A Class Divided

The many biases created by human inventions strongly impact the social mindfulness of individuals.   What is “real” is based on a person’s reality and perspective. In the scenes from, A Class Divided, there were a lot of dynamics happening at once. What was real for the kids was based on what was happening in their group, and it didn’t seem to matter if their group was favored, or “on top” or not favored or “on the bottom”.   The concept of “individual” actually began to draw more to the “group” rather than the “person.”  

In the video you had the division of blue-eyed and brown-eyed third graders into “groups”; the treatment of the two groups; and their reactions and feelings to the treatment being documented all at once.   As a third grader, you really have little experience of the “real world”, but these kids got a whole lot of it in two days and didn’t even know it.   There was the presentation of self-reflection or “the looking glass self”, and as discussed in ISL, the kids “possessed a self only in relation to the selves of the other members of their group.”   The all experienced unfairness, judging, and loneliness, eventually.   The idea of what was “real” changed for each group as the level of fairness, equality and “social mindfulness” changed.

In the beginning, all the kids gave their definition of what racism was and told Elliot that they really didn’t know what it meant to be discriminated against.   Being the teacher and the authority figure, Elliot was able to convince them that blue-eyed kids are better than brown-eyed kids.   And then Elliot went on to create the two groups on which the kids would be discriminated against.   Elliott gave the blue-eyed kids privileges such as a taking a longer recess and being first in the lunch line.   Meanwhile, the brown-eyed kids had to wear collars around their necks and Elliott criticized their behavior and performance very seriously.

On the first day, the brown-eyed kids were really down and upset.   One of...