A Class Divided documentary review
The day after Martin Luther King, Jr. was
killed, a teacher in a small town in Iowa
tried a daring classroom experiment. She decided to treat children with blue eyes as superior to children with brown eyes. In the documentary “Class divided”, FRONTLINE explores what those children learned about discrimination and how it still affects them today.
The goal of this assignment is to reflect on the issues of discrimination and how they impact those involved in the act.
- Watch carefully the documentary. You can find it here:http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/class-divid…
- Provide short answers to the following questions:
- What did the children’s body language indicate about the impact of discrimination?
- How did the negative and positive labels placed on a group become self-fulfillingprophecies?
- Both Elliott and her former students talk about whether or not this exercise should bedone with all children. What do you think? If the exercise could be harmful to children, as Elliott suggests, what do you think actual discrimination might do?
3. Submit your short answers as a Word document (.doc or .docx) on Blackboard. Word limit: (350 – 450 words for all answers)
