Again, that is only your personal opinion; not a fact.
There is no “Instant Fix” for racism. Doing something is better than just wallowing in passive acceptance.
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I remember there was a TV programme about her experiment about ten years ago, where they tried to recreate the initial process. It didn’t go well at all:
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Probably because white people who wish to shield their own children and don’t give two fucks about other children probably made sure that it was ineffective.
No one, including her said this was THE fix, but it was a good way of introducing the issue that would stick with people. White children were getting no education on systemic racism, and frankly still do not.
That isn’t what she did and she can’t control the entire fucking education system. If we want to truly reform education, it will take more than an individual educator.
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Stop; you’re being too rational, too logical.
Don’t you realize that unless we have an immediate and perfect answer that brings about instant resolution, there’s no point whatsoever in trying to fix the problem?
/s
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No, it wasn’t. Maybe you know people who’ve been through the experiment with less skilled teachers, but she ended up with a strong, supportive classroom.
In education, we talk about the 3 domains of learning. What Jane Elliot did was tap very viscerally into the “affective” domain, the, “why does this matter, why should I care about this shit,” domain. No one who has not experienced this kind of discrimination can internalize what a horrible thing it is to do to other people. She gave them that gift of insight.
There might be other ways to get there, through reading and reflection, but the fact that she could cause such transformative learning in TWO DAYS is mind blowing.
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Thank you for your thoughtful and thought-provoking reply.
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From Wikipedia:
“She is listed on the timeline of 30 notable educators by textbook editor McGraw-Hill along with Confucius, Plato, Booker T. Washington, and Maria Montessori.”
Interestingly, she appears to generally be credited as giving birth to workplace diversity training, through this very exercise. Not a bad legacy.
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We watched that movie in highschool in the mid-90s and definitely were made aware this shit actually happened.
I distinctly remember feeling like “Holy sh*t! I identify with the nerdy kid who ends up essentially leading the fascist movement!” and really checked myself after that. I felt the same way a few years later when Columbine happened while I was in college.
This movie and the real life experiment were something that immediately sprang to mind when Gamergate and eventually the neo-Nazis parading under the new name of the alt-right came into the picture the last few years.
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