The theme for
the three links is discrimination. I learned that looks can define how people
look at you now and in the past. After 9/11 people that wore head scarfs or had
an accent or even look to be Muslim were looked down upon.
In 1985 a third
grade teacher taught a two day lesson about racism and discriminating against
people who look different. She started the first day by saying everyone with people
with blue eyes were superior over people with brown eyes. Blue eyed children
got five extra minutes of recess and were able to play on all the equipment and
drink out of the water fountain, while brown eyed children couldn’t play on any
equipment and they had to use paper cups to drink out of the water fountain. The
blue eyed children started calling the brown eyed children “brown eyes” and they
would get very offended even though they had brown eyes yesterday and the day
before. It was the fact that the blue eyed children were told they were better
than them and they were teasing them about it. The next day the brown eyed
children were told they were superior and the blue eyed children were very
upset about it.
At the end of the lesson she asked the kids how it
felt to be discriminated and they all agreed that it made them upset being told
“no” because of a physical feature they were born with, then the teacher asked
if they thought that the African Americans and Indians were happy about being
treated badly because color of their skin, all the children said that it wasn’t
right and they were probably sad about it. The thing that surprised me the most
was the card test that the teacher ran with the children, she had cards and
timed a group of children with the same color eyes. The group that was “superior”
that day was almost two-times faster than the day that they were the discriminated
group. The kids said that the “racial” burden that was put on them mad them
think slower.
