is the reason they are in
that group.
The model of ethnic and racial identity goes through stages of progressing
in becoming more culturally educated. First there is pre-encounter. That is what
you believe about that culture without actually knowing them. An example in the
video is how the kids thought of the different cultures and knew nothing about
them. Encounter is the next stage in the model. Encounter is questioning the
negative stereotypes about other cultures. When the teacher talks about being
lazy, up to no good, and not smart this is an example of pre-encounter in the
video. The following stage is called emersion. This is when you come out of your
own culture and look into other cultures. This is like when a white person does
not care about another culture but is going to look into the culture to get an idea
of what its like. Since I am white, by going through emersion I am going out to
learn other cultures. There are two more steps in the model of ethnic and racial
identity. The first of the two is called immersion. What that is changing
perspectives on events seeing the importance of their culture in the big picture. In
the video when the kids see how it hurts and start to realize that they should not
say the hurtful things or do the things that hurt people then they are realizing that
the other culture is just as important. The last step is called internalization. This is
coming to terms with living with the other cultures while still maintaining their own
culture. In every day life when I attend Valdosta State University I have to adapt
to various cultures. I do not mind the other cultures; I have learned to live with
them.
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The stages of this model do a well job of showing you how to go from
denial and not wanting anything to do with the culture to adapting to that culture
and becoming a part of it. This happens everywhere now because we are so
diverse and have to deal with it. It needs to be done or our world cannot connect
and get things done. By learning the other cultures like the video is teaching us
will make us appreciate the other cultures more than we do today.