I recently remembered a week-long exercise in my Social Studies class when I was 11 or 12. The exercise was quite controversial at the time, and I think the teacher got a lot of complaints because of it. We lived in a very small, affluent all-white town north of San Francisco. Even though we were close to a big city with a very progressive population (remember hearing about hippies and the Summer of Love?), the parents in this little enclave generally did not share the same progressive politics. Black Americans, as they were called then, were rarely seen in our area, except as household help. The activity stirred up a strong reaction at the time, and I still remember it. Here’s a little summary of that week.
One Friday in our Social Studies class, we were asked to answer several questions that had been written up on the chalkboard in the front of the room. We were each given a small white index card, and wrote our names in the upper right hand corner. We copied the questions one by one, putting our answers on the line below and handed them in. The questions were about our physical appearance and included our height, eye colour, hair colour, gender and whether we were left- or right-handed.
On Monday when we got to class, instead of choosing to sit wherever we wanted, we were asked to sit in specific seats in specific rows. We had to stay in those assigned seats the whole week. The hour-long lessons went generally as normal, although we noticed that the kids in the row closest to the doorway (Row 1) possibly got called on more often. And then, a couple of minutes before the bell rang signalling the end of class, Row 1 was dismissed early! Harrumpf, the rest of us thought.
The next few days went pretty much the same: Row 1 was called on more often, got more praise for their answers, and just generally seemed to be treated more positively than the rest of us. On Wednesday, Row 1 didn’t have to do that night’s homework. On Thursday, they didn’t have to take a pop quiz. The rest of us were outraged. The kids in Row 1 were a bit smug at first, although a few of them were a bit embarrassed. We all knew they were being treated differently, and better than the rest of us, but no one knew why. We gathered in the hall after each class trying to figure out why that group were the favoured kids. As the week progressed, the rest of us tended to avoid the special group as they were now ‘other’ and we felt differently about them.
One of the special group was a good friend of mine, and I felt betrayed. How come she got selected, and I didn’t? I was one of the smart kids, I worked hard, I was nice to people, I shared. I was all the things my good Catholic upbringing taught me, I thought.
Finally, the end of the week arrived, class on Friday began and we sat for the last time in our assigned seats. Our teacher asked us if we had noticed anything this week that was different. Hands flew up to answer: we complained loudly that Row 1 got treated much better than the rest of the class. We pointed out that they got less homework, got to answer more questions, leave class early, skip tests, and all manner of other special treatment.
How did that make you feel, he asked? The non-Row 1 kids answered first again and with frustration: We couldn’t participate as much, you gave us more work to do, we felt that we weren’t treated fairly and for no reason. By the end we believed you thought we were stupid, and it almost wasn’t worth trying anymore. The teacher nodded and then asked the Row 1 kids how it made them feel. They were more reluctant to answer, but then said, at first we liked it, but also, it didn’t make sense. It didn’t seem fair. A couple of kids said, I liked it! It made me feel superior and more important even though I didn’t know why. All of them said it made them feel apart and not the same as the other kids in the class.
Finally our teacher asked, why do you think that the kids in Row 1 were treated that way? A lot of random guessing ensued, but none of us got it right. Remember last Friday when you filled in the questions on the card for me, he asked? We nodded. Well, he said, based on ONE physical characteristic that only the kids in that row shared, I put them together and treated them differently. Now we looked harder at the students in that row more closely and realised they all had blue eyes. The rest of us didn’t; that was the only difference.
And he explained this had been an experiment to demonstrate what happens when people are treated differently and separately to others based on a single physical characteristic. For example, he said, black Americans are treated differently because their skin colour is darker than the white skin of many Americans. For no other reason then the colour of their skin, black Americans are made to sit in the back of the bus, get passed over for promotions, and are steered into poorer quality housing locations. Their schools receive less funding and their voting rights are more restricted.
This group of affluent white kids was shocked, in no small measure because we had been completely isolated, for the most part, from personally knowing any black Americans during our short lives. We had no idea what it was like to be treated in that way. We certainly had no idea what life was like for people who did not have white skin.
Many of my classmates and I were also surprised by how quickly our feelings about our friends in the special Row 1 group had changed in just one week. How quickly we treated them as “others” based only on the fact that they were getting treated more favourably, and we didn’t understand why. And how hotly we reacted to injustice when most of us were used to being treated fairly and with respect. For some of us, we felt for the first time a tiny inkling of the frustration that leads to thinking it isn’t worth trying hard when no matter what we do, we are treated so unfairly.
Up until this time, we had that 11- and 12-year old passionate, clear-eyed thinking where things are easily identified as right and wrong, with no room for variation or nuance. Here was a bit of grey fuzziness smacking us in the face, muddying up our childhood beliefs, and it was a bit unbalancing. We had faced injustice in an intensely personal way—in our own classroom and with our friends—and had started to treat our friends as ‘other’ through no fault of their own. At the same time, we began to see the behaviour of treating a group of people as ‘other’ was happening across our country in a larger way we hadn’t really thought about before.
At least for me, it was one of the first times I remembered learning something that made me stop and question deeply my assumptions and early naive beliefs. Because it was done in such an effective way, that classroom experience has reminded me over the years that the way I see the world is very much based on my own quite limited experience, and there are so very many other experiences that are different to my own, that lead to different perspectives. Not better, or worse, just different.
Sometimes I think back to that week when I was 11, and how I made assumptions, and felt frustrated, and then got a little shaken up. And when I remember that time, I know getting shaken up periodically is so important for me. I appreciate being tossed out of my comfort and sameness and made to think harder and critically. It wakes up my soul and heart and gives me hope and joy in the wonder of our very diverse and fascinating world.
How about y’all? Did you ever have a memorable teaching/learning experience that you still remember? Did you ever have a time where you were shaken out of your beliefs, a little or a lot? I’d love to hear from you!
Meantime, enjoy the beginnings of April: a little more sunshine along with those pesky April showers!
Until next week,
xx Sabrina
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Sabrina, this reminded me so much of the work Jane Elliot has done on anti-racism. She taught in Iowa I believe, and did an exercise in 1968 she’s become famous for called Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes.
It also reminded me of an exercise my social studies teacher had us do in Junior High. It was in the same vein but with economics as the deciding factor. We lived in a South American country and my group was assigned to be wealthy landowners. The other group were like sharecroppers. The wealthy were allowed to make laws, tax people etc. and there were “turns” in this game where we would pass a law or a tax and the poor then could only react. They had no power. Eventually we passed a HUGE tax. The other group talked about it among themselves and then said “forget it, we quit”.
Our teacher then led the discussion about how disenchantment and revolutions begin. About fairness and being treated equally under the law. I remember asking why the landowners wouldn’t just give some land to each of their tenants, and everyone could be happy? But we had seen how power and greed just breed desire for more of the same. It was very powerful.
Wow, thank heavens you remember this because I don't have the slightest recollection of something so important and belief defying. This was a really important exercise. That teacher was brave!
In high school, I wondered how the two Black girls from Compton, CA and the Latina girls from San Francisco and the southwest felt about attending a school for upper and upper-middle class white girls. They must have felt totally out of place, in a world as different as another planet. Part of curiousity was spurred because I knew very little about Compton, other than crying in fear one night when I was seven at my grandparents' house in Pasadena because I though the burning tires in the streets of Watts were going to reach their home. I only knew that Compton was close to Watts. That's all.
I agree that being shaken up and out of our comfort zone is important. Unfortunately, it doesn't happen to me often enough. Both of my examples come from a fellow writer who's asked me to provide input to a couple of essays. After each one, I've thought, "Boy, am I glad I read that." One was about how his stuttering made him feel when he was a boy. Even though my mother stuttered all her life, I never thought much about it because she didn't seem to mind much or let it affect her. Only after reading that essay, did I realize that the impact must have been far deeper than she let on. Had she been alive, I would have asked her many questions to help me understand her experience.
This fellow writer has skin browner than mine. He's written about some seemingly innocuous comments that people in an airport or airplane have said to him. Seeing it from his perspective makes my face turn red and my stomach turn over. I'd don't think I've made similar remarks but I'm sure I've come close. His words make me a lot more sensitive to the diversity and differences all around me.
It's good to be reminded of our differences and similarities.