I was a teacher in an all white school in southern Indiana in the 1980s and 1990s. There was a lot of prejudice against black persons. Sometimes it came out in class discussions. One day, after it happened, I thought about how to respond other than saying it was wrong to do it. I had a class room with three different colored chairs in the room. I decided to have a pop quiz the next day. As I handed out the quizes I did not give any to any of the students in the blue chairs (I cant remember what color I picked but for the sake of the story...). They did not understand. I noted to them that blue chair people do not get quizes because they are blue. They did not think that was fair. I had assigned them their chairs and it wasnt their fault. I noted that I understood it wasnt their fault, but that I simply could not accommodate any blue chair people. It just wasnt done. And, I emphasized that the quiz would count in the grade book and they would simply lose the points. This drew outrage. One girl who had spoke out the day before at the prejudice started to laugh in the back of the room. Dont you people see what he is doing? she said. So we had a discussion about discriminating against people for things that they could not help being. And we talked about including everyone into the community and the society. And we talked about equal justice under the law and the 14th amendment and the fifth amendment. I think most of the blue chairs and the red chairs and the white chairs figured it out.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Dec 2014 01:56:34 +0000